Oh HELL YES. My boyfriend wouldn’t, but if it was him or the maid, so long it’s been nice Mr Man! I wouldn’t want somebody living in my house, though.
I have a maid come once a month. When I return from work on that day, the kitchen and bathrooms are clean and the house smells of Pine Sol.
It’s like Christmas every fourth Thursday.
Added bonus: I don’t have to waste part of each weekend cleaning the bathrooms. I hated that.
This. Besides, why else do you think I had these kids? Free labor, baby!
What I’d like first and foremost is one of those organizational experts to come in and help me stow the paperwork and craft supplies.
After that, weekly cleaning would be wonderful, and all I’d really want. I don’t want a live-in, for sure, and there’s just not enough work for one. Well, there could be, I guess, but it would make my place cleaner than I’m really comfortable in. (Yes, people have a too-clean threshold, as well as a too-dirty one. I learned that when staying with my in-laws for a few days.)
I would love to have someone to clean my house once a week. I keep telling everyone that’s what I want for Christmas, or my birthday, but no one has listened yet.
You should try it, if you’re that interested. Most cleaning services have no contracts, so you won’t have to worry about being locked into something long-term if, for whatever reason, it doesn’t work out. Also, don’t be afraid to use a service only one time if that’s what you need or want.
I’d stay away from the established companies, especially the franchises, if I were you. I tried both Molly Maid and Merry Maids, which were unpleasant experiences. They’re both very expensive for what they do, and there’s a lot they don’t (or wont) do.
The best cleaning people I’ve dealt with are individuals who’ve left flyers, or small (obviously non professionally designed) mailers in my mailbox. In my experience, they really went out of their way to earn my business, are extremely accommodating and attentive, and do an amazing job cleaning my home.
I’m torn. I don’t want a stranger in my home, but it would be so nice to have someone come in once a month and do a professional job.
I’m still considering it.
+++++++++
It is my fondest dream to have some else to do my laundry. I can handle everything else, but with five children, my laundry is just unbelievable. Maybe a guy once a month for the hard work like scrubbing the floors or moving furniture around. I love rearranging.
That’s funny. Laundry is the only thing my wife absolutely will not allow our cleaning lady to do; she has a thing about other people touching her unmentionables.
Oh, yeah, I definitely have a too-clean threshold! A dear friend of mine in western Maryland hosted us at her house a number of times, and I didn’t even feel like it was safe to sit down in there, for fear I might wrinkle the upholstery or something!
Once when we went over, she started apologizing profusely for the ‘huge mess’ as soon as we stepped through the door. The ‘huge mess’ turned out to be a small stack of neatly folded laundry on one end of the sofa in the room we were gathering in! :eek: Another time, when I was about seven years pregnant (don’t tell me it can’t happen; I was there!) and she found out our house wasn’t air conditioned, she offered to give me a large window air conditioner they no longer used. Her only concern was that, in order for her to give it to me, I’d have to see her garage! What a nightmare! Yeah, sure. There were maybe ten cardboard crates neatly stacked against the back wall. Other than that, it was as spotless as the rest of her house!
We have someone come in once a week to change the sheets and towels, clean the kitchen and bathrooms, sweep, dust, mop, and vacuum. It is so worth every penny. One of the biggest benefits is that it means we have to do thorough tidying the night before.
The one downside is that my 4yo is a little too comfortable with someone else cleaning up her room. There have been a couple of awkward situations where she asked the cleaning lady to do a job for her. “Miss Ana, after you’re done vacuuming my room, could you please make a ‘keep out’ sign for my door?” Yikes.
GOD yes, I had a cleaner come once a week for about ten years. That was ten years when I didn’t have to do any cleaning beyond wiping the odd kitchen surface.
I hated in when the cleaner was there however. She used to come when I was at work, except one time when I had a day off. I hid in my room. She decided I must be ill and kept coming into the room, sitting on the bed and feeling my brow (I was having a lie in). She didn’t speak English – she was from Latvia – and eventually she pulled up the most enormish english-latvian dictionary and pointed to the word ‘diseased’. NO! :eek: nononono.
I don’t have one at the moment and my cleaning seems to take all Saturday long. Just as soon as my other half gets a better paid job, we’re splashing out on that nice Latvian cleaner (costs c. £12 per hour in London, for the record. Three hours a week would do it).
Heh. My (ex) father in law power washes his driveway. Daily.
I remember reading a chapter in an Erma Bombeck book (God, she was funny!) about some of her obsessively clean neighbors, and how they would spend the afternoon picking lint off their refrigerator and waxing their garbage cans! LOL.
The thing is, I would be embarassed letting a maid into my home. I’d need to clean it thoroughly first. And then I wouldn’t need the maid!
The neighbors across the street routinely vacuum their garage. I have even seen them vacuum the lawn.
This is a common “problem”, but as someone who worked with a housekeeper for a summer, let me tell ya…don’t worry about it. They’ve seen worse, I guarantee it. Unless you’ve recently been featured on Hoarders, of course. But even then, they’ve probably seen worse! They know they’re there because you don’t like/have time/know how to clean. They *would *like it if you put the porn away before they get there, but it’s not entirely required.
I’m all for it, maybe once a month or every other week for deep cleaning stuff that I never seem to be able to get to. I’d really like a laundry service, or maybe if my roommate would just do his share of the laundry, I wouldn’t resent doing laundry so much.
Whether I have the money or not is debatable at the moment. I’d probably rather spend the money on my gym membership. I’d rather be healthy and in great shape than have a perfectly pristine house. I don’t mind a little dust here and there. My house gets cluttered, but not unsanitary.
Anyway, if a cleaning person waxed my stripper pole or tried to “clean” it with anything other than rubbing alcohol, he or she would be straight-up fired. I’m sure that could be clearly spelled out beforehand, so it probably wouldn’t be a concern.
I love my cleaning lady. She comes once a week for two hours and is the best $200 I spend each month. She does my laundry and dishes and yesterday when my dog escaped she went over to the pound to pick him up so I didn’t have to take off of work.
If I had the money I would get her to come every day I’m not that dirty but it would be nice having that clean home smell every day. If I had the money I would have a bigger house and in that case I would like a live in maid so that I never have to do anything and the house is never dirty.
I chose “No Answer/Other”: I can afford a maid, and I would love to have someone regularly clean the bathrooms and floors for me, but I live alone and would feel way too guilty. It would seem like a waste of money. So, I keep doing all of the housework myself (which means that the bathrooms and floors don’t get cleaned quite as often as they should). But I did finally hire a lawn service a couple of years ago, despite living in a townhouse with minimal grass, so who knows…maybe someday I’ll get over the guilt and hire a housecleaner, too.
I vacuumed my garage once. :o But it’s a one-car garage that really doesn’t have room for anything but the car, and I was tired of bringing leaves and dirt into the house with me. It worked until the leaves clogged the hose. Next time I’ll just sweep it out.
It would never in a million years occur to me to vacuum the lawn. Thank goodness.