Personalized Housekeeping Services from Kurashinity

Over the past couple of years, circumstances beyond our control have kept us indoors and made us well and truly aware of how important a clean, ordered home is for maintaining our mental clarity.

For those of you in the Tokyo or Kanagawa area who are on the hunt for a professional housekeeping service to help you achieve just that, there really is only one name you need to know: Kurashinity.

The Kurashinity difference 

© Photo by Kurashinity

What impresses us most about Kurashinity, beyond the service itself, is their continued support for their housekeeping staff. All staff members have at least one year experience when they join Kurashinity. Then they undergo over four hundred hours of proprietary training, not just in essential housekeeping skills but also in skills that will prove valuable in their careers in hospitality.

This intensive training continues throughout their time with Kurashinity under the Housekeeper Meister Program, which ensures that the housekeepers keep growing in their personal life as well as their work life. The result is an exceptional level of professionalism, which only increases over time.

Empowering working women

© Photo by Kurashinity

Another Kurashinity feature close to our hearts is the service’s support of women in their careers. Kurashinity was established after the Cabinet Office of Japan enacted legislation allowing housekeepers from the Philippines to work in Japan. The goal was to support the advancement of career women in Japan while also offering high-level hospitality training to women from abroad.

Providing support that is practical and mutually beneficial for both the client and the worker underpins Kurashinity’s approach. While the range of people using the service has greatly expanded beyond career women since 2015, when Kurashinity was founded, this support has been an important part of the development of the service, especially for the housekeepers.

Personalized support 

© Photo by Kurashinity

Kurashinity is rare among housekeeping services in Japan for offering a complete service in English, including communication over the phone and on their website. The housekeepers also have excellent English skills when it comes to working or even having a friendly chat. For those of you who have never used a housekeeping service, being able to converse easily right from the get-go helps you feel comfortable welcoming someone new into your home, never mind revealing the state of your bathtub!

Kurashinity offers a premium service, but that is not to say you must live in a grand house to justify using it. Pricing is scaled to the amount of cleaning time you need, making the service work well for those who live alone as well as for larger families.

The help you need, when you need it

© Photo by Kurashinity

The key question is how often you want a housekeeper to visit. For the regular service, you can choose once a month, every two weeks, weekly or twice a week. It really just depends on what you need. If you never want to touch a vacuum cleaner or fold your laundry again, you are going to need the semiweekly service. If you just want a squeaky-clean bath and gleaming floors and windows, then you can probably make do with less.

Remember, this is not just a cleaning service, but a housekeeping service. Tasks that are usually off-limits to cleaners, like receiving packages, letting children in from school, watering plants, basic gardening and basic pet-related cleaning, are all part of the service. The whole service is built around you and your home, and it can be adapted over time as your needs change.

What really stands out is all the little jobs the housekeepers go out of their way to do. Tucking in the bedding, neatly folding the towels, and even folding under the edge of the toilet paper—all these and more will make you see your home in a different light.

Next-level service 

© Photo by Kurashinity

The regular service is probably adequate for most people. It isn’t exactly cheap, but you really do get what you pay for. The housekeepers work efficiently, so a short session can go a long way, especially in an apartment. The difference in quality really comes down to the Kurashinity training that the housekeepers receive. The in-house certification program trains housekeepers to clean Japanese-style bathrooms and tatami floors, with a focus on Japanese attention to detail, which means housekeepers know how to handle every space with care. Add to that the goal-oriented Housekeeper Meister Program and you have a highly motivated team primed for excellence.

For those who want even more, there is also the service called Kurashinity Luxury, which is built around your exacting needs with a focus on hospitality services for people who frequently entertain guests or host home parties. Finding this type of service in English is surprisingly hard, even in Tokyo, so if you often entertain, Kurashinity Luxury might be just what you are looking for.

Services beyond the scope of regular housekeeping, like the cleaning of air conditioners or kitchen fans (i.e., the jobs most frequently put off by people who should know better) and cooking and catering services, can be had for an additional fee. That said, pretty much everything, including services like preparing for a party and sewing on a rogue button, are covered by the regular service. So, for most people, the regular service is sufficient to significantly level up your day-to-day.

Getting started

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Everything starts with a consultation and a trial service so that you can see the difference for yourself before signing up—pretty standard stuff. You then meet the staff member who will be assigned to you. Your housekeeper will be the same person each visit, so you can get to know each other and quickly build up a friendly relationship. The housekeeper will also get to know how you like things done. If desired, you can ask Kurashinity to keep a key for your property so that the housekeeper can visit even if you are out.

With Kurashinity being a leader in this field and under the umbrella of Pasona—probably the biggest name in training and HR in Japan—privacy protection, accident insurance and problem resolution is as good as it gets. Plus, ever since the coronavirus pandemic began, appropriate precautionary measures have been taken, including twice-daily health checks for staff. So, with Kurashinity, you won’t find any stone left unturned. They have a 96 percent usage-continuation rate for a reason.

Special offer for Savvy readers

Kurashinity has an exclusive offer to get you started. For all customers who sign up for at least the bi-weekly service, the initial trial service fee of ¥5,500 will be waived. Follow this guide to the initial trial service and be sure to enter the campaign code “SAVVY” to get your discount.

Discover more at the Kurashinity website.

Campaign code: SAVVY