“My Criminal Past” is a true story starring Angela Brown, the House Cleaning Guru. Grab a seat and some popcorn for this talk about lessons learned the hard way by breaking the law.
Angela comes clean about her run-ins with the law to put an often-asked question to bed once and for all.
“Is Angela Brown a criminal?”
Listen: My Criminal Past – Angela Brown Comes Clean
Watch: My Criminal Past – Angela Brown Comes Clean
Hey there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer. You can find this and 400 other answered questions in this series on our YouTube channel.
Coming Clean About My Criminal Past
Coming clean about my criminal past. It is a question I get asked a lot about, so we’re going to talk about that today. I’m Angela Brown, and apparently, I have a criminal past. So, I’d like to address that today.
Now, if you came to this video and you clicked on the title because it was of intrigue to you, you’re not alone. This is not clickbait; I’m actually going to answer this question for this reason. There are a lot of people that are hoping it’s not true, and there are a lot of people that are hoping that it is true.
Every day inside Facebook groups, countrywide, worldwide, there are conversations that I am a criminal. I don’t know why, because I do not do criminal activity on purpose, it is a goal of mine to not be a criminal. So, I hate to burst your bubble, if you’re here you’re probably hoping for the dirt and the nit and the grit.
We Will Politely Remove any Trolls
All right. The reality is this, I run five Facebook groups that are for cleaning business owners. And if you are a troll, or you are a bully or a racist, or you are mean to people, or you call people names, we will politely remove you from the group.
On the way out the door, we have removed a couple of people who have threatened me and have sent me 40 or 50 emails. They said, “I’m going to take you down,” And “I’m going to destroy your character, I’m going to ruin you,” And all these things.
That’s not necessary, but okay, it’s your God-given right, it’s your free agency, if you would like to do that, that’s up to you. And we have not responded unkindly, we have not lashed out or any of those things.
Someone Has Given Us Death Threats
So, the next thing is we had a death threat. Somebody said, “I hope I never meet you because if I do, I’m going to take you out.” Okay, well, you just threatened my life. So, I promise you that I’m not going to let you back into the Facebook group.
Because again, if you threaten people’s lives, we don’t let you back in, that goes back to being a bully, or a troll, or a terrorist.
People Believe That I am a Criminal
So, to the claims that I am a criminal. To this day, I have never heard exactly what the criminal charges are, that are against me. I’m unfamiliar with what exactly they are.
But every day I get texts from Facebook groups of people saying, “There are a conversation and a thread going on right now about you, that you are a criminal, is it true?” Now, at Savvy Cleaner, and I have to back up a second, for every question we get, we believe in working smart, not hard. And so, when somebody asks a question if we’ve already answered it, we typically send them a link to a video where we went into detail and we explained it.
Now, we haven’t made video about these rumors about my criminal until now. And while we don’t address the rumors in public, and it’s nobody’s business, and it’s not what we want to focus and highlight on, it is a common enough question that I now need a video to quash these rumors.
I am Not a Criminal
So, to the answer, am I a criminal? No, I’m not. I’ve never been arrested for anything in my entire life. And so, while the name Angela Brown is very popular, there are 73 Angela Browns in my city alone, right now, that I know about. And that’s one city across America.
It’s a very common name. And if you Google it, you will find all kinds of things, but I’m not associated with any of those things that are in the news. I don’t have that kind of bandwidth.
So, I have had two run-ins with the law in my life, and I’d like to come clean on those so that we now know exactly what the charges are, and what I’m actually guilty of.
My First Run in With the Law
firstly, about 26 years ago, I was in a hurry to go from an appointment to another appointment and I exceeded the speed limit. And I felt embarrassed about it because I got pulled over by a police officer who wanted to know why I was in such a hurry.
Now, in my youth and my stupidity, I didn’t feel sorry, and I wasn’t like, “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe I did this, shame on me,” I had the audacity to ask him if he could follow me to the appointment and give me the ticket there because I was in a hurry. So, because I wasn’t remorseful, he wrote me a ticket and he said, “This is for speeding.”
And I was like, “Oh, that’s unfortunate,” Because I had seven minutes to get to a 10-minute appointment that was 10 minutes away. And now it’s taken me 35 minutes to get there because I got stopped and then I got a ticket. So, I feel horrible about that situation.
I Learned My Lesson About Speeding
The reality from that situation was this. I realized in my mind, “If I only have seven minutes, and it takes me 10 minutes to get there, I don’t have 35 minutes.”
Lesson learned, don’t ever speed again. All right. So that was like 26 years ago. So, lesson learned, I now have a system in place where I give myself plenty of time to get there so that I’m not in that situation again, problem solved, lesson learned.
But that doesn’t make me a criminal, it makes me a foolish youngster that exceeded the speed limit. Nobody was hurt, nothing bad happened, the outcome was I had to pay a fine, and there you go, lesson learned.
My Second Run in With the Law
The second time was the weirdest situation. And this goes back almost three decades ago. I was tight on cash. I was working for part-time jobs, I had started my house cleaning business, and I was moonlighting on the side as a pet sitter or a dog Walker.
Now, there was a family that had gone out of town and I was out walking their dog on a beautiful sunny day. And as we were walking past this lovely gated community, there was a little raccoon. He came staggering out of the bushes and he saw the dog that I was walking, and the dog and the raccoon both were alarmed at seeing each other, and they both squealed and barked and fussed at each other.
And then the dog busted out of my leash and he took off running through a small opening that was for pedestrians that went into this gated community.
I Accidentally Trespassed While Dog Walking
So, I ran in after the dog, again, this is almost 30 years ago, and I wasn’t thinking that I was trespassing. That was a million miles from my mind, I didn’t even know there was a charge called trespassing. But I ran in after the dog that bolted into this private gated community, trying to get away from the raccoon.
So, I go in and I get the dog and I’m coming back out past the guard shack, and the deputy dog that was sitting inside the guard shack wrote me a ticket for trespassing. And I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me, I’m a person, I did not drive a car in here. You can see that I’m walking a dog, this is an innocent mistake. I just went in to get the dog.”
He said, “No, ma’am you’re trespassing.” And he made it very clear, “It’s not how you broke the law, it’s that you broke the law.” And I said, “I did break the law, but I was just doing my job.” And he said, “I’m just doing mine.” And he wrote me a ticket.
I Had to Pay for a Trespassing Ticket
So what upset me about the ticket, I did not have money to make ends meet. And I had to go down to the county courthouse. I did not have the money to hire an attorney.
And the fine for trespassing was $245, and that was almost 30 years ago. It was astronomical. And to this day, I still cannot believe I had to pay the fine. And the judge did not let me off, he did not forgive me, he did not accuse me of it.
He said, “Did you trespass?” I said, “Yes, technically I did. But here’s the story.” He said, “Then technically you owe the money.” And I was like, “You have got to be kidding.” So, that is my second run-in with the law. Again, almost 30 years ago.
I Made Unintentional Harm Both Times
So, am I a criminal? Oh, I don’t think so. Because in both of those situations, it was unintentional harm, nobody got hurt. There was no property damage, it wasn’t character damaging, it was an unfortunate situation in both scenarios.
And the first one, which was the driving incident, I learned a life lesson from. The second one, I did not learn a lesson from. If it were all to happen again, I would probably do the exact same thing.
Only maybe this time I would stop at the guard shack and say, “Hey, did you see that my neighbor’s dog just ran in here? Is it okay if I go in and get it?” And then I have permission to trespass instead of just bolting in after the dog.
The People Who Threaten Me Have Brought Me Business
So those are the two scenarios in which I did have a run-in with the law. And am I a criminal? No, I’m not. So, here’s the unfortunate part about karma. The person trying to destroy me, or the people trying to destroy me have sent people to the search engines to try to find the answers to those questions.
And as a result, thanks to search engine optimization, because I’ve learned a little bit about it, they have driven business to me. When people find the things we’ve created that are available on the internet, I’ve picked up a ton of clients.
So, to the trolls and the haters in my life, thank you so much for the business you have sent my way. You have no idea what your karma means to me, because in the end, you lost, I win.Resources
These good karma links connect you to Amazon.com and affiliated sites that offer products or services that relate to today’s show.
When you click on the links and buy the items you pay the exact same prices or less than if you found the links on your own elsewhere. The difference is that we make a small commission here at the show for sharing these links with you.
Time Management in 20 Minutes a Day – https://amzn.to/3ewQwaH
The 1-Page Marketing Plan – https://amzn.to/3fXlvgu
Weird U.S. Laws: Strange, Bizarre, Wacky & Absurd – https://amzn.to/3ds5jSx
Resisting Gossip: Winning the War of the Wagging Tongue – https://amzn.to/2CwvcDW
The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company – https://amzn.to/2Z8sv3d
Permissions To Share
You Have Our Permission To Share This Episode
Show Sponsor
Savvy Cleaner Training – House Cleaner Training and Certification
My Cleaning Connection – Your hub for all things cleaning.
HouseCleaning360 – A hub connecting homeowners with house cleaners
Savvy Perks – Employee benefits for your employees.
Turnover Cleaning Tips – for Vacation Rental and Airbnb Hosts