Cleaning the house

I found my lady at care.com. She comes on Tuesdays. She will do anything I ask of her, and cleans up toys and does dishes and laundry. It takes her 5 hours to tidy, organize, do laundry, and clean my entire home top to bottom. My house is 2600 sq ft. She does everything, and my house is not clean by any stretch to begin with. You should see the mess we can make in a week. She put my CHristmas decorations away two weeks ago too. I pay her 15/hour or 75 per week. It is so worth it for my sanity sake. I didn't always have a cleaning person, but I do now, and I won't go back. Check out care.com. I interviewed three people. I actually chose the most expensive one because she seemed the fastest and most experienced. She is fantastic.

Wow, you are lucky, what a great price! I pay 110.00 and that includes the same plus laundry and its a 4500 sq. ft house. Before I moved it was 65 and much smaller home but not laundry.
It is tough to find a cleaning ladly willing to tidy, clean well and do laundry.

[DCJenn]

Mine is $70 a week to hide all my belongings, not dust and obsess over where my piles of papers should go.

Jenn

So DB objects to getting a maid because he doesn't want someone in the apt that might steal things. I tried to convince him that he just graduated from med school and I'm still in grad school ergo we have nothing to steal. The most expensive things we have are our computers->bikes->books!
*sigh*


I just wanted to ask, has anyone had this happen to them? If so, how did you deal with it?

So DB objects to getting a maid because he doesn't want someone in the apt that might steal things. I tried to convince him that he just graduated from med school and I'm still in grad school ergo we have nothing to steal. The most expensive things we have are our computers->bikes->books!
*sigh*


I just wanted to ask, has anyone had this happen to them? If so, how did you deal with it?

Never. I've periodically used a cleaning lady over the past 13 years, and I've never, ever had a problem. If he's truly concerned, then go through a service, where your provider would be employed by someone else you could go to in case of a problem.

[Chrisada]

My parents had that problem once. Our cleaning lady's daughter actually stole some things when she helped her out. But that was years ago.

I could do it- but I would rather not get pissed off about having to do it all.
Jenn

lol, this is one of the reasons I didn't go back to work after my daughter was born. When we were both working full time I did all the house duties. It created a lot of fights and resentment on my part since he was not very helpful.

[Vishenka69]

Our first cleaning woman was found through a newspaper and after a while I realized that some of my clothes went missing. I told her about it several times, hoping she'd put them back but she kept insisting she had no idea what I was talking about, so we fired her and changed the locks. After that we only hired someone if several people we knew recommended them and never had a problem again (so far we're on our 6th).

If you get recommendations from someone you personally know, you're less likely to have problems. I don't trust random references. The couple we have right now has been cleaning for 2 other people in DH's group for years.

[Rapunzel]

I fired a cleaning service over a year ago because someone was taking things. The cleaning service I've been using since then seems really honest. But, I have quality issues with them so I think I might be switching over to a housecleaner that several of my friends use and love.

[Rapunzel]

For those who have a cleaning service AND have kids, do you pick up the toys before they come over? Do you straighten up the house before they come and clean? For me, if I'm going to spend time putting toys away, tidying up the house, I might as well just clean it myself. I'd LOVE to have a cleaning service!

I always have my children pick up after themselves. Even if a cleaning service wasn't coming they would need to pick up any laundry or toys on the floor.

The only thing I do before the housecleaners come is glance through the house to see if there are any things that need to be put away. I expect my housecleaners to clean - but not to put anything (other than dishes they wash) away.

[PrincessFiona]

I have used a cleaning service at times, but I usually end up feeling sort of resentful about it. It's nice to have someone else do the scut work, but I find that the house usually reverts back to its less clean self within 24 hours. So....I enjoy coming home to a clean house and then feel disappointed the next day when we're back to the status quo...and I also feel like I've wasted my money then.

I've been trying to give the kids jobs to do, but it gets hard to enforce. I find myself doing a lot of nagging...and at the end of the day I have to usually re-do a lot of what they've cleaned.

[Lynn]

When I worked outside the home, we had a cleaning service. It relieved a lot of stress between DH and me. They did a nice job, but I didn't like the fact that every week there would be different people there. I have no idea how many strangers had been through our house. One morning I came out of the bathroom in my robe to find they had arrived early and there was a man in my bedroom dusting! Good thing I had put my robe on, because I thought I was alone in the house! LOL

Then I had a mother/daughter team for a long time, but after a while, they started being really disrespectful to me when I'd ask them to do something. Me: "Will you dust the tops of the picture frames on the walls?" Response: "My aren't we getting picky?". Then I told them we were going on vacation and didn't want them to come during that time. They argued with me and said they wanted to come anyway. WTH? I don't want them in my house when they know I'm gone. Finally I said, please come and clean the day before we get back (we have cats and it gets quite hairy when no one's there to vacuum.) I got back from vacation and they hadn't cleaned! I changed the locks.

Now I have really just lowered my standards, and I don't have anyone. I'm contemplating having someone come seasonally just to do a thorough cleaning.

To answer another question, I would go around and pick up the night before they came. I wanted them to spend their time cleaning, not stacking up my stuff.

So I have a question regarding doing things around the house (cleaning and whatnot)

how do you manage? Do you give DH/DB just a tiny couple of things to do while doing the most yourself? Do you have a maid? How do you keep the house/apartment clean and tidy? Thanks.

FYI- i am a grad student and when i'm not in school/lab, I'm reading or doing homework.

Ok, so am I the only one that feels like my personal space is really invaded if somebody is going all over my house into places like the master bath and bedroom? DH has often pushed for a cleaning person and I just REALLY don't like the idea of letting somebody that much into my life... Not to mention that it'd be one more thing to coordinate schedule-wise, and we'd have to do so much pick-up first that I might as well clean then anyway- which I do. My house is usually pretty clean, but not "neat" by most standards. I figure I'll be more on top of the organization when the kids are older. I mostly hate DH's unrealistic expectations of a perfect house when there are 5 of us constantly messing it up, 4 of whom are home much of the day. Grrnmmmbh....

[Sheherezade]

I also have no cleaning lady - and feel very weird about the concept. I know that's just me - I really don't like telling others what to do or being "the boss". I tend to befriend the cleaning people in my workplaces and help them empty the waste baskets. Must be a latent socialist. So, I make do with the kids. I have fewer issues with bossing them around. (Mom's job to teach them how to keep a tidy home, right?)

Here are my tips for dealing with the kids:

1) The best system I've found is to make a clear list of "jobs" involved in cleaning their room (strip bed, vacuum floor, pick up toys, empty hamper....) and assign a certain time that these will be done. We have "Sunday Chores" that are all done by everyone on Sunday afternoon before we have dinner. It helps us get back in to work week mode.

2) Recently, I've added on chores that extend beyond their personal space - and finally found a system that works for that as well. I figured out four jobs that anyone in the house could do (trash, meal planning, pet care, kitchen cleaning) and wrote them down on sticks in a coffee cup. Each Sunday dinner, we each draw a stick and that's our job for the week. For two months running, we've had no complaints from the "workers" and *bonus* no complaints about food, either. Seems everyone is happy when they know that they get their week to plan all the meals for the family.

I know this is a bit off topic....but I just wanted to share my recent success with managing the "home team" of house cleaners.

[Deebs]

I had a terrible cleaning lady when DH was in training, but she only charged me $30 and her son was in Iraq, so I never fired her. I just couldn't. We were dual income, and she definitely needed the money more than we did, even as a relatively cash strapped resident's family. In Ohio, I found a really great team who helped me out. I couldn't stomach the cost of having the entire house cleaned, so I had the rooms we used the most done, and it became fondly referred to as "marriage counseling" in our house because it probably saved our marriage. DH is really bad about helping out around the house, and I felt I'd rather have someone clean while I spent time with my kids than put my kids in front of the TV to babysit while I clean. Now that we've moved here, I've been unable to find a service that isn't a corporate-run business (we have a couple of small business owners in my family, and I'm a little crazy about trying to support the little guy). So, I'm biting the bullet today and calling Merry Maids. We'll see how it goes.