Homemaking is mainly an American and Canadian term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping, housewifery or household management. It is the act of overseeing the organizational, day-to-day operations of a house or estate, and the managing of other domestic concerns. A person in charge of the homemaking, who is not employed outside the home, in the US and Canada, is called a homemaker, a term for a housewife or a stay-at-home dad. Historically the role of homemaker was often assumed by women. The term "homemaker", however, may also refer to a social worker who manages a household during the incapacity of the housewife or househusband. Home health workers assume the role of homemakers when caring for elderly individuals. This includes preparing meals, giving baths, and any duties the person in need cannot perform for themselves.
Laundry is the washing of clothing and other textiles, and, more broadly, their drying and ironing as well. Laundry has been part of history since humans began to wear clothes, so the methods by which different cultures have dealt with this universal human need are of interest to several branches of scholarship.
A washing machine is a machine designed to launder clothing. Modern-day home appliances use electric power to automatically clean clothes. The term is mostly applied to machines that use water as opposed to dry cleaning or ultrasonic cleaners. The user adds laundry detergent, which is sold in liquid, powder, or dehydrated sheet form, to the wash water.
Washing is a method of cleaning, usually with water and soap or detergent. Regularly washing and then rinsing both body and clothing is an essential part of good hygiene and health.
Persil is a German brand of laundry detergent manufactured and marketed by Henkel around the world except in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Latin America, China, Australia and New Zealand, where it is manufactured and marketed by Unilever. Persil was introduced in 1907 by Henkel. It was the first commercially available laundry detergent that combined bleach with the detergent. The name was derived from two of its original ingredients, sodium perborate and sodium silicate.
A laundry ball or washing ball is a product made of solid, insoluble material promoted as a substitute for laundry detergent. Producers of laundry balls often make pseudoscientific claims about their mechanisms of action and exaggerate the extent of their benefits.
A cleaner, cleanser, cleaner or cleaning operative is a type of industrial or domestic worker who does the cleaning. A janitor, also known as a custodian, porter or caretaker, is a person who cleans and might also carry out maintenance and security duties. A similar position, but usually with more managerial duties and not including cleaning, is occupied by building superintendents in the United States and Canada and by site managers in schools in the United Kingdom.
A self-service laundry, coin laundry, or coin wash, is a facility where clothes are washed and dried without much personalized professional help. They are known in the United Kingdom as launderettes or laundrettes, and in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as laundromats. In Texas and other parts of the south central United States, the term washateria is still used by some older speakers. The first laundromat opened on April 18, 1934 in Fort Worth, Texas.
A washerwoman or laundress is a woman who takes in laundry. Both terms are now old-fashioned; equivalent work nowadays is done by a laundry worker in large commercial premises, or a laundrette (laundromat) attendant.
Dhobi Ghat is an open air laundry in Mumbai, India. It was constructed in 1890. The washers, known as dhobis, work in the open to clean clothes and linens from Mumbai's hotels and hospitals.
delivery.com LLC is an American online platform and suite of mobile apps that enables users to order from local restaurants and stores for on-demand delivery. The company currently has more than one million users and an online marketplace of more than 12,000 restaurants, wine and liquor stores, grocery stores, and laundry/dry cleaning providers.
The Yale Union Laundry Building, also known as the Yale Laundry Building, the City Linen Supply Co. Building, Perfect Fit Manufacturing and simply Yale Union (YU), in southeast Portland, Oregon, is a two-story commercial structure listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Built largely of brick in 1908, and embellished with Italian Revival and Egyptian Revival decorations, it was added to the register in 2007. Two-story additions in 1927 and 1929 changed the original building into an L-shaped structure that shares a party wall with a building to the east.
A ridesharing company, ride-hailing service, is a company that, via websites and mobile apps, matches passengers with drivers of vehicles for hire that, unlike taxis, cannot legally be hailed from the street.
Handy Technologies, Inc. is an online two-sided marketplace for residential cleaning, installation, and other home services. Founded in 2012 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the now New York–based company operates services in United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. The company was acquired by ANGI Homeservices in October 2018.
The Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB) is a trade union in the United Kingdom. The IWGB comprises eleven branches which organise workers within their chosen industry, run their own campaigns and have their own representative officials. Their members are predominantly low-paid migrant workers in London. The IWGB began as a breakaway from Unite and UNISON. The dispute stemmed from disagreements over how to get better working conditions for cleaners at the University of London, and, more broadly, about how to run modern trade unions. The IWGB is one of the main trade unions in challenging employment law relating to the 'gig economy'.
ChowNow is an online food ordering platform that connects customers with local restaurants. Christopher Webb and Eric Jaffe, American entrepreneurs, founded the company in 2011 with headquarters in Los Angeles, California.
Gig workers are independent contractors, online platform workers, contract firm workers, on-call workers, and temporary workers. Gig workers enter into formal agreements with on-demand companies to provide services to the company's clients.
Washio was an American on-demand laundry cleaning and delivery service. The company was founded in 2013 by Jordan Metzner, Bob Wall, and Juan Dulanto, and raised $17 million in funding.
Onfleet is a San Francisco-based delivery software company, specializing in last mile delivery. Its customers include Sweetgreen, Kroger and Total Wine & More.
