Advice needed on hiring a cleaning-lady

In My Humble Opinion
1

At the gallery I have one, but I more or less inherited her. She came with the shop, so to speak. She’s an awesome lady and I wish she didn’t have such a full agenda, so that I could have her at home as well, but she doesn’t have any more time.

I need a cleaning lady at home now.
I never had to hire someone like that, always could manage myself. :frowning:

I could use some advice.
How do I go about? What do I ask? What do I look for?
How many women do I interview?

I know the going rate and am prepared to pay the best salary.
I just need to know what to do.

Thank you. :slight_smile:

2

Does it have to be a woman? :slight_smile:

3

Yeah, it could be the start of a beautiful relationship.

Ask them how they would clean the kitchen, and note how many talk of actually pulling things out, like the fridge, to clean behind them. Ditto with sitting room, pulling out the sofa, cabinets (if practicable). These are the ones who take their job seriously.

PS If you find a good one, send her (or him) over here, would you?

4

If money is no object then I’d go with a maid service. They’re bonded (i.e. if they break anything in your home they’re insured), they usually are very experienced, and they’ll come as often or as rarely as you like. Most have special packages (i.e. twice a month for $X). Here (Alabama) you can expect to pay around $25 per hour for one or a crew of two, though I have no idea what the rest of the nation runs. The old joke about “I don’t do windows” really is true (most do not- not sure why).

5

Blimey, that’s what a cleaner here gets a day - if they’re lucky!

6

I’m going to completely disagree with Sampiro and say you should absolutely avoid the corporate maid services. From what I’ve heard about them, they make things look clean without actually being clean, which I find absolutely gross. We have a little Japanese lady who runs her own business, and she scrubs the place within an inch of its life. I’ve seen her change the mop water three times just doing the kitchen, to make absolutely certain she has the floor as scrupulously clean as it can possibly ever be. I love her.

If I were you, I’d start by asking the lady who does the gallery if she knows of anyone good who has an opening.

You need to sit down and figure out what, exactly, you want a cleaning person to do. Do you want general tidying up, laundry, heavy cleaning, what? Once you’ve figured that out, interviewing someone pretty much consists of showing them through the house, explaining what you’d like done in each room, and asking what they’ll charge for that. At least, that was pretty much all my interview with Masako consisted of.

We interviewed three people overall. We interviewed two people initially and went with the cheaper and more personable one. She proved unreliable, so we started looking again. The second time around, Masako was the only one we interviewed. I was taking her through the house explaining what I wanted, and she frowned at my kitchen sink and said, “Oh, yes, this area needs a lot of attention.” I knew right then that unless she was just exhobitantly expensive, she had the job, because presentable wasn’t good enough for her. She was actually quite reasonably priced, compared to the other quotes we’d gotten, and she’s been coming every second week for nearly two years now.

It’s been absolutely worth every single cent, too. All I wanted was for her to do the floors and bathrooms, dust, and wipe down the kitchen countertops and the stove. She vaccuums my living room furniture to make sure there’s no scrap of dog hair on the upholstery. She polishes the glass-top side table in the dining room. She cleans out the air vents. She’d vaccuum the dogs if they’d stand still for it. She shakes out the door mats, bath mat, and small area rugs. She cleans the microwave. And that kitchen sink area glows when she gets done with it.

7

I would agree with Crazy Cat Lady. There are many enterprising businesspeople who have started their own cleaning business to be their own boss. You can find one who is insured and bonded.

We’ve done as she described. Walk someone through the house, they give an estimate, if it seems reasonable to you, then go ahead and clean (right then and there, or another day). If you like it, you ask them back. If not, you repeat with a new prospect.

8

I also agree with CrazyCatLady. The employee cleaners always tend to do a less than thorough job.

I’ve had good and bad cleaning ladies (only one guy who was SOOOOO bad that he doesn’t count) over the years.

My 3 cents:

  • Choose someone who has been in the area for a few years.
  • I find that the local paper and craigslist are good sources.
  • The ones who have a “brochure” of references and do the work themselves are the best bets.
  • Have a checklist ready of what you specifically want done in each room. Review this with them when you do your first walk through.
  • You get what you pay for. It is worth it to find a person who is a bit more expensive but who is good at doing the job.
  • Check References!
  • After they clean the first couple of times, do an assessment of how they are doing against your checklist. If something isn’t done to your satisfaction, provide feedback right away. If you wait to long, it gets awkward.
  • If you have someone who is wonderful, give them a nice bonus at Christmas time (or some other occasion). You are letting them into your home - and earning your trust is worth keeping them happy.
9

Hopefully it is not a representative sample, but when I read Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, her section on working for a maid company and how they “cleaned” the houses they worked in, it left me revolted. Granted, I’m just the teeniest bit OCD when it comes to kitchen cleanliness, but I don’t think I could hire one of those companies after reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s description.

10

How nice of you to ask - I just hired a new one.

To be honest, I asked the neighborhood gossip, who happens to be my next door neighbor. He knows lots of people, remembers things about them, likes doing things for people, and knew that in my personal case, the single most important qualities were honesty (they’re getting a key to my house, after all!) and reliability (my previous cleaner had been extremely honest, but actually getting her to show up was not easy - it’s a long story…).

He put me in touch with the wife of his barber; he’d done some plumbing for them as well as maintaining some degree of friendship and knew them to be honest, reliable, and have a very high work ethic. Husband, wife, and son came over to talk with me, and I could tell from the way she spoke (although her lack of English and mine of Portugese was a bit of a problem) that she was thoroughly professional. AND she tolerates my dogs (two rather sizable Great Danes).

So far I’m delighted. Her work is wonderful, and she personally is a delightful person, which helps. So I recommend asking your neighborhood gossip - every neighborhood has one - the guy or gal who knows everybody.

11

So, how do cleaning people “clean” a kitchen or bathroom without actually cleaning it? Is it just a psycho-optical illusion where they hit the highlights? Just “point” the toilet paper, wipe the sink spout and everything looks clean?

Just wondering as every so often, the idea of having someone come in once a week to hose out the bathrooms and kitchen seems appealing. Having someone do a phony fluff and buff would be appalling.

12

Oh, hundreds of ways. Here’s a few:

  • don’t change the water in the scrub pail often enough, effectively spreading dirty water over surfaces
  • use the same rag for, say, the toilet and your kitchen counters
  • wipe down the kitchen counters, but don’t disinfect via bleach or other disinfecting cleaners

Need I go on?

13

BTW, does it have to be a Naked Housecleaner, because that makes a difference in how much you tip them (and whether or not you should consider using the AARP Employment Service).

14

That’s one way, yes. As Athena says, there’s lots of ways to make something look presentable without actually cleaning it. The one that always got my goat at my last job was the people who would change the mop water but never change or even rinse out the mop head. Not so much an issue in a house, but in a vet clinic you tend to mop up a lot of piss, so they’d be plunking a urine-soaked mop head into clean water and basically wind up mopping the floor with dilute urine. They never could figure out why the place looked clean but smelled awful. I tried to explain to them that if they were going use the old pee-soaked mop head, they might as well not bother changing the water, but it just never seemed to soak in. Gaaahhh, it skeeves me out thinking about it. Excuse me, I need to go wash and bleach my mop heads now.

15

I’m probably being paranoid, but check references before inviting them into your home. You don’t want to give a burglar a tour, do you?

Speaking to the lady at your shop is probably the best bet.

16

Good tips, everyone. Thanks.

Oh, I *have * spoken to Karin, the lady at my shop. She knows some other cleaning ladies, but not in my neighborhood and they’re not willing to travel far.

CrazyCatLady and Athena, that’s where I’m afraid of: "Cleaning’ the place with a dirty mop. I got nauseous at: “using the same rag for, say, the toilet and your kitchen counters” Eww.

I don’t like cleaning, but I’m precise. I figure: If I have to do it, I might as well do it thoroughly. Since I can’t do it myself anymore I need someone for the ‘heavy’ work. Vacuuming and anything requiring strenght in the arms.
I’ve heard of friends with cleaning ladies [No, no-one available there either] and I realize I need to get a bit less strict about a clean home, but I really wouldn’t like to eat from a kitchen counter that has just been cleaned by a toilet rag. Bleghhh.

The going rate is between 8 Euro [$10.40] and 12 Euro [$15.60] an hour.
I’m willing to pay more, when it’s done thorough.
Which brings me to this: How will I know a person is ‘unreliable’ and what will I say to her, when I decide not to hire her?

Wish me luck and thank you all again.

btw: I’d really love a Naked Male Housecleaner, but I’m afraid he’d have to use his - ahem - dusting abilities on something else. :smiley:

17

All I can recommend is people sense. Generally cleaning ladies will all start off perfect and then degrade after a while to just doing the bare minimum–I think the best you can do is to determine less how much they are hard workers, and more how much they dislike dirt. An enterprising person will be more concerned with expanding her clientelle than making everything perfect. Most people really are quite honest–they just don’t realise themselves that they are slacking or hurrying. But if they just hate the dirt–then it will get gone.

If you make the decision during the interview, just say you’ve got a couple more interviews and you’ll call once you’ve made up your mind.

  • Note that I have experience with maids and experience with interviewing people (as a co-worker), but not experience interviewing nor hiring a maid.
18

Well, we sort of figured out the first woman we hired was unreliable when she was three hours late the first visit (family emergency, we figured it was no big deal), then didn’t show up at all the second time. We just called and told her we’d decided to go with someone else.

If you’re talking about the “fluff and buff” stuff, that’s sometimes a matter of miscommunication. Some people want someone to come in and do the surface stuff to keep the house looking pretty and they’ll do the heavy stuff themselves. (It’s a lot easier to do the heavy stuff if you haven’t worn yourself out dealing with the surface stuff.) So you have to make sure that the people you interview understand you absolutely don’t want that.

And sometimes that stuff is just a matter of plain old doing a bad job. Sometimes you can tell during the interview that it will or won’t be an issue–listen carefully to their comments and questions during the interview. If they keep wanting to clarify just exactly what you want them to do and what they don’t have to do, give 'em the boot. People like that aren’t going to go the extra mile to make sure your house is clean. If they spontaneously point out things that need to be done or say things like “Well, I’m not entirely sure I can get all of the mildew stains out of your grout,” when all you said was that you wanted the bathroom cleaned, you’re generally pretty safe. It says they’re looking at your house from a viewpoint of what needs to be done to get the place clean, rather than what you absolutely expect to be done so they can get paid. That’s how I knew our current lady was a keeper, and she is absolutely worth her weight in gold.

If you can’t tell during the interview, you can certainly tell after the first cleaning or two. I’d suggest trying to be home for the first visit, especially if you have any doubts. That way you’re available to clarify any questions neither of you thought about before, and you can keep an eye on how they do stuff. Don’t hover around asking questions and making suggestions, but be aware of what’s going on. See how often they’re changing cleaning water, if they’re using different rags or sponges, that sort of thing. Afterward, take a damp cloth and wipe a spot on the floor to see if anything comes up. Check corners and edges of stuff. Check your tile for soap scum and such. Fluff-and-buffers don’t do soap scum, trust me. If something’s not up to your standards, speak up at or before the next visit.

One thing you might consider doing is to hire this person on a probational basis, where she comes a few times and if it’s satisfactory for both of you, then you’ll carry on from there. Then if they’re lazy or unreliable, you can just say that it’s not working out.

19

Currently, I don’t have a cleaning lady and I wish you luck in finding a good one! I have been through 5 in the last year and both the services and the individuals I have fired. Maybe I am too picky but I feel why am I paying 240 per month minimum for there to be dust on my furniture or mildew in my showers? Everyone seems to “surface” clean. Clean around things, not move the toaster or clean in the microwave. The last one I fired ask…“what do you want, everything to be spotless?” YES! If I want to use a feather duster, I can do that myself! Why do I have a cleaning person if I have to go back and do what she didn’t do?
I am so frustrated with the entire process! What ever happened to pride in your work?

Sorry, your post touched a nerve. You will have much better luck if you are not as picky as me.

20

I’m going to chime in with another agreement to avoid Merry Maids and the like. I’ve never talked with anyone who was happy with the results. Also, I’m not crazy about paying big bucks to a middle man, just so they can pay a pittance to the people who actually do the work.

Our last cleaning lady (jeez, that sounds sexist, but I can’t help myself) charged by the job rather than by the hour. Needless to say, she tacked on $75 dollars extra because we have three cats. It was worth every cent to see the furniture, base boards, etc. devoid of cat fur twice a month.