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MindSpa - The Podcast
MindSpa is your go-to podcast for insightful conversations on mental health. Hosted by Michelle, Tina, the owners of MindSpa, each episode features roundtable discussions on key mental health topics, along with guest interviews. From stress management to relationships and personal growth, MindTalk brings professional insights in an engaging and accessible way. Tune in weekly for valuable discussions that support your well-being and help you navigate life’s challenges.
MindSpa - The Podcast
Ep 4 The Healing Power of Clean Spaces
When trauma strikes, our living spaces often become silent casualties. A death in the family, divorce, job loss, or abuse can trigger a cascade of mental health challenges that quickly manifest in our physical surroundings. As Tina Mongeon explains, "The person struggling with addiction, abuse, divorce, job loss, any traumatic event - in order to move forward and heal, you need a safe, clean, healthy space."
After 20 years as Ottawa's "Queen of Clean" and CEO of EnviroPure Environmental Group, Tina has witnessed countless times how mental health struggles translate into physical chaos at home. This observation led her to create the Healthy Home, Healthy Mind Initiative - a not-for-profit program providing free deep cleaning services to households in crisis.
The connection between mental wellbeing and our environment runs deeper than most realize. Scientific research confirms what Tina has seen firsthand: chaotic living spaces affect sleep quality, social interactions, and can deepen depression. The shame that accompanies a deteriorating home environment often leads to isolation, creating a destructive cycle that's nearly impossible to break without intervention.
What makes this initiative particularly powerful is its holistic approach. Beyond removing the financial burden of professional cleaning services, Tina's team provides education, validation, and follow-up support. They help clients understand the relationship between their trauma and living conditions while offering practical tools to maintain progress. The program specifically targets those ready for change, recognizing that readiness is essential for sustainable transformation.
"We're not just going in cleaning the place and not helping you through it," Tina explains. "We're finding out what happened, educating you on why your living environment is in the state it's in, and explaining what happens in situations like this."
If you're struggling with maintaining your living space while dealing with trauma or mental health challenges, reach out to the Healthy Home, Healthy Mind Initiative at enviropurehome.com or call 613-513-PURE. A clean slate might be the first step toward healing you never knew you needed.
The person struggling with addiction, abuse, divorce, job loss, any traumatic event that happens. In order to be able to move forward and heal, you need a safe, clean, healthy space.
Speaker 2:We are thrilled to welcome Tina Mongeon, owner and CEO of EnviroPure Environmental Group, an Ottawa-based company that has set the gold standard in eco-conscious cleaning for over 20 years. Known fondly as the Queen of Clean, tina leads three innovative divisions under the EnviroPure umbrella EnviroPure Home Cleaning, first Response Cleaning and national floor care. Her mission to create cleaner, healthier environments using natural, non-toxic methods that support both physical wellness and mental clarity.
Speaker 3:But Tina's impact doesn't stop at clean homes. She's recently launched a deeply personal and visionary not-for-profit project called Healthy Home, healthy Mind Initiative. This program recognizes the profound connection between mental health and our living environments, and it's built on the belief that healing begins at home. Every month, one household is selected to receive a complimentary deep clean, offering families in crisis a fresh start and a restored sense of peace. Today we're speaking with Tina Mongeon about the heart and purpose behind her not-for-profit initiative Healthy Home, healthy Mind. We'll explore what inspired her to launch this powerful project and how an idea rooted in compassion evolved into real-world impact. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here and share about this initiative.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's such an important one and I feel like we don't often make that connection enough right the impact that, like our home, our environment, our space has on our mental health.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm so glad that you created this, our mental health.
Speaker 1:That's right. Yeah, I'm so glad that you created this. Thank you so much. Yeah, so I basically last year, in 2024, I wanted to work on a passion project and so I was thinking to myself, what can I do to give back to the community and how can I make a difference and what do people need, right? So what does Ottawa need? What do people need? And, like the Healthy Home, healthy Mind initiative, sort of just the idea just kind of sprung in my mind that people need help healing at home. And with like 20 years in the cleaning industry doing, you know, regular home cleaning, hoarding cleanups, trauma cleaning, crime scene cleaning we've just come to see over the years how people are suffering at home, right, and they're suffering from trauma, life events that happen and that sort of spills over into how they're living at home and you know the chaotic mind, chaotic environment, and so I just wanted to create a program, a not-for-profit program, that would address all of these things and help people.
Speaker 2:I love that. What have you so you, the chaotic mind, chaotic environment. What have you noticed so far, just even in the years, 20 years? Amazing Congratulations, thank you. That's awesome. What have you noticed when it comes to how we live, how people live and how that correlates to their mind or their mental health or their well-being?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's a direct correlation between the two. There's a relationship between how you feel and how you live, and a lot of people don't know that. Right, and working in the industry for 20 years, we've just like we've worked with so many people that have suffered. It all starts from trauma, so mental health, adhd, all of those things, and you're dealing with all of those things, and it spirals into how you live at home, right, and we're just trying to sort of identify that, talk about it and help people through it.
Speaker 3:I could see that being sort of more common these days than even in the past, in the sense that, first of all, you're having a lot more households where there's two people working and they're trying to stay on top of things. And if I think of two things, if I think of what's the first thing that might just go to the wayside. If I am overwhelmed, if I'm really busy, it's going to be my household because I can kind of protect that and keep people from seeing it. That's right, Right. So that's going to go to the wayside first. But also I would think that if my finances are tight, one of the first things that people are actually going to let go of is help with cleaning the home. But ultimately I mean it does it can be a full-time job, especially if kids we have full-time job trying to keep your house clean, tidy, organized. And one of the things I know that whenever we used a cleaner, we had to tidy. At four kids we had to tidy before the cleaner could even come in and that's so overwhelming.
Speaker 2:Cleaning for the cleaner, yeah.
Speaker 1:Cleaning for the cleaner.
Speaker 3:Because, like I don't want you to spend your time picking up these toys, I want you to get to the carpet, which I haven't dealt with in a while, and so I'm just, I can just imagine, but then we also know that our environment has such an impact on our mental health.
Speaker 3:So if I'm feeling overwhelmed. So then I'm not cleaning up. And now my house is getting more and more in disrepair. Then maybe I'm not socializing as much, I'm not inviting people over. I'm I in disrepair, then maybe I'm not socializing as much, I'm not inviting people over, I'm feeling shame. I'm feeling all these kind of big feelings that is just going to keep exacerbating the anxiety, the depression, whatever it is that might've caused it in the first place. And so I imagine you see that a lot. We see that every day.
Speaker 1:We have separate divisions in our company, in our house cleaning division, just, you know, we get calls exactly what you describe that mom that's overwhelmed, that just needs help because house cleaning is last on her to-do list and so if it doesn't get done, it's that one thing that adds to the mind clutter as well, right, the cluttering of your mind. So I mean, we go in and we, we clean people's houses and it just provides that sense of relief that you need, that fresh start, that daily fresh start, that weekly fresh start. So you know, and that's what people are looking for, that's what they need. In our first response division we're dealing with more extreme situations. So we're dealing with the individuals, the families that have gone through the traumatic events. So you know, top of the list is the death of a loved one. Okay, um, your husband or your wife passes away and that's just such a big hit, a big trauma, and then depression, and the last thing you're thinking about is cleaning your home, and one thing after another and it just piles up and piles up and then you're in a situation you can't get out of um, where your, your home, becomes a state of chaos and
Speaker 1:it's unhealthy and it's unsafe and you need help. And how do you get that help? Where do you go? Yeah, um, so that is what we see very often, um, but this hits differently for different people, you know. It could be the person struggling with addiction, abuse, um, divorce, job loss, any traumatic event that happens. In order to be able to move forward and heal, you need a safe, clean, healthy space. And when your home and your living situation, your living environment, is not safe, is not healthy, is not clean, you cannot heal. And so, again, the initiative, the Healthy Home, healthy mind initiative basically, what I want to bring to light is just being able to help people through it, but also to provide a service where we're lifting that financial burden off of you, um, because sometimes that's the last straw, like they just can't afford it. It's an expensive process to rehabilitate someone's space, clean a home.
Speaker 3:Because I imagine you've seen anywhere from. You know that typical. We just need that weekly clean. We can't get to the baseboards all the way to. Like you said, it's unsafe. It's actually unhygienic where they're.
Speaker 1:Where you can't get through the front door, right. You can't get from room to room levels Right, and you can do them all, we do them all, we do everything. And your initiative wants to be able to support my initiative wants to be able to support anybody, anybody who contacts us, whether you're just the mom that needs a deep clean, just to give a quick refresh, restart to you know the person who has gone through so much, and it's the most extreme hoarding situation and you're literally buried alive at home.
Speaker 2:So how do you decide the level of involvement with the clients? Like, are there times where you would have the clients be a part of the process with you, other times where you're like we'll take care of it on our own, um, does it depend on their like level of emotional attachment to that? Like, how do you guys decide whether or not it's sort of client involvement or whether that's kind of kept outside of that? Is that a factor?
Speaker 1:So for the initiative itself, we really want. We would really like anybody who wants the help to be ready to receive the help and ready to move forward and essentially heal at home in a healthy space. I love that we're diving in to help a single mom on the 26th I've kind of put that out there. May 26th is going to be our second Healthy Home, healthy Mind project. Okay, and this mom is ready to change her life and she's ready to share her story.
Speaker 1:And she's a single mom. She has two kids and her situation basically is she was in an abusive situation and she got moved into housing community housing to protect her and her kids and she, just when she got moved into housing, she didn't unpack anything. She left everything in boxes and bags and basically she had to put boots to the ground and get out there and work to provide for her kids and over time, her depression, lack of time, everything built up and the home just became a very unsafe, chaotic environment and she has two kids. So she reached out to us through our Cleaning for Mental Health Facebook group and the initiative isn't launched yet, it's not public yet and she reached out just wondering if we could let her know what this would cost. And so I called her and I set up a meeting and I went to her home and I looked at the environment and I listened to her story and she was asking me what a cleanup like this would cost. And I told her it's going to be very expensive, this is very extensive.
Speaker 1:And she started to cry and she was like I know, and I can't afford it, but I want to save up for it. I said, well, I have some great news for you. And so I told her about the initiative that our company is doing and I said I can help you and I just I can tell that you're ready to make that step, to move forward. And you know, rehabilitate your space, rehabilitate your mind. Um, you know, so we have her plugged in and we're going to start this project on the 26th at no cost to her. And, um, yeah, I, I was really touched by her story and I really, really, really want to help her. And, uh, yeah, it really shows.
Speaker 3:So I think that sometimes I mean a lot of people have seen the show hoarders on television and I think, and just in our field in general I think one of the biggest misconceptions that people have is that that could never be me. You know, I could never suffer from depression, I could never let my house get to that point. But I think that the reality is, given the right set of circumstances, I think any of us could find ourselves in that situation and then it. But then it's the shame that kicks in, of like it gets, it gets overrun. Asking for help at this point is embarrassing. I don't want anybody to come in. Then it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse and harder and harder to do. Then the mental health continues to go down. So then the ability to actually overcome that just disappears.
Speaker 3:And I think that bringing attention to this, even normalizing the fact that, like if your mind is not well, your home will often show that Exactly, and it's not your fault. There's nothing to be embarrassed about. There's nothing to feel shameful about, because we all know a good example might be something that's going to make it unsafe, it's going to be potentially like rodents, but it really wouldn't take a lot of just not getting all the food put away properly, um cleaned off the floor, that type of stuff, before that becomes an issue. But then that's an expensive issue also to get rid of. So then you know it, just it's, it's snowballs so easily.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's snowballs and, like you you mentioned earlier sort of it becomes progressive too right, like you don't recognize that, like I've gotten into this habit or I've gotten into this pattern, until you're at the point where it's like this is not even recognizable anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and we talked a little bit about like cleaning for the cleaner right even if we kind of feel a little bit of shame with, like, what the cleaner's gonna see. You can imagine what it's like when the snowball has progressed to that level. What's that going to even feel like? Does shame show up a lot, do you find in your work?
Speaker 1:All the time, all the time People are embarrassed, they stop having family over, friends over, they isolate. The more chaotic your living space is scientifically proven. It affects the way you sleep. It affects the way you sleep. It affects the way you again your social interactions. You become more depressed.
Speaker 3:you need to think of, like the environmental, like air quality and that type of stuff that can impact your mental health, your physical.
Speaker 1:Well, that, and that's the separate thing, right? You've got, you know, the emotional, mental aspect of it, and then you've got the physical aspect of it mold, indoor air quality. All of these things have an impact on how you heal at home, and so, again with the initiative, we really want to highlight all of this and we just want to be able to like, create like a paradox, like we're showing mental health and healing at home and we want people that are dealing with trauma to be able to heal at home.
Speaker 1:And we want to educate families and individuals that are going through it that this is how it can be done, this is how you can do it and, um, we don't want the financial aspect of it to be a burden either. So we, you know, last year again sitting in my office, um, thinking about what my passion project's going to be, what am I going to do? What need can I address? How can I get it there? All of these things, and I put together so much research and statistics about what I've learned with my experience 20 years in the field, doing this what science has shown me?
Speaker 3:What's some of the stuff that you've learned through that process.
Speaker 1:I think people listening would be really interested to hear what you've learned Again, like just the again, the correlation between mental health and how you live at home huge.
Speaker 3:We've learned. I mean, have you learned much about?
Speaker 1:like what's at the core of hoarding? At the core of hoarding, yeah, so top of the list uh of hoarding is again emotional trauma caused by the death of a loved one.
Speaker 3:That is going to be 95 percent of hoarding cleanups that we do, and not necessarily in the home, though You're not saying that the loved one had to have passed in the home.
Speaker 1:It could be just yeah, just general yeah, and they're not coping with it and this affects that stat itself affects, even like it doesn't discriminate. Um, we've done really big hoarding cleanup jobs for very prominent professionals, professionals sorry in the community. Okay, people, high status people in the community. Um, it just seems that, like the death of a loved one is the catapult, like it's top of the list.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's part of why your program has the rehab as like the phase one of rehab and then the restoration. I think you said eh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so like the rehab and reset is what we're sort of calling it. It's important to kind of incorporate all of that. So we're not just going in cleaning the place and not helping you through it. Right, we're going in there, we're talking to you, we're finding out what happened. We're giving you, we're educating you on you know that's okay, and let me tell you why your living environment is in the state that it's in and let me explain to you what happens in situations like this. So we're giving the education which is really important.
Speaker 3:Which is really going to help validate and normalize their experience.
Speaker 1:It does, because a lot of people don't understand. They're like so caught up in the traumatic event that they've gone through that they don't understand, they don't see it clearly. Um, and it's okay. Yeah, it's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And can you speak a bit more about that readiness piece, Because I, I, you, you had mentioned it, but but I'm just thinking for people listening on to understand that readiness piece and why that's so important to being part of the initiative.
Speaker 1:It's so important to be ready because you're how can I say this? We want to help, we want to help everybody, but we can't help everybody. So, with this initiative, it's really important for us to help people that are ready to move forward with their life and ready to make the change they're ready to get better, because otherwise they could just get right back into the same spot they were in.
Speaker 1:There's a very high recidivism rate here, okay, and so if we're coming in and we're, you know, pouring ourselves into a project where this person doesn't really care, they really don't want to change Um, they just want the help. So they don't get evicted or they want. You know what I mean? Uh, they want the free. Help it. Just it doesn't work. It doesn't. It doesn't fulfill the purpose. You think about it.
Speaker 2:Like, you have to be willing. That way you have the buy-in. You're more receptive to the information, you're more willing to do the work.
Speaker 3:Readiness for change is something we're always trying to assess and help people understand.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you're familiar with change theory, but there is this concept of change theory where there's pre-contemplative is it hasn't occurred to me that a change needs to happen and then contemplative is sort of like. I see that there's an issue here. Maybe I should change um all the way to um planning. I start creating a plan for it. Um, I was, I was using the example like smoking is sort of like. I start saying, okay, I'm going to not buy another pack, I'm going to get the patch, and then action comes. They put the patch on their body because they're actually starting to do, starting to actually take steps in that change. Then there's the whole maintenance piece to it is maintaining that new change, and so I can imagine I don't think you're going to have any way the initiative that's in that pre-contemplative. It hasn't even occurred to them, they. But what's, what's hard about change, or what change theory tells us, is that people can bop around into those different it's not linear no, it's not linear and it's
Speaker 3:very frustrating for people, um, when they're like well, I thought I was, I was in the plan, I was in the action stage, why am I back here at contemplative? And it's really frustrating for family members and stuff if they get back to pre-contemplative because they're like what happened to you? I thought you realized you needed to change your drinking habits, and so I can see this being really relevant in this space of people's readiness for change and understanding their readiness for change 100%, and that's what we're looking for people that are ready to make change so that you know we're providing them with that fresh start, that reset, that rehab, and they're able to breathe and start getting on their way Right.
Speaker 1:You know you have to get to a breaking point before rock bottom like rock bottom rock bottom. Yeah, you know you've gone through all of this trauma. You're going through the motions. It's hit, it's hit hard. Now you're at the point where, okay, I have to do something. I have to make a decision for myself, for my family, for my kids, for my husband, for you know.
Speaker 2:Something has to change.
Speaker 1:Something has to change. They pick up the phone or they get on the internet.
Speaker 2:They message us or they call us and they're at that point you know, yeah, so in picking up the phone or calling you. And if they are in that state of readiness where they want to pick up the phone and call you, how can they do that? Like, how are folks able to get in contact with you? How are they able to either support the mission or participate in the program? What's the best way to get in contact with the project that you're working on?
Speaker 1:Well, so we haven't launched the initiative yet. It hasn't gone public. We're planning to do that shortly, so we'll have a lot of information out there on how to best reach us or contact us. How people are contacting us right now is looking up our website, sending us a contact information through our Healthy Home, healthy Mind page, which is on our resources tab on our website. Also, we have a Facebook group called Cle for mental health that we started. Um, so sorry, let's cut for a sec.
Speaker 2:Yep, um, so this is actually going to be um public in june, okay, and you'll probably be up and running by that. Yes, that's the plan, okay so you might want to.
Speaker 3:I was thinking maybe like great, great question maybe knowing that information you might want to change okay, it's already going right.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's already going right now.
Speaker 3:It's already going right now Okay, so pretend we're in June.
Speaker 2:Perfect.
Speaker 2:Again, sure, yeah, okay Just think about what you want to say. Okay, yeah, sorry, yeah, that was good, that was good, that's good. So the readiness phase is a huge and important part of all of this. And so let's say we have someone who is ready, they've gone through pre-contemplation and now they're in this readiness phase and they want to either be a part of your program or you have others who want to support what you're doing. Right, it gave them goosebumps as well. They want to participate in this in a different way, and so how can folks reach you?
Speaker 1:We want to talk to everybody, so calling is number one. So you can call us at our 613-513-PURE 7873. We have people on the phones answering all the time, so we just we want to talk to you, so give us a call. Our website enviropeerhomecom. We have all over our website how you can contact us. We have a resources tab for the Healthy Home, healthy Mind. So if you go on that, click on that. How can we help you? Send us your information and we're going to call you right away. If you want to help with the initiative, you can contact us the same way.
Speaker 3:Because this is brand new for you. This is your baby.
Speaker 1:Brand new Really brand new.
Speaker 3:This is a new experience for you to be offering your services in this way. So I imagine there's a bit of a learning curve on trying to figure out exactly how it's going to unfold, but such an amazing opportunity for people in Ottawa. This is such a fantastic initiative. It really is. Yeah, it's just, it's so exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my, my hope is that it will reach a lot of people. Yeah, you know, we're in the early phase of it and we sharing it like crazy I hope so. I mean again, it was a passion project for me. I wanted to do something this year, in 2025, we're celebrating 20 years in the cleaning industry.
Speaker 1:So to celebrate that, I wanted to come up with a way to make a difference in the community and a way to help people, literally just help people, expect nothing in return. I just want to help people within my realm of what I do.
Speaker 3:Your realm of genius, my realm of genius, I'm the queen of clean.
Speaker 1:And I just I want to do what I do and I want to celebrate 20 years in business. I want to celebrate the company, want to celebrate 20 years in business. I want to celebrate the company. Um, last year, when I was sitting in my office, you know, pen to paper, trying to figure out what it is that I want to do to help people differently than what I'm doing every day, and when I thought of the initiative, um, I started like we started saving money in the company to be able to put towards this because it's it's a big expense on us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I was just thinking that too, just in that sense of, especially when we were talking about those, that those bigger projects right when, where there's there's really some damage that's been done to the property and you're trying to help rehab it. I can imagine the costs.
Speaker 1:It's very costly very expensive, um, yeah. So we want to take this on. We want to remove the financial burden for those people that we're helping. We want to make it efficient as possible and I'm hoping that you know people will call us and say, hey, how can we help? We have the staff to do it, I have the labor, we have the tools, we have the resources, because this is what we do, right, yeah, but I'm hoping it'll reach people and if people you know want to help in any way whether it's financially or just volunteering their time to help in a cleanup or help maybe connect a client with a mental health professional afterwards so we can do a follow up and make sure that they're still on the right track, anything like that.
Speaker 3:I was wondering about that just in the sense of once you're done cleaning up, do you sort of give them advice on how to keep the home clean afterwards? That's a great question.
Speaker 1:That's a great question and that is something I pondered over for weeks. What am I going to do after, right? So we're going in there, we're investing our time, our energy and our hearts into helping whoever it is we're helping, yeah, what happens after? So what we're going to do as part of the initiative is we're going to do a follow up, like a two week follow up and a four week follow up, and we're going to touch base with with the client and with the family, and we're going to touch base with uh, with the client and with the family and we're going to see how it's going and we're hoping that it's going super well.
Speaker 1:But you know, realistically, it's tough. It's tough for people to make those adjustments and those changes. So we're willing to come in, have a second appointment with the family, the client, the individual, and come in with some tools that they can use moving forward. We have a lot of stuff in our arsenal. We have checklists. We have a lot of stuff in our arsenal. We have checklists. We have like, like accountability lists. We have a whole bunch of things that we can provide people with.
Speaker 3:Are those things already on your resource page, on your website, or no?
Speaker 1:They're not. They're not so it's just something that we have in our, in our bag um that we're providing um to the clients when we're on site. So we're planning to do follow-ups with all of these families. Again, we're not the experts in mental health, so I can't provide any mental health assistance. I am the expert when it comes to the health of your environment and the health of your home, and that's where I'm there to help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and being able to stay in that realm, which is great, but then also directing them. Like you said, what else needs to be done? What other resources can we connect you guys with to ensure that the whole picture is resolved, Whether it's the systems and the checklist in place or if it's the emotional trauma piece? But I love how you guys are taking a holistic approach and recognize that this is our realm of genius. We're going to focus on this. We're also going to point you in different directions, which is amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I've worked with different organizations over the 20 years. We've, you know, been able to plug that in and connect families with professionals. Yeah, so I'm just hoping that people will contact me and say how can I help? I love that. And how can I be useful for this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, we're happy to shed light on the amazing, amazing work that you're doing in the community. It doesn't only affect one family, but we think about one family and the children in that family and how that transcends into generations, and so the work that you're doing is so needed and so necessary and we support you and we're happy to shed light on it and have this conversation. That means a lot. Thank you so much. Amazing work.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for coming today. Thank you for having me and giving me the platform to talk about this.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it so much you're so welcome. Thank you for being here, thank you.
