When clean freak Chris Challoner suffered a sporting injury at aged 19 in 2012, he was let go from his job as an electrician’s apprentice.

While recovering and worrying what he would do for work his grandad suggested helping him window cleaning for a couple of days a week until he found another apprenticeship.

One month quickly turned into a year, as Chris realised he had a passion for cleaning and loved working outside. In 2013 his grandad retired and Chris carried on by himself. He spent summer evenings knocking all the doors in his neighbourhood with hand made leaflets.

As things grew, Chris trained in other areas to add on more cleaning services and quickly needed to take someone on to help.

In 2023, “I realised, so many customers would ask us ‘Do you know a roofer?’ Or ‘Do you know anyone who can fix this?’. One of our team had been a builder for 30 years and came to us for a change of pace. He would always be quoting customer to fix things whilst on jobs for us. So, we set up Challoner Maintenance”.

Fast forward to today and C J Challoner Cleaning now has 8 staff and serves thousands of people a month across the whole East Midlands. Challoner maintenance is growing quickly and we have just taken on our second full time employee.