When I lived in Atlanta a few years ago I hired a hispanic woman off of Craigslist to clean once a month or so for $15/hour and thought it was very cheap.
What a cool thread! And cleaning advice/interesting hoarder stories age quite well 
I have a question. Have you ever broken anything the homeowner cared about? How would you handle the situation if that were to occur?
The reason I ask: my mom had a cleaning lady for a few months who was extremely clumsy. Several times she bumped into or broke minor things with some sentimental value (a strand of really old fat Christmas lights comes to mind). The last straw was when she broke something my mom cared a lot about (some ugly little red glass christmas tree) and didn’t offer to replace it or take a small pay cut or apologize sincerely, or anything. And my mom’s place wasn’t very dirty or crowded chock full of stuff, either. She just wanted help with the bathrooms, kitchen, and the ceiling fans because her vision isn’t very good so she has trouble seeing dust and cat hair.
Personally, I feel that even though the knick knacks were ugly, they were sentimental and the lady should have apologized, if not offered to do SOMETHING in restitution. But she didn’t even apologize. Just a little “whoops!” then she moved on. It was… frankly bizarre to have someone in my mom’s house who cared so little for her personal effects. (she fired her right after that–good riddance imo)
I liked the second one better.
I’ve broken a glass or two, but never anything valuable. I made sure to tell the client right away, apologize and offer restitution. I agree that it’s bizarre not to do so. However, I did scratch a floor once, and even though the client said it didn’t matter, I still feel pretty terrible.
The best housekeeping advice I have found came out of the books by Don Aslett. Link: http://www.donaslett.com/ Very down-to-earth, practical, and he addresses de-cluttering as well as cleanliness.
There was only one house where I broke or damaged anything but there were 3 incidents there; one I was clumsy and broke a piece off a mass-produced glass knick-knack that I replaced w/ a new one and they never noticed. Hell, they didn’t notice the broken one was broken either for the 6 weeks it took to sneak in the replacement. Why replace it? The lady of the house was a hysterical hag who was post-partum and the knick-knack was cheap.
The next thing I broke was the glass in a frame after I dusted it; it was a weird 3 piece frame that rested on an easel and the glass slipped out of my hand. When I showed the lady how it happened she made me re-enact it over and over. She did so the next time I cleaned as well, after telling me she called the manufacturer and they were sending a free replacement.
The last one - they had a glass formal dining table that was a hand-me-down and black enameled wooden chairs w/ arms that looked good but didn’t come w/ the table. The chairs just squeaked under the table so they never used it but she still wanted it vacuumed under b/c w/ the glass you could see all the marks in the carpet from her kids playing under it. It was inevitable that I was going to hit an arm moving the chairs and one day I did. It scraped a bit and I showed the husband (who was home ‘babysitting’, as he called it, while his wife was getting her eyes Lasiked) who shrugged and said they had a black furniture pen for that, it happened to them all the time. The next time I cleaned I was presented w/ 2 quotes from furniture refinishers that she’d gotten. She expected me to pay to have that chair redone until I pointed out that doing so would make the other 5 not match it. Then she asked me for half the money to refinish it for the future when they had them all redone. :dubious: I explained to her the reason I was able to clean her house for so cheap for over 5 years was not having costs like insurance and bonding. I never revisited the conversation and neither did she.