Our cleaning lady never quit.
I saw the one with Robert Redford! OMG, he was something like 23 years old.
Our cleaning lady announced that she will restart service in June, following all recommended protocols.
We gave our full-time housekeeper a choice. She could move in for the duration, or she could stay home with full pay. She chose to move in and is talking about moving out of state with us.
Because I am still working, I am the one going out and doing shopping and other chores. Karen keeps the house and scolds my BB into getting off his computer and taking the dogs for walks.
Robert Redford was in an episode of Perry Mason? Wow. Yes, image found, here.
I have not asked my cleaner to return. Not yet. I will wait until California, and specifically the SFBA, gives it the OK, and even then I will ask her to come only if she is comfortable doing so. She has the key to my house. I don’t need to be at home. I’m usually not when she comes. I’ve been paying her too, and will continue doing so.
My housekeeper resumed her business last week. Dressed head to toe in a white paper overalls with hood, a mask and goggles. Scared the heck out of my cat that normally adores her. She also asked my wife and I to mask up while she was there, not a problem. She thought we did an “acceptable” job of keeping up on the housework while she was out. I think she is just looking for another big Christmas bonus. 
Never stopped. She comes once every two weeks.
Ours didn’t come a couple times but is now coming regularly. I think she would do the right thing and tell us if she was sick.
She does wear a face mask.
Ours is coming back tomorrow. Both husband and I had presumptive positive cases of COVID in the beginning of March, we have thoroughly disinfected the house multiple times since then, I will go out for a walk and husband will stay in the office with the door shut while she’s here, and we will encourage her to mask up. We’re more worried about her health than the risk of her bringing anything to us, but she is feeling up to returning to work so we’ll give it a shot.
If she knows…
That’s one of the problems with CV. People often don’t know they’re sick until they’ve been contagious for a couple of weeks. A mask is definitely in order – at least when you’re in the room together.
Mine never stopped. I can’t see well enough to clean thoroughly, so I view her as essential. We wear masks and never get closer than 10 feet from each other.
Not yet, though we’re paying her (a retainer is how I think of it). She cleans for at least one medical professional and has a child whose likelihood of not interacting with other people is low, so we’ll wait for now, at least until there’s somewhere we can go while she’s cleaning and for a good number of hours afterward.
Once every two weeks. She never stopped. We leave the house for a drive and dinner, maybe a walk. The last thing she does before she leaves is disinfect high touch areas. Both my wife and I work and come in to contact with the public for different reasons so I think it’s actually good for the kids and the house.
My wife started back last week. I think she works for about 20 families and there were only a handful that didn’t want her back. Honestly I think most wish she had never stopped but the state shut down nonessential work and not knowing how this was going to play out 8 weeks ago when that was handed down she backed off of her business. She had one family that actually moved away during all of this and she found out when contacting everyone to restart service. She had another that is waiting until there is a vaccine. Two wanted to wait until the beginning of June, and one I think may be holding off because they may not be working so it may be a financial thing. On the other hand, one family wanted to go from biweekly to weekly, another hired her to clean a second home that they have, and she went and bid a house that the mother of another client lives in and she’s likely to start cleaning that one biweekly. All in all if the people that want to start around June come back she may end up with even more work than she had prior to COVID, which was already a very full schedule.
The worst part about going back is that these houses have been lived in 24/7 now by the entire families and they are much dirtier than they usually were between cleans. She told me that some areas are surprisingly clean, some surprisingly dirty, and in the end she’s spending long days trying to catch houses back up.
I can’t believe so many people here have house cleaners… I have a lot of health problems, but wouldn’t even know how to go about finding someone, and don’t think I could just sit around while someone cleans. My place is so unorganized, I’d have to monitor the entire process on where everything goes.
I’ve always found a cleaner by asking someone in the neighborhood. My mother would have DIED before allowing anyone in to clean. I’m not her. 
I’ve had someone clean (different people) since I was in my late 20s. I’ve lived alone during most of that time and had whoever it was come every other week. When I was married (for 10 years until my husband’s death) I had the cleaner come every week. I don’t “just sit around” while she cleans. Usually I vacate, although when I was working there were times when I had a project and just closed myself off in my office. Other people I know who have regular cleaners actually work with the person and the two of them clean together. It’s very common where I live and most of my friends have regular cleaners, even the people like me who live alone.
An experienced cleaner will have seen EVERY possible type of disorganization and mess and would not be daunted by yours-- I’m 100% positive about that. It’s a nice thing to do for yourself, especially if you have health problems. It falls under the heading of “self-care.” And usually whoever you hire needs the work. [/possibly interesting random background]
BTW, how are you doing, MortSahlFan?
Totally understand. They are tricky to find, and to trust. My wife didn’t want to deal with it. I posted an ad in Craigslist and wanted replies by email (instead of phone call). From those replies I had a pretty standard form letter asking follow-up questions. I got fewer replies, which is what I wanted – I wanted to screen people out before meeting them, by email replies, and by checking their references. Of course people are going to give references that are favorable, but I followed up on those references by telephone following a standardized list of questions to ask.
Finally, based on those phases, I held a phone interview with the cleaner. The first time I talked to them. One thing important to us is that we talked to the cleaner, the person who would actually do the work. We didn’t want a service or a team of cleaners rotating in and out of my house. Finally, after all that, I invited the top candidate to come and do a cleaning of the house. And of course I was there, working from home but paying attention to how they did things.
You’d be surprised at how many cleaners will attack venetian blinds like they’re Willie Mays hitting a home run, and then leave the blinds disheveled and bent. While I Was Right There! Or the cleaners who would remove items from a bureau top, dust it, and then put the items back but in a totally different arrangement.
I had to try a few different cleaners, 3 or 4, before one “stuck”. And for the first few months I was there while they cleaned. After some time, I gave her (the winner was female) the key and she was free to come and go on her own. That was one of my screening questions when calling references, if the cleaner was trustworthy enough to have their key.
It’s an investment in time, but very much worth it. I feel that if I did not invest up front with a nicely-worded ad, standardized follow-up emails, a standard phone script for references, and for the cleaner, then I would not be able to trust the person who ended up being our cleaner.
And to me, that is valuable and that’s part of why we paid her during this time.
Oh, one of the leading candidates was our cleaner for a few months, but about every 3rd or 4th time she was scheduled to come, she always had some “emergency” and could not make it. So I’m glad we kept the contacts of all leading candidates, and we rolled over to the next candidate.
Well, my wife (often with my reluctant assistance) spends at least an hour or two “getting ready” for our house cleaner, so she can focus on scrubbing floors and countertops and not organizing and putting things away. As for “sitting around” while someone cleans, my wife will always be busy doing something while the house is being cleaned, and I will be out of the house if at all possible.
I don’t clean before the cleaner comes, but I will pick up stuff. I make the bed and clear stuff off the bedroom floor. I take the dog beds outside to air out in the sun all day. (1 dog… 6 beds… in case she has a nap attack. 
The cats use them, too.) I don’t expect the cleaner to put things away.
We’re a big clean before the cleaner family. She’s being paid to deep clean, scrub, do the toilets and bathtubs… For the two nights before her scheduled day we, as a family, pick up, organize, do the dishes, put away laundry. It’s nice to hit the reset button every two weeks and force yourself to make time for it.