My house...

[Vanquisher]

How on earth do my neighbors keep their homes looking like museum show rooms? HOW?

kris

I have no idea, but they must have secret house elves. I truly don't get it either. I even asked my son, hoping, "Are your other friends houses as messy as ours?"

His answer: "No, they are pretty clean."

Sigh. I was afraid of that. Dammit!!

His answer: "No, they are pretty clean."

Sigh. I was afraid of that. Dammit!!

That is freakin' hillarious.

I've used my mother's quote when having my neighbors over mid-mess:

"If you're coming to see me, come anytime. If you're coming to see the house, make an appointment."

Sometimes I'll just leave the Dyson in the dining room so people get the impression I just vaccuumed, or am mid-tidy-streak and am about to vaccuum.

[PrincessFiona]

I always answer the door with a broom in my hand....the broom is really just a 'prop' though That way, people will THINK that I'm at least cleaning up.

You should have seen the place when Kelly got here the other day...the downstairs wasn't too bad, but upstairs...holy balls!

Yesterday, I took Amanda to her dance class and Alex's teacher stopped by and surprised us with dinner...she has the key and she...*gulp* LET HERSELF IN. The downstairs was a catastrophe...I'm sooooooooo embarassed.

She called me later and said "gee, Kris, if I had had more time, I would have tried to clean up a little for you"

oh the shame

Despite that, I went to bed after I took Amanda to dance and got back...at around 6.30pm ... you should SEE this place. It's shameful.

kris

You should have seen the place when Kelly got here the other day...the downstairs wasn't too bad, but upstairs...holy balls!

Heh, heh. That's why I love two floors. If we can get the first in order, then we can have people over and they'll never know! Or at least that's what I used to think - before we had people over who had kids. Every freakin time some kid will scoot up the stairs and we'll hold our collective breath that mom and dad (our friends) will not follow junior to the second floor!

Kris - - and others who are over the worst of training financial ruin:

Why not hire a weekly housekeeper? I can think of very few better uses of money - - especially if you want to focus your time on your kids. Our housekeeper comes once a week, sometimes more if we are entertaining. A good housekeeper is amazing - - ours cleans things that never would have occurred to us - - e.g, baseboards, inside the magazine rack, organizing books in shelves by size. Its affordable too. DH is still in training and we have had a housekeeper for a while and will never be without one again - - our time is way too valuable to us and neither of us are people that enjoy cleaning.

[Sheherezade]

Is it affordable? Most of the people I know here pay like $90 a week. What is the going rate for that service. $90 is too high a price for my tastes.

It depends on where you live and how big your house is and whether you go through a service (often more expensive) or someone who works independently.

We pay $60 per week for 3.5 hours. I live in a major metro area, here the going rate is around 18 dollars per hour. We love our housekeeper so we also give sizeable holiday cash gifts but many people don't do that. If its $90 in your area and that feels a little too dear, maybe you can hire someone to come every other week (only $180 per month) and deal with the bathrooms, floor mopping, heavier work, etc.

My personal take on this is that in the U.S. everyone is pretty comfortable with paying for things (big house, fancy car, plasma tv) - - for example, we know tons of people with $400, $600 car payments per month and no one blinks an eye. Yet, for some reason the same people that will buy a lexus (in my book, a souped up and overmarketed camry!) are reluctant to pay for services that improve their life and increase their free time. I am not talking about you, Goofy - - just the social pressures that I observe that influence all of our spending.

[Sheherezade]

I agree with your analysis. The problem is I am a total tightwad. I am at home with our kids so I feel I should have the time for cleaning. I don't like to do it, though. We have avoided the typical money traps do to my aforementioned tightwadness. I've often thought I could get my arms around a quarterly deep clean.....but I think the weekly or bimonthly stuff will still bother me.

[Phoebe]

We had a housecleaner up until recently. I was tired of him being in my house when I wanted to be home so I decided to try it on my own. I miss having a clean house, but will be thankful for my house back and the extra cash.

Jennifer

[SueC]

I had a lady come and clean my house last Wednesday, and she will come every 2 weeks. The thing is, you really have to have the house picked up before they get here so they can actually clean, and they don't do any picking up of the random stuff that piles up here and there. So the deep cleaning things will finally get done (toilets, floors, dusting), but unless you have somebody all the time, the picking up still has to be done.

[DCJenn]

My house is on the market.

I have "display only" towels that I bought (cheap) at the PX that are hidden under the counter until I need them. The regular ugly towels then get tossed under the sink.

The cleaning ladies came yesterday so all that stuff is done, but we will vaccuum one more time before we walk out the door to go away this weekend. The bed is made and Nikolai's is all put together. I will run the dishwasher before we leave- every single item that resembles a dish will go in there.

I have flowers in the vases with preservative in the water...

I'm so tired of having a show house!!!!!

Jenn

We had a cleaning lady come yesterday and, for the first time since moving in nearly two years ago, our baseboards are clean! It's nice having a spotless microwave and no dust bunnies under the furniture, but I don't think having a cleaning lady is going to work out for us....I am just way too anal about how things are cleaned. There were some streaks on the kitchen counters after she cleaned them and I didn't feel comfortable asking her to go over them again. And I was paranoid that she would scratch the floors. Not to mention, it just felt weird having a stranger clean my toilets.

Depending on my work status, we have had the house cleaned off and on over the years. I love it! Yes, Angie, I see your point about being home so I should do it and I feel that way too at times. But....I like my house clean, I don't like cleaning (except vacuuming), and I'm not particularly good at it.

Every other week is a goal. And I would forgo the new car and payment for it if needed.