Setting a shining example: if you have sharp management skills and a keen sense of customer service, you could clean up in the residential market with your own Myhome franchise.(Cover Story)

Believe it or not, residential housecleaning is one of the fastest growing industries in the UK. With 2.7million households spending around 11 billion [pounds sterling] every year on domestic help, the market is huge and predicted to double in the next three years. It's clear that there are more and more people who are either suffering from house-cleaning apathy, don't have the time or inclination to drag out the vacuum cleaner, or are just too darned busy to want to think about chores when they get home from a hard day's work. Let's face it, who in their right mind would rather scrub the bathroom at 7pm on a weekday than relax in front of the television or go out socialising?

Myhome has grown because of its quick-minded response to these fluctuations in social behaviour, especially as individuals tend to be 'cash-rich, time-poor' these days. The company now believes that for some people the Myhome service is seen as a necessity rather than a luxury. Primarily, this growth has been driven by the dramatic increase in two-salary households over the …