We clean off all surfaces and put away anything that might be in her way, seems to make sense since she gets paid by the hour.
We have cats, so dusting is taken care of. A little catnip, a little Endust sprayed on them, wind up their tails and WHEEEE!!!
All done.
I was thinking maybe I’d get a maid
find a place nearby for her to stay
Just someone to keep my house clean,
fix my meals and go away.
-Neil Young
After we adopted the Firebug, my wife and I realized we had far less time for, well, anything other than the kid than we’d ever had before. (This is a common realization among new parents, I know. But bear with me.) That included housecleaning.
Fortunately, we’re pretty well off: while we have far less than enough time, we have more than enough money. So we do a lot of things that basically amount to trading money for time.
One of those things has been to hire a cleaning woman to come in once every two weeks. She’s great, and we wish we’d been doing this all along.
[If anyone in southern Maryland, including the OP, is looking for a cleaning lady, PM me! She says she can still fit in a few new clients.]
Usually on a Friday or Saturday afternoon, a coupla times a month and while drinking and listening to music or watching a game on TV. I live in a very small apartment so if it gets messy you notice quick, so I can’t really let it go or it gets depressing. I find it so hard to get motivated to clean that I prefer to be a little buzzed to get through it, makes it seem less of a chore.
Amazing how much I get done after a gargle or three! 
We did this, too. We can keep clutter at bay (when we have a reason to do so - without the cleaning lady, we’ve fallen back into old habits). But it’s not a great use of their time to move crap from one surface to the other so they can reach what they need to clean. It’ll either make the cleaning cost much more or, if there’s a set amount of time in which she has to clean, could mean that she’s not cleaning the right things or unable to do a deep clean.
Same here and we do laundry when we have nothing left to wear, I wish I was better about it.
Other things that helped me become a tidy person:
–I got the smallest place I could comfortably live in (750 sq ft). A load of laundry takes only a minute because the bedroom and the washing machine are only a few steps apart. The bathroom takes 5 minutes to clean because it’s so tiny.
–I figured out exactly how organized I was willing to be, and how much effort I was willing to put in, and then found attractive but practical solutions. All my shoes are lined up on the bottom shelf of a console table just inside the front door. In my living room. Probably 30 pairs. They’re always put away because it’s easy to put them away. Ditto filing important papers and tax deductible receipts. There are two baskets just inside the front door for such items.
Sure, the shoes look eccentric there, but it’s tidy. And sure, the “important papers” basket holds a wide variety of things (no separate folders for “warranties” or “car insurance” or “pay stubs”), but at least I know where things are, and they’re hidden from view.
So I’d say that a key thing I learned was, “downsize.”
I am sincerely about a zillion times happier living in a clean, tidy, small space and limiting my possessions and keeping up on the cleaning daily, than I was when I lived in a place twice this size, accumulated all kinds of stuff that seemed vaguely interesting or useful, and ended up postponing chores because they seemed like they would take such a large chunk of my time.
Excellent point. I hate cleaning and I only do the minimum necessary to keep pig-sty-dom at bay, so this is the only reason housecleaning isn’t completely hopeless for me. I have a tiny house and very few possessions. The less you own, the less you have to clean/move/manage/fuss over.
I suspect that many people in America would be happier if they only had half the possessions they have. Sometimes the possessions own you instead of the other way around.
Remember what Quentin Crisp said: “After the first six years, the dust doesn’t get any worse.”
Some things have to be done every day, like dishes and floors and wiping down counter tops, and others are on the weekend because that is when I have time for them, like laundry (the laundry facility in our building isn’t open 24 hours, so it really has to be the weekend because I work during the week).
Other than those chores, my system for the rest of the cleaning is to focus on one room per week (smaller areas get combined, like bathroom and hallway). At some point during the week, the normal cleaning needs to happen but it might vary whether it happens a little each day or all on one day depending what else I have going on schedule-wise. In addition, each week I tackle one random project in the room that doesn’t need to be done very often, like cleaning out the medicine cabinet, or taking down curtains to launder them, or replacing shelf paper in the kitchen.
This makes me sound like a crazy OCD person, but it’s because my natural tendency is to be pretty lazy and live like a person on hoarders (as my mother and college roommate will attest to) … I had to learn if I don’t stay ON IT, it will all go south quickly.
When we talked about moving in together, my SO confided in me that he was worried that our levels of cleanliness didnt’ quite match. I spent so much time at his house that when I was at my place, it was for short bits of time. So, I never really cleaned at my place that much. Now that we live together, we have different levels of cleanliness still, but they’re in odd ways.
I’m more of a “place for everything and everything in its place” type cleaner. The scissors go back where they belong, clothes aren’t meant to be left on the bathroom floor-put 'em in the hamper. I’m constantly picking up after him.
He’s more of a “let me get the bleach out” or “I’m going to move all of the objets d’art and dust with Pledge”.
So, I’m more superficial but tidy and he’s more chaotic but into the deeper clean.
We both don’t think the other keeps the place clean though.
Is there a reason for this? It seems kind of odd for your building to allow people to wash their clothes only during certain hours.
If my Roomba and Scooba can’t do it, it never gets done.
Things that happen every day: Dishes washed, a load of laundry, dirty clothes in hamper, toys picked up in playroom. (Celtling’s beginning to really help with this part)
Every other day: Sanitize (not just wipe down) Celtling’s bathtub, trash taken out, incoming mail sorted.
Weekly: Aquariums cleaned/waterchanged on Sunday morning, major laundry push also on Sunday, take trash to dump, bathrooms cleaned, bedsheets changed.
Not nearly often enough: cleaning out the car, cleaning my own bedroom/shower, mopping kitchen floor, overall vacuuming.
Also each day I try to pick a ten by ten foot area to deep clean. Or it might be another bigger chore like vacuum the playroom.
It’s not dirty, it’s not hoarding and it’s never squalor-level, but it’s always cluttered and seldom company-safe. I’m really looking forward to the day when I can have household help again, even if it was only once per month, it would help me get caught up completely. The last time I was completely caught up I had taken a day off of work to do it.
In my dark, dark heart I suspect it’s only so the building management can cover its ass in the event of a security issue … but the laundry room is in an area that is accessed through the back door of the building, which is locked from 9 PM to 7 AM. And frankly, I don’t even think locking the back door at night reduces the risk of crime … don’t most burglars want to come during the day, when the back door is open and people are at work? But I would guess most residents feel the perception of having this door locked at night makes them safer. I think the other factor is also the perception that someone is more likely to … hang out in the laundry room late at night, waiting to prey upon a lone woman coming to do laundry? Again, this could happen during the day as well, but one could make the argument that there is likely to be more traffic during the day that would discourage this.
In my world, I would LOVE to be able to throw a few loads of laundry in between, say, 9 PM and midnight.
It’s so great that you recognize this. I’m the “Sanitized Clutter” type, everything is clean, but there’s stuff everywhere. I don’t see the point of just neatening if you’re not going to kill germs int he process. My Dad, OTOH, will put a plate back in the cupboard with noodles still stuck to it, provided it’s been through the dishwasher. But he couldn’t sleep if that plate was sitting in the sink waiting for the next washload. :rolleyes:
It’s weird to me that we don’t have names for these, because the two types are so very common IME.
I will never, ever give up having someone clean for me. I am a big girl, and I would go without food before I would clean for myself again. That’s saying a lot.
Honestly, the thousands I have spent on having people clean for me over the past 20 years is worth every penny. I pay $50 now per cleaning, and would easily pay twice as much if I had to.
Same with Mr. Athena and I. I remember when he had an apartment - it always looked very tidy & neat, but whenever I took a shower I had to make sure nothing but my feet touched it because the damn thing was so icky crusty dirty.
I’m not neat, but my house is clean even when I have to clean it myself. Kitchen gets cleaned daily, sinks are scoured and bleached minimum once a week, shower gets cleaned when I start to see scum. But those books on the end table? Yeah, they’ve been there for 6 months…
Very little gets done until the weekend. I will usually put my trash straight into the trash can. Usually. But if I forget, or get sleepy, or leave cans on my desk when I’m done with my drink, then stuff piles up until the weekend. I take care of the urgent stuff on Sunday (bag up trash, run a load or 2 of laundry, clear up the most offensive general clutter).
The maintenance stuff (like vacuuming and mopping, rearranging drawers) might happen once a month or if I have company coming over–whenever I get inspired, which isn’t often. I’m the only one living in my space, and I don’t care about dust bunnies.
During the week, I will regularly spray Febreze (I and my roomie are indoor smokers, so it helps). I will also clean up immediately after cooking in the kitchen, but frankly that doesn’t happen too often (maybe a couple times a week). I’m more of a microwaver, and I use paper plates and plastic forks to cut down on the need for dishwashing.
We alternate cleaning the bathroom every few weeks, and we each clean up after ourselves in the kitchen. Keeps it simple.
Guerrilla spot cleaning.
I walk in the door, maybe have 15 minutes to kill, possibly 30. Whatever I can get done in that amount of time is what gets done that day. Maybe vac & dust one room, scrub one bathroom, do the dishes, take the trash & recycling out. There may be something like a cat pee emergency that pushes that chore to top priority. (Walk in. SNIFF Ew! What did he pee on this time? Search frantically for peed-on spot, clean vigorously.)
Then I allot about two hours on Saturday morning to get bigger chores done, and whatever else didn’t get done through the week. Laundry happens on Sundays.