What began as a home industry has developed into a highly successful business for an Ennis woman.

When Yvonne Flanagan felt boredom set in as a housewife she discovered house cleaning and painting to be a great outlet and business venture.

The first step along the road to a full-scale business came back in 1993 when her friend, the late Beenie Fitzpatrick, who was involved in putting the finishing touches to newly built holiday apartments in Lahinch, persuaded her to take the contract for cleaning and laundry services, collected and delivered.

Yvonne realised that her home was simply too small to accommodate the volume of laundry and she decided that it was a case of saying “only so much and no more” or getting a premises and setting up properly with a view to expanding. She plumbed for the second option and this marked the start of her family laundry business.

Yvonne received an important early boost in 1994 for the business when she secured a laundry contract from Rent-an-Irish Cottages for properties in Clare, Cork, Kerry, Mayo and Tipperary.

From premises at Westgate Business Park, Ennis. Yvonne and her husband, John’s House Maintenance Services provides a full range of contract cleaning services for clients from the hotel and catering sector to factories, hospitals, offices and shops as well as dealing with household customers. They also provide a fire damage laundry and dry cleaning service.

Their son, Niall is also involved in the business where painting, carpet shampooing and contract cleaning are required. Curtain cleaning and alterations are also among the range of services on offer. With curtains, we can have them down in the morning and hanging again on the same evening.

More recently, Yvonne has opened Rainbow Laundry Drycleaners and self-service at Francis Street, Ennis from where she can provide a fast, efficient cleaning service with specialist back up for the most delicate of garments.

“We have adopted a policy to customers of ‘no problem’. Honesty plays a major part in our business and we are very proud of our staff”, she said.

Yvonne stressed that her company will do whatever is asked, not only with a “no problem” approach but also with a fast and efficient delivery service.

“The fact that we have contracts with customers since we opened 16 years ago is proof that we do things in a professional manner”, she said. “We thank all our customers for their support down through the years”. Yvonne acknowledged that the success of House Maintenance Services and Rainbow Drycleaners owed much to those who had financed their business. “We must say thanks to Ulster Bank and especially Ciaran O’Flaherty and Lombard and Ulster leasing for facilitating us down through the years”,  she said.