my mother and I have been in the cleaning business for over ten years. We clean vacation rentals, personal homes, businesses and post contruction sites. It is not easy work and it is often hard to find good reliable help. However, with that said.... you can make a lot of money if you do it right. When you have a new job be sure to look to see how large of a cleanup it is going to be. This will help you to determine how to charge, by the hour or flat rate. If it is a small job charge a flat rate such as $200. For larger jobs usually by the hour charging is good. You don't have to do this though. When we write up a bid it generally looks like this:

Labor cost: $300
Supplies: $80
Disposal Fee: $60 (this is for disposing of any garbage that is in the house. You do not have to do this, but a lot of people appriciate it and tend to use your services more often.)
Total charges: $380.00

List your charges so that the person/persons can see exactly what they are getting in the bid. If you can give them a ballpark time frame, such as 13 hours cleaning time, include this in your bid. Be sure that you over bid just in case you go over the time you originally estimated. You don't want to loose money on this. You can always charge less than your bid, or charge what you originaly bid. I ussually bid at least $100 dollars over and charge less than I bid. If you want to charge by the hour, charge no less than $15 per hour or you will loose money. Do not include supply cost in the hourly charge, charge that seperate.

Be sure to keep receipts of ALL cleaning supplies that you purchase, this is a tax write off. You can also write off the miles that you drove to get the cleaning supplies because you are going to be self employed. Keep track of ALL miles driven for work, tax write off, this includes getting supplies, going to sites, talking with clients, etc.

let me know if there is anything specific you need to know.