My man of the house does a lot of tidying up. The house is reasonably clean and tidy. If we had more stressful lives we’d probably get someone in. If we had kids to look after we’d probably try to get someone in once a week if we could afford it.
My mum grew up in a white middle-class household in zimbabwe.
A family of 5, they had a cook, a maid, a gardener and his assistant, and a man who helped out in the house (but he was known by a different job title, which is somewhat derogatory).
For that reason, my mother will NEVER hire someone to clean her house, and I can understand why.
If you CAN clean your own mess, you should.
Mum has signs up all over the house with “life’s too short to stuff a mushroom” and “only dull women have clean houses” and so on.
I could afford somebody. I just don’t like the thought of some strange person coming into my house without my being there, and even then I wouldn’t like it anyway.
My friend’s parents used to use somebody. And what did his mom say to them all the time? “Clean up! The maid is coming today!” WTF?
My mother was a housewife most of her life, up until I was around 16. At that point, due to some financial problems with my Dad’s business and the fact that I was the only kid left at home and was mostly grown, she got a job. She was very clear, though, that to get a job she had to give up some household duties - keeping the house clean was one of the main ones. She got a cleaning lady to help.
That message rang loud and clear to me - if you’re working full time, get someone to help around the house, for God’s sake! If you only have two days off a week, why in the world do you want to spend at least half of one cleaning your house?
As soon as I made enough money to afford it, I got someone to help me clean. I don’t consider him or her (yes, I’ve had both) a maid or a servant - they are professionals who come in to do a job, and in most cases do a better job than I could do on my own.
Hell, even now when I work only about half time, Mr. Athena insists on having a cleaning lady. It helps that just about everyone in my family uses the same lady, and she’s incredibly inexpensive. But it does feel a bit odd when I’m just screwing around to have her doing the cleaning… I think Mr. Athena just doesn’t believe that I really do know how to clean!
looks around her office at the clutter and mayhem Maybe he has a point!
I’m a guy and I, too, hate housecleaning. As a result my house is a complete disaster area. I feel guity about it and I hate to invite guests to visit for this very reason, but I just hate the drudgery, and I don’t find it rewarding to do it. Plus, I just suck at it. I can never get my bathroom nor my kitchen to look “sparkling clean” and my dishes and glasses are never spot-free, so I end up doing a half-ass job knowing that a full effort won’t do any better. And then there’s all the dust that gets stirred up and I start coughing and wheezing. I know I’m making excuses, but these are just some of the reasons I get put off by doing housework. Last Sunday I cleaned out one closet and I had a hard time breathing the rest of the day and the day after.
With all this said, a maid would be nice to have. At least an automatic dishwasher if nothing else.
Before I moved in with my fiance, we talked through potential stress points for us, and one was housecleaning. We have different standards of cleanliness for a home and could see that housecleaning might end up being a sore point.
Plus we are both professionals and work long hours. As another poster has said, I couldn’t see spending part of the two days we sometimes have off to clean the house. And I sure didn’t want to have how clean the house was be a topic for arguments.
So I suggested that as long as we were both gainfully employed and making the kind of money we make, we ought to consider hiring someone to clean. We asked our friends for recommendations and hired our lady last July.
Let me tell you, it is so worth the money. She comes every other week (no children in the house, just a cute little kitty and sweet dog), and does a great job. Yes we have to tidy up before she comes but so what? My fiance is a great pack rat so having a deadline like that really helps him stay on track in terms of keeping up with his filing etc. And knowing she comes every other week helps me relax when things get a bit untidy between visits.
About a month or two into us hiring her, the future Mr. C said it was one of the wisest choices we’d made.
It has always seemed to me, too, that cleaning up before the cleaning person comes is sort of like washing the dishes before you put them in the dishwasher, too.
During the brief time when we had a known friend of the family do cleaning, there were certain areas – the bedroom, the office where we keep our financial stuff – that we told her to leave alone. As far as the rest of the clutter, she was very good about stacking up neatly any stuff it was not clear if we wanted, and putting away stuff that had a known place. It was best if we did a quick look-through to be sure all the bills and important correspondence were put into the office. It was well worth it to me that after that little effort on our part, she would: dust all the furniture, vacuum, put away all the kitchen stuff, tidy up and wash the counters, wash the kitchen floor, change the towels in the bathrooms, clean all the br fixtures, and generally tidy up things.
…?!
I Love YOU!!! 
you too Contrary!!
Well, just about every objection in this thread (and I thank you all very much for your responses) was voiced by my wife. The biggest objection seems to be the “feeling weird about a stranger alone in the house” and the compulsion to clean up beforehand.
Believe me I have none of these problems. A cleaning lady must have discretion. She must be a trusted professional for her to be hired by me. My banker knows more about my personal affairs and I dont feel weird about him because he is professional. If any improprieties were made, she’s outta there. Altho i was thinking of putting up surviellance cameras but that was to keep track of the kids…plus i like that high tech stuff. 
Thank you all. Altho I may not have a snowballs chance in the sahara to convince my wife a cleaning lady is a great idea, at least I know I am not the weird one for thinking about it.
…hmmmmm since a cleaning lady comes during the day … I wonder if I could have her come in on the sly… hmmmmmm
Is there a service that does it on a day to day basis? I mean an on-call cleanup?
I would not want a “cleaning lady”; for two reasons: one, I’m a private person and wouldn’t want an “outsider” in my home; two, I feel like if a person makes a mess then that person should pick it up. (no disrespect intended to the posters who like having a cleaning lady)
I’m not a person with a lot of “stuff” in my house. My two teenagers and I pick up after ourselves other as we go along, so there’s no mountain of chores to be done at any one time. I’m currently hand-washing my dishes since the pump gave out on the dishwasher. I hang my laundry on the clothesline when weather permits. Our place is reasonably neat. And yet I still have “free time” - cleaning doesn’t have to take all weekend if you’ve policed yourself all week. YMMV, however, depending on the size of your house, the number of toddlers/pets you have, etc.
But that’s missing the point, NinetyWt. Our lady does not take care of the clutter, so she’s not picking up after us.
What she is doing is cleaning the toilets, the shower, vacuuming the rugs, sweeping and cleaning our wood floors, wiping down surfaces, that sort of thing. Those are the things I do not want to spend my limited free time. I’d rather spend time doing the stuff I really enjoy with the man I love.
I do think a lot of people don’t realize those of us who hire someone to clean aren’t paying for picking up our little clutter messes. We still take care of the daily newspaper, we still load, run and unload the dishwasher, we still take out the trash etc etc. She takes care of the yucky stuff.
Yay her!
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a cleaning person, but it would make me, personally, feel weird to have someone else in our house touching our stuff. Ok, honestly, they could touch Mr. Del’s stuff all the live long day if they wanted, I would feel weird about someone touching MY stuff.
Love me, love my neuroses. That’s my motto.
I would probably change my tune if we 1. had kids and/or 2. lived in a larger home. But Chez Del is small enough that it’s fairly easy for two adults to keep it reasonably in line.
Actually, now that I think about it, I would consider hiring a cleaning person to come in and clean along with me if there was a specific occasion when our home had to be spotless for some reason, say a big Christmas party. ** X~Slayer**, maybe your wife would agree to try something like that to ease her into the idea?
[Steve Martin’s character in Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid]
Cleaning woman?!
[/SM’sciDMDWP]
When I moved into this house, the last tennant left it a mess, so our landlord brought in a housecleaner.
The whole experience was wierd. Here I am an able-bodied girl just sitting around watching someone else do something I am perfectly capable of doing myself. Heck, she was just a few years older than me, probably has kids to support, and here I am sitting on my ass being a lazy college student. For me personally it was really uncomfortable.
Then again, I live in a house the size of a largish match box, so it’s not too hard to keep cleanish.
With all due respect, these things need to be done because you are living there … so, in my view, the need to clean is caused by the people living in the house.
As I said earlier, if you feel like you need a cleaning lady, go ahead. I’m not judging you or being disdainful. I was just giving my HO. 
After thinking about it some more, part of cleaning my house gives me a sense of satisfaction; of pride in ownership. Another key to all this is: I don’t gripe about it.