Ashley Gebb, Marysville-Yuba City Appeal Democrat

Cleaning is pretty simple for Ericka Pelechowicz.

Two months ago, the Yuba City resident traded in her bleach and chemicals for peroxide, vinegar and baking soda. Her 2-year-old cleaning business continues to boom after she made the switch to green cleaning.

"I don't want to poison the families I clean for," she said. "You cannot ignore the facts when you realize what are really in cleaning products — carcinogens, mutations, toxins."

Standard products may clean people's homes but they are also contributing to poor indoor air quality, she said.

"Some people just go on through life and have runny eyes and a scratchy throat, and they attribute it to allergies," she said. "But it was their cleaning products."

Pelechowicz and her Simply Clean employees, trained and certified in several areas of green cleaning, only use organic, certified Green Seal products or natural ingredients such as hydrogen peroxide and vinegar. She studies Material Safety Data Sheets on the Internet to make sure there is nothing dangerous in the cleaning agents they use.

"It's kind of tricky," she said. "Even those products that they claim to be green or natural, you have to be careful because those words are thrown around so much."

As a client in the child-care industry, Clint Charlson, co-owner of Fusion Preschool Academy in Olivehurst, was interested in Pelechowicz's switch. After reading studies on how standard chemicals can harm kids, he decided to take her advice.

"I was kind of nervous at first because you are so used to regular chemicals in your everyday life," he said.

Safety and efficiency of cleaning products is crucial, since children can carry so many germs and the day-care provider cleans and sanitizes several times a day, Charlson said.

"I want the building to smell clean, but I don't want it to smell like chemicals and I definitely don't want it to smell like weird things like vinegar," he said.

Many of the parents haven't even noticed the switch, Charlson said.

The transition has also given him a peace of mind, because even though all cleaning products are kept away from children, there is always potential for problems, he said.

"But you get ahold of baking soda, nothing is going to happen. You get into some vinegar, nothing is going to happen," he said.

Some of Pelechowicz's favorite cleaning products include white vinegar, lemon juice, Castile soap, baking soda, borax, club soda and hydrogen peroxide. She often adds in essential oils, such as lavender or citrus, for that "clean smell," she said.

She's also switched to a steam cleaner, which kills and sanitizes without chemicals, and uses microfiber cloth instead of disposable paper towels.

"It's important we are not adding to the waste of the world," she said.

Sandee Drown hires Simply Clean for her Yuba City home and was pleased, albeit skeptical, when Pelechowicz made the switch. Drown went with the switch for three reasons but first for her children's safety, she said.

"Regardless of how old they are, you are always worried about what you bring into the home," Drown said.

Concerns about her pet ingesting chemicals and escalating vet bills were yet another reason to go with the transition.

"I have a little Chihuahua, and she's always on the ground and they inhale everything on the floor," Drown said.

Her third motivation came as a conscious consumer. For the last few months, Drown has been striving to shrink her environmental footprint.

Earlier this year, she gave up plastic-bottled water in exchange for a home filtration system, and switching her home cleaning to au natural was a great next step, she said.

"You are always thinking, 'How can I go green?'" she said.

The transition takes time for everyone, Pelechowicz said.

"We've been trained our entire life that something needs to look a certain way or smell a certain way or do a certain thing to do its job," she said. "(Green cleaning) doesn't look the same, but it's completely the same and it's better for you."

Pelechowicz has also signed up with Cleaning for a Reason, a national group that cleans cancer patients' homes for free. She has not found any clients yet, but she hopes to soon and that other area cleaning companies sign on, too.

To learn more, visit www.simplycleanteam .com.