# Tipping House Cleaners **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 2, 2004, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-house-cleaners/237983 "2004-04-02T23:59:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harriet_the_Spry)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2004, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-house-cleaners/237983/1 "2004-04-02T23:59:12Z")
If you use a house cleaning service, how much do you tip? Please give your answer as a % of your cost per visit. I’m primarily interested in US responses, and if you could give your region of the country that would be great, too. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![InTransit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47774/32.png) [@InTransit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InTransit)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-house-cleaners/237983/2 "2004-04-03T00:02:35Z")
I had a regular housekeeper come in every 2 weeks at the old house. Around the holidays, I’d give her, as a Christmas gift/bonus, the equivalent of what I paid her per visit. ---
**Author:** ![InTransit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47774/32.png) [@InTransit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InTransit)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-house-cleaners/237983/3 "2004-04-03T00:04:24Z")
Oh, I’m in California. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-house-cleaners/237983/4 "2004-04-03T01:15:11Z")
I never tip. Does that make me a monster? ---
**Author:** ![missbunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@missbunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missbunny)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-house-cleaners/237983/5 "2004-04-03T01:19:20Z")
I don’t have a housekeeper or maid service, but if I did - and she/he had a regular gig with me - I wouldn’t tip but at Christmas I would give him/her an appropriate gift or bonus. Probably equal to one visit, or two, depending on how much the visits were. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-house-cleaners/237983/6 "2004-04-03T01:53:41Z")
Don’t tip mine. She’s independant and I pay her $25 an hour, so I’m not feeling an urgent need to tip. I do give her a Christmas check of the equivelent of a weeks cleaning. ---
**Author:** ![Sue\_Duhnym](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/91b2a8/32.png) [@Sue\_Duhnym](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sue_Duhnym)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-house-cleaners/237983/7 "2004-04-03T04:13:25Z")
I have one, weekly, and at Chirstmas (the holiday season to be PC) I give her a tip equal to 200% of her weekly fee. I’m in NYC now but when I lived in San Jose, I did the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Abbie\_Carmichael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@Abbie\_Carmichael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abbie_Carmichael)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-house-cleaners/237983/8 "2004-04-03T05:26:13Z")
I clean house for someone regularly. Never had a tip, however she buys me lunch quite a bit and gives me clothes that she doesn’t want anymore (NICE stuff). ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-house-cleaners/237983/9 "2004-04-03T08:50:03Z")
Well, the lady who comes to do our house twice a month makes more than twice as much per hour as I do, so like **Dangerosa** , I generally don’t tip. If the house is exceptionally dirty, or there’s been some kind of other hassle for her (like me forgetting to leave the key for her and wasting her time), we give her an extra $15 or $20. At Christmas, she gets a similar tip. We’re in North Carolina, and her fee is $65/visit, so that would be roughly 25%. ---
**Author:** ![Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harriet_the_Spry)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-house-cleaners/237983/10 "2004-04-03T19:34:13Z")
Interesting, and thanks. I have to say I’m interpreting things a little differently in terms of how much a housecleaner “makes.” (Hijacking my own thread here I guess.) Just because I pay $25 an hour or $65 a visit doesn’t mean the person makes that much. Either she is independent and providing her own supplies, transportation, insurance and employment taxes, or a service is getting the $25/65, covering those expenses, and paying her some lower wage. Whereas if you have a corporate or government job, you are getting an hourly wage + benefits (often considered to raise the value of your compensation by 20-30% of your hourly rate). I’d still be interested to see some more responses. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-house-cleaners/237983/11 "2004-04-03T20:14:35Z")
Is this a new college frat initiation thing? ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-house-cleaners/237983/12 "2004-04-03T20:57:36Z")
Well, since everybody pays their own transportation, I think we can leave that expense out of the equation, don’t you? As for the benefits my job gives…well, I’ve got two weeks of paid vacation and $150/year uniform reimbursement. That adds roughly 4.5% to my annual pre-tax income. If I had my insurance through them, they’d pay about a third of it, which would bring my benefits up to 10% of my income. The supplies Masako uses come to maybe $5/cleaning, and that’s being really generous. That means she’s got $60 of pre-tax income per three hour visit. Twenty bucks per hour. My hourly income, with benefits and before personal income tax, would be $11/hour if I had the company insurance. Unless employment taxes are 45% of her income (I honestly don’t know, but that seems truly excessive), her pre-tax, pre-insurance income is indeed higher than mine. Probably not twice as much, but still higher. She makes a decent wage for around here, and it’s a wage that she sets herself, so no, I don’t routinely tip her any more than I tip the bank teller who deposits my paycheck or the guy who changes my oil. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2014, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tipping-house-cleaners/237983/14 "2014-09-26T09:23:49Z")
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