You may be familiar with the term "concierge" from high-end hotels, where this employee is on staff to help guests get tickets to the theater, reservations at the best restaurants or just a map to where they want to go. Certain apartment buildings also have a concierge to help take care of jobs on the premises while residents are away, at work or on vacation. Both aspects of the concierge feed into Kathryn Newhouse's new Concierge Madison service.
Newhouse ran an area cleaning service for many years and found that taking some of the more unpleasant household tasks off the plates of a busy couple or family contributes to a happier home -- and she is happy to do those tasks. Now semi-retired, she was looking to stop the heavy-duty cleaning yet still help people keep their households in order.
As Concierge Madison, Newhouse will do your shopping, mail your Christmas cards, wait for the dishwasher repairman, unpack your moving boxes, water your plants while you are away on vacation, help out during a party, check houses for snowbirds and get things in order before their return from the South. All in all, she's a willing temporary personal assistant for almost anything you might
"This kind of service is common in larger cities, but not in Madison," says Newhouse. So far, some of her most interesting tasks have come from out-of-state concerns needing something done in Madison, like the Chicago company that asked her to get champagne and chocolates and deliver them to an employee of its subsidiary here in town. She's also handled FSBO showings for would-be house sellers who already had to move out of Madison.
Newhouse describes her ideal client as a couple with children, and maybe a pet or two, who just don't have time to take care of all the things around the house that need doing, right up to getting the oil changed on the car. "People are agreeable to hiring someone to mow their lawn or clean the house," she notes, so why not so much more?
Concierge Madison
608-249-4865
conciergemadison.com
Standard rate $38/hour,1-9 hours (1-hour minimum)
