Yarster, it sounds like you’re kind of on the fence with her. Would she be someone you’d recommend to someone else?
[sub]just askin’ since you’re in the same city and all…[/sub]
This is the one luxury I will never give up. Like Cranky, I hire a one woman show. She charges $50 to clean my 1,000 sq foot place, but I always leave her $60. She cleans the bathroom, kitchen, the floors, dusts, washes any dishes I leave (I try not to leave many) and changes the sheets. I try to have the house clutter picked up before she comes and get all the dirty laundry off the floor.
She has a key and is here when we are not. I trust her completely.
One advantage is that she has cat-sit on several occasions. She already has a key, she and the cats know each other, and she lives nearby, so it works out wonderfully.
I got laid off in November, and there are no jobs to be had locally in my field so I’ve started my own cleaning service. I try to be worth what I’m charging, but it is hard to compete against people who don’t report the income or have to pay for insurance. I have to pay self-employment taxes, and general liability insurance, increased car insurance, etc.
I figure costs of the job based on the number of bathrooms, the square footage that has to be mopped, vacuumed, or otherwise cleaned, and so on. I try to be clear up front about what is included and what is not. A home full of breakable bits (no matter how lovely), is much, much harder to clean than a home rather on the stark side. Some cleaning services deliberately won’t bid on a cluttered home, or will refuse to dust. A generally tidy home is much faster to clean, so I’ll bid less.
Myself, I will not handle breakable items of any sort - the job is dangerous enough considering the chemicals and things that tend to fall down on one. So far, I’ve been beaned by a shower caddy, and had my foot clobbered by a hidden, heavy wood TV tray that was behind a garbage pail I moved while mopping. Additionally, the profit margin is small enough that breaking one item can wipe out a month or three’s entire profit.
I fill out actual bid sheets and contracts for my regulars - it is a lot easier to prove in court that I’m an independent contractor if you can wave the actual contract in black and white at the judge. I do it to protect my customers, and to protect me by making sure they know exactly what I’ve promised to clean or not.
I’ve charged from $65 for a once-thorough on a friends 1 bedroom apartment, up to several hundred dollars for heavy-duty spring cleaning for a large home (also a once-thorough). I charge my repeat customers less, averaging out the cost of that first, longer cleaning. I may have to stop doing that - one customer has already made comments about dropping me because ‘it shouldn’t cost so much to clean a house that is already this clean’. So, I’ll have to charge more for the first visit, and less on follow-ups.
I bring all my own supplies and equipment, except when the customer prefers a special type of wood polish, etc.
I would do anything to get a housekeeper into this place.
Because our living situation is unique, and this is not my house, it is not kept to my preferred cleanliness standards. Having said this, I could clean the place myself but I wold have to hire a skip, and spend hours upon hours upon hours to get it the way I would like it. Alas, I cannot. So I just stay in our room and make sure I wear shoes whenever I go out of it.
Yes. I would do anything for a housekeeper.
sorry darlin’ but it’s true.
I have a lady that comes in every second week and does a marvelous job. I pay her $35.00 and she cleans the house from top to bottom, including changing the bed linens.
It’s nice to come home and know that it’s done. I clean in between, but she does the big stuff which is great. It lets me spend more time with my son.
Definately worth it…
I had surgery last year with big complications. So we hired someone to come in every 2 weeks. Lovely. The happiness of coming home to a clean house (that I didn’t have to clean) was so worth it.
After several months, we started renovating the house and stopped maid service. I miss it so much!