WITH a newborn baby in her arms, her last £20 note in her purse and bailiffs knocking on the door, Faye McCan had nowhere to run.
She had not long brought little Jett, now nine, home when the painful reality struck: she was unable to afford nappies or milk, let alone put the heating on.
The new mum, who was single and just 24-years-old at the time, was scared and living in a pokey £400-a-month rental flat.
“I was panicked,” she tells Fabulous for our exclusive series, Bossing It.
“I didn’t have anything to fall back on, as I’m not from a wealthy or big family.
“It really was a case of being massively on my own, knowing I was the only person who could turn it around.
“However, I had a lot of grit and determination to change my future.”
In a desperate bid to make some cash, Faye advertised as a cleaner in a local Facebook group despite having no prior experience in the field.
Within an hour, someone had reached out to offer her four hours of work cleaning their home.
She went out to purchase a secondhand hoover and cleaning products from B&M with the last of her cash and the rest, as they say, is history.
Now 33-years-old, Faye runs a biohazard cleaning business that turns over £3 million a year and has given her a mortgage and debt free life – something she would’ve never believed possible nine years ago.
“I want to become the first cleaning billionaire,” she says.
Faye’s first-ever four-hour contract led to another, and she was picking up regular jobs cleaning people’s homes.
As her local profile and demand for her services grew in Newcastle, where she is still based now, she began employing other women to meet demand.
Then, in 2019, she stumbled across a YouTube video about US crime scene cleaners and realised how much money these specialists were making across the pond.
Following some research about biohazard cleaning in the UK, Faye realised that there weren’t many similar companies offering that service here.
She shelled out £1,000 for a biohazard specialism course and, once qualified, promoted her services on Facebook.
The following morning, a landlord reached out needing their property cleaned after someone had tragically died in it.
“It was a really scary step going from cleaning lovely family homes with a bit of dusting and hoovering, to going into scenes full of blood,” she recalls. “I’ve seen places where people have been stabbed, and that kind of thing.
“It was shocking, and really traumatising, at first. I would take my work home with me in the beginning and have sleepless nights over what I’d seen.”
It was really traumatising at first. I would take my work home with me in the beginning and have sleepless nights over what I’d seen
Faye McCan
Faye soon began helping the police clean up crime scenes, as well as picking up jobs from the NHS and social services.
Faye’s award-winning company is Clean As A Whistle, while her academy is named Clean As A Whistle Training Solutions, where she trains other cleaners to become biohazard specialist like she is.
She is regularly flown across the world to places like Dubai, Miami and New York to educate international cleaners in biohazard work.
Her training courses include a module about mental health, as well as guidance for managing trauma from seeing gruesome scenes.
Alongside these, Faye is the founder of Growth Nation, a consultancy firm dedicated to helping cleaners (who are typically women) to start, grow and scale their businesses.
In the space of two years, she has helped over 400 women grow from cleaning local houses to being biohazard specialists making more from one contract than they used to make in a month.
A biohazard training course with Clean As A Whistle costs £775 for in-person sessions at different venues across the UK, or £579 to attend a virtual one.
Collectively, Faye’s businesses turnover £3 million a year, and she employs nearly 90 staff members across the UK to help facilitate her success.
In 2019, Faye was one of the only women in the UK qualified in biohazard cleaning – she estimates it was as low as 1%.
Now, the industry is teeming with female-owned brands thanks to her training courses.
“I’m on a mission to show that you can earn more than doctors and lawyers doing cleaning work,” she says. “It doesn’t have to be a stereotypical ‘girls job’ that is frowned upon.
“I want women to be proud to be part of this industry.”
Faye eventually reconciled with Jett’s dad, and the pair are now happily married with a second son, five-year-old Phoenix.
He even quit his 20-year engineering career earlier this year to help Faye run Clean As A Whistles various arms, and they’re on a joint mission to “change the world”.
“I want everybody to have equal opportunities,” she adds. “My main aim with the business isn’t even the money, it’s to help others.”
Unfortunately, Faye has fallen victim to trolling on social media after sharing her success, and even had to hire private investigators after one internet troublemaker began stalking her in real life.
“People get jealous from seeing the success online – and it’s pulled me back, it’s been really difficult at times” she reveals.
“My message to those types of people is to concentrate on their own success, and focus on making things better for themselves, rather than bringing other people down.”
In September this year, Faye moved her team into a new headquarters in Newcastle a few months ago. It’s a two story facility where she can offer 11 new extended biohazard courses totally in house.
“I’m coming to smash through every single door people said we wouldn’t open,” she beams.
