Rating: 
Summary: Handy and Complete Reference
Review: Bought this book about 8 years ago. Loaned it out and it never came back. I missed it so much I had to buy another!This book helps you learn what it takes to clean thoroughly AND quickly. The advice they give on techniques, tools, and cleaners is invaluable. I have less stuff under my sink, and can get my cleaning done in 1/3 the time. Great little book that takes you from step one to done!
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Summary: Help for the cleaning impaired
Review: I am finally getting the bathroom clean, with just one short cleaning session! Speed Cleaning doesn't give you a bunch of "helpful" hints and tips for each tiny cleaning situation. It gives you a strategy for each room and each area within each room, with instruction on products (just a few that you carry with you) and techniques (make every motion count; don't clean it if it isn't dirty) to get results with a minimum of effort.
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Summary: A Person's Gotta Do What A Person's Gotta Do
Review: I am not June Cleaver and neither is Jeff Campbell. While working at our Library's Book Sale, I discovered Jeff's cute little book. Hey! For 25 cents, I'll give it a whirl! I am glad I did.
I read the book. I ordered the video and some Stuff from Jeff's thecleanteam website like the Cleaning Bib (comparable to a carpenter's apron only modified for the missions at hand,) various cleaning products and carryall. My house is happier, I'm happier, and I did it all without having to borrow June's pearls. *Speed Cleaning* is a great guide to weekly cleaning. Jeff also has a book about daily clutter control, conveniently called *Clutter Control,* so that one's junque is out of way when one does one's weekly *Speed Cleaning.* He also has a book about the bigger chores done less frequently, say, like, in the Spring. Guess what that book is called? Unless one is June or her clone, this book lives up to its attribution: For those who would rather be doing practically anything other than cleaning! Try it, you still may not love cleaning, but you'll get done a lot quicker and get on with your life. s/ TundraVision, Amazon Reviewer
Rating: 
Summary: Not a worthy purchase
Review: I clean my house every week and am constantly looking for new products, tools and techniques to do a better job easier and faster. Unfortunately, the author's tool and supplies which he recommends are outdated. (E.g. canister vacuum cleaners, the Sh-Mop doesn't work well, a one-pint plastic container to rinse the shower stall, Comet powdered cleanser to clean the tub, cleaning cloths made of cloth which have to be laundered) There are much better products and tools out on the market today. In addition, the techniques he advocates are nothing new. As a result, I suggest you don't buy this book.
Rating:
Summary: Not a worthy purchase
Review: I clean my house every week and am constantly looking for new products, tools and techniques to do a better job easier and faster. Unfortunately, the author's tool and supplies which he recommends are outdated. (E.g. canister vacuum cleaners, the Sh-Mop doesn't work well, a one-pint plastic container to rinse the shower stall, Comet powdered cleanser to clean the tub, cleaning cloths made of cloth which have to be laundered) There are much better products and tools out on the market today. In addition, the techniques he advocates are nothing new. As a result, I suggest you don't buy this book.
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Summary: A home cleaning classic I keep coming back to!!
Review: I discovered The Clean Team almost 10 years ago. Their philosophy and approach to house cleaning is only surpassed by their tools and products. This book gives a great plan for organizing your house cleaning tools and tasks. Even for those rare types who enjoy cleaning, there is always room to make the job more effective and rewarding. Yeah, I get lazy sometimes and stray from The Clean Team methods and tools, but I keep coming back to it when I really need to shape up my house. In particular, the Shmop is nearly life-changing...really takes the mess out of mopping! I heartily recommend SPEED CLEANING. HAPPY CLEANING!
Rating:
Summary: A home cleaning classic I keep coming back to!!
Review: I discovered The Clean Team almost 10 years ago. Their philosophy and approach to house cleaning is only surpassed by their tools and products. This book gives a great plan for organizing your house cleaning tools and tasks. Even for those rare types who enjoy cleaning, there is always room to make the job more effective and rewarding. Yeah, I get lazy sometimes and stray from The Clean Team methods and tools, but I keep coming back to it when I really need to shape up my house. In particular, the Shmop is nearly life-changing...really takes the mess out of mopping! I heartily recommend SPEED CLEANING. HAPPY CLEANING!
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Summary: Not the gimmicky junk I thought it would be...
Review: I have to admit something: at first glance, I tend to judge books by their covers.
When I first saw the cover of this one, I wasn't too impressed; the picture of the author on the front made it look like some kind of "as seen on TV" tripe, and the overall design of the cover was just very... amateurish. Perhaps the authors were in this for a quick buck, so they could push their own "special" cleaning goods.
But then I noticed that there were over thirty amazon user reviewers who had given the book an average rating of 4.5 stars, and I noticed that the book has been in print for almost 20 years. So, I decided to try it out.
That said, this book is a masterpiece. With a really bad cover.
I've been living in an apartment for almost 3 years, and I have never enjoyed cleaning it. In fact, I've been so discouraged by all my cleaning attempts that it's made me want to clean less and less--a sentiment which the author actually talks about in the introduction. The thing is, no one ever really taught me how to clean; among those I grew up with, it was always assumed to be some kind of innate talent, one not worthy of writing a book about, so whenever I asked anyone about how to clean something, they always responded with something to the effect of "just do what works well for you."
That said: I essentially had absolutely no idea how to clean, and this book told me everything I needed to know in about 100 pages (the last 100 pages of the book talk about how to organize cleaning in a team, how to deal with housecleaning services, and some other things, which I haven't read yet). It wasn't intimidating at all, the print was nice and large, and the prose was very conversational.
And the book actually teaches two different things--how to clean well (he introduced me to the use of a toothbrush, feather duster, putty knife, sh-mop, and some other things, all of which were far more effective than tools I'd used before), and how to clean as efficiently as possible, if you so desire. As another reviewer mentioned, this book really isn't a religion--take what you want from it and use the rest as food for thought, or throw it out entirely. Right now I'm only focusing on the techniques because I just want a clean apartment, but once I've got the techniques down I'm going to try to take some of his advice on efficiency and try to put it to good use too.
Also, given the fact that the author sells his own products, he is remarkably good at not pushing them. He states repeatedly through the book that the tools you use aren't as important as the methods you use, and he offers the names of several commercial brands that work well. He even says that you can make your cleaning apron (more on that later) on your own; although he doesn't give much direction on how to go about doing this, I imagine if I knew how to sew it wouldn't be too hard.
The only "non-standard" tool in his arsenal that isn't available at a standard hardware store is the many-pocketed cleaning apron--you're supposed to put all your tools on it, so they're always on your person when you're cleaning. A lot of people seem to think this idea is ridiculous, and I'll admit that at first glance I was fairly skeptical about it, too. I still don't own a cleaning apron, actually, but when cleaning my apartment after reading his book, I realized why one could be incredibly useful. The author claims that the apron is the most important of all cleaning tools because it saves so much time--you won't ever have to walk somewhere to get a tool. However, what he doesn't mention is that such an apron would probably make cleaning a less stressful activity. One of the things I realized when last cleaning my apartment was that a lot of the time I'm cleaning, I'm not actually *thinking* about cleaning--instead, I'm thinking, "where did I put my putty knife?" or "where's my glass cleaner?" Having an apron with dedicated, separate pockets for each tool would enable me to focus all my attention on cleaning, not constantly switching my thoughts between cleaning and wondering where my tools are. I believe this would make my cleaning routine not only faster, but also more focused, less stressful, and possibly even (ok, maybe this is a stretch) enjoyable. It sounds like a great idea and I hope it actually works well in practice.
Another thing I really like about this book is that it's one of the few books I've read on domestic activities that doesn't assume the reader is female. In this day and age, it actually angers me when I read recently-published material on home economics that assumes the reader must be a married mother (even many of the married couples I know share household duties), and I think it's one of the things that really turns men off from reading these kinds of books--as a 25 year old single male, whenever I pick up a book and read something on the back that tells me I'm a 30-year old mom, it's kind of hard not to put it down. Fortunately, this book is incredibly good at being very unassuming about the reader and their lifestyle, and other home economics books would do well to follow its example.
All of that said, the book does have a few downsides, apart from the horrible cover. For one thing, the author often tells you things like "Trust us. Don't argue with this method, don't ask why, just know that it works." The problem with this is that, for one thing, without a solid understanding of *why* you're doing something, there's no possibility for you to alter or improve on it to make it more effective for your particular situation. Furthermore, it makes it harder for me to remember, because I usually remember things by understanding the reasons and then deriving the actions that follow from them, instead of memorizing the actions by themselves. That said, however, the author does actually explain the reasons behind most of his techniques.
The only other thing that would've helped this book would've been full-color photos: being completely clueless, I don't really know what mildew and soap scum look like (or what the difference between them is), I don't know how to tell whether my floor is vinyl or linoleum, and I don't know how dirty a cleaning cloth should be before I should throw it out and use another one, so full-color photos explaining these things would have been very useful.
Oh, and to those who buy the book or are worried about getting a hold of this gimmicky-sounding "sh-mop": at first I was worried I'd have to mail-order this contraption, but I found out that the sh-mop is actually mechanically simpler than a standard mop, and was apparently successful enough that generic brands are now selling them under different names; my local hardware store had something called a "Hardwood Floor and More!" which matched the book's description of the sh-mop precisely (its base even had the same dimensions), so this tool shouldn't actually be too hard to get your hands on; I also find it far more effective than both my sponge mop and my Swiffer WetJet.
Ultimately, this book has been extremely helpful for me and I now feel much more confident in my cleaning abilities than I did before.
Rating: 
Summary: My house is much cleaner, much faster. :-)
Review: I was a clueless housecleaner, absentmindedly pushing a sponge or rag, without much thought as to where to start, which cleaning tools to use, when to use powders vs. liquids, how to economize motion, etc. I knew there had someone who figured all this stuff out, so I picked up Jeff Campbell's "Speed Cleaning" book. Jeff runs a cleaning service and is an efficiency expert, who has cleaning down to an economy-of-motion science. His book is an easy, entertaining read, with well-explained instructions and many helpful diagrams. He makes a good case for his methods, although he does come across with the attitude that his is the only and right way to clean. I decided I would give his system a try, so I bought the cleaning apron, cleaning cloths, small cleaning tools, and Jeff's own brand of non-toxic, cleaning agents (free of animal products and not tested on animals) available on his website. Then I put on my cleaning apron and followed the book nearly to the letter. I'm delighted to report that his system absolutely works! My bathrooms and kitchen especially are cleaner than before, and his system is much faster and easier than what I was doing. It is not necessary to use a cleaning apron or Jeff's cleaning agents to improve one's results, but I do find the apron convenient, and the two cleaning agent bottles that hang from it are the 16 ounce size, so they're not heavy even when full. I have several issues with the book that prevent me from giving it 5 stars:
1) He often tells to reader to only clean what is dirty--not to clean phantom dust nor wipe surfaces where you don't see dirt. However, not all dirt is visible, such as germs and dust (complete with dustmites) that builds up before it's visible to the naked eye. So it's actually a good idea to wipe and where appropriate disinfect surfaces that don't look dirty. Why not be proactive and prevent visible dust? 2) Jeff encourages people to dust with an ostrich feather duster, which only moves dust around. He reasons that you move the dust to a lower level & vacuum it later. I disagree that this is the most effective system for removing dust. Also ostrich farming is a very cruel industry where the feathers are removed with pliers or electric shears from the birds *before* they are slaughtered, to protect the commercial value of the hide, which makes expensive leather. 3) Twenty pages of the book (10%) is a Spanish summary. Like many non-Spanish-speaking readers, this part of the book is useless to me. Why not publish a Spanish-speaking version of the book or sell the summary separately as a booklet? Overall however, I'm very happy with this book and cleaning system, and have a cleaner home and more time on my hands to show for it. :-)
Rating: 
Summary: Lots of Hype, But Less Real Substance
Review: I was very excited about this book and the idea of learning to clean my house more quickly and efficiently. When I read the author's intro and the comments included in the book [as well as the positive reviews here] I just knew I'd hit on a great cleaning solution. Unfortunately, in reading the book, I found it really didn't live up to the author's build up. For starters, the method really ISN'T very efficient. The author strongly recommends a whole arsenal of cleaning solutions and cleaning devices/tools. I just don't think the average home owner really needs all that stuff to do a quick and good job cleaning. [I'd be lost just trying to keep up with all those things!] I will note however, that all of these cleaning items are offered for sale on their website and catalog - a fact that is mentioned NUMEROUS times throughout the book ["buy our stuff!"]. The first time or two I read about their catalog in the book, I thought "how cool - one place to pick up all this stuff!". By the 10th mention of it I was feeling a little like I'd paid for a book that was really just advertising for their company and products. ["No, really, BUY OUR STUFF!"] I also thought the prices on the website were pretty ridiculous [way higher than I would pay to get the same stuff at Home Depot or someplace like that]. You would *easily* spend well over $$$ to buy all the products they tell you that you MUST have from their website/catalog. Another example of why I don't feel this method is very quick or efficient - many long years ago I read a Don Aslet book [who I recommend!]. In that book he said something that has stuck with me for almost a decade - "don't scrub anything you can soak" [or something to that effect]. Practically speaking, this means that when I begin to clean, I soak things first. If there are spills of food on the stove that have turned to rock, I pour a bit of water on it and let it sit for 5 or 10 minutes while I clean something else. The same with dishes, etc. I *NEVER* have to scrub - when I come back, I am able to wipe up the mess in one or two swipes with a paper towel. VERY QUICK and energy and time efficient. In contrast, Mr. Campbell spends pages and pages on how to scrub and scrape up a similar hardened spill/mess. He recommends beginning with one scrubbing utensil and working up to another and then yet another and then moving to a putty knife type instrument and then an actual RAZOR blade [which would damage my kitchen surfaces to no end...]. Never once does he even mention the idea of just soaking the stuff so it wipes up easily. I don't think that's very efficient personally. Other things that bugged me about the book were that it seems really written more for commercial cleaning teams. It claims to be written for the average homeowner, but most of the methods are truly suited to a professional "team" approach. He spends a great deal of time describing how the team should split up the work, etc. [I don't know about you, but I certainly don't have a set of friends that show up at my house every weekend to help me clean it...]. He runs a cleaning service in San Francisco, which he mentions repeatedly - I feel this book was really written for professional cleaners like him. I also didn't like the constant high pressure sales pitch; and I agree with another reviewer that the "spanish summary" at the end seemed kind of useless - why not publish the whole thing in spanish? Much more useful. There WERE good things about this book - while I found most of the better suggestions to be "common sense", they might be really helpful to someone who has never done a lot of cleaning [maybe a young person out on their own for the first time] or for someone who doesn't feel that they are very "efficient" in general. I also LOVED the chapter on the environmental impact of the cleaning products and found it very useful. [Worth the price of the book in fact]. There is also a good chapter on hiring a cleaning service/housekeeper - although that chapter seemed very misplaced in this particular book [If I could afford a house cleaner, I *wouldn't* be buying this book to learn to do it myself!]. The book was also very easy and quick to read. Overall I'd say it was worth the money, but not NEARLY as wonderful as it is hyped up to be!
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