<p>Good morning !
After many years of cleaning the house by myself I am finally giving up and hiring some help.
BUT the prices seemed to have gone up quite a bit since the last time I had a cleaning lady…
can you share with me how much are you paying? what do you like your cleaning lady to do and what are the cleaning duties you like to do yourself? I remember that in the past I have always liked to clean my own kitchen as asking the cleaner to do it seemed like a waste of time to me…since I had to clean the kitchen daily anyway.
I do not have any experience with housekeeping companies, I have always went with private, single cleaners…
Thanks!</p>
<p>I gave up my cleaning service about 7 years ago and haven’t missed them. I used a service instead of a person because I found that, no matter whom I hired, they didn’t show up half the time for one reason or another. At least the service sent someone. </p>
<p>BUT… when I really paid attention, I realized that I could do the same thing they did, in less time, for far less money, and do it better. A cleaning person comes in, focuses on the job, gets it done, and leaves. They don’t worry about putting stuff away, answering the phone, picking up after DH or the kids. They just clean the stuff they’re supposed to clean and get out of there. So I tried doing it that way for a while. </p>
<p>I bought good supplies–Swiffer floor duster (the big one), swiffer dusting hand tool, sprays for surfaces, cleaning cloths, rubber gloves, etc., and got the vacuum running well. I set a morning to clean and I turned off the phone. I took the dogs out and put them in their crates.</p>
<p>I started by spraying everything (bathrooms, kitchen, etc.) with the appropriate sprays. I let that soak in while I changed the sheets and started a load of laundry. I went back and wiped all the surfaces (easy to get clean because the cleaners had been working for a while) and scrubbed the toilets. I started vacuuming and didn’t stop until I’d done the whole house. I grabbed a garbage bag and emptied all the trash cans (carrying a bin for recyclables too). Before I took it out I emptied the vacuum bin into it.</p>
<p>The whole thing took me 80 minutes. For three bathrooms, the kitchen, two bedrooms, and two home offices. I’d been paying $100 every two weeks for the same service.</p>
<p>dmd77 i’m like you… i do it myself… but different reason…when i had a cleaning lady i would get annoyed to be paying money for basic cleaning…baseboards werent wiped down, windows not cleaned, door frames not wiped down… so i would be running around after doing those things myself. (and i would run around before they came as i didnt want them to see a mess) so i do it myself and if those things dont get done i dont get annoyed :)</p>
<p>for a few years i had a nanny for my kids and that was wonderful…</p>
<p>My folks are wonderful. They clean, change sheets, change lightbulbs and a/c filters. They bring their own supplies. I pay $80 and they come every other week.</p>
<p>My 2 cents.
Eliminated all the counter clutter and doodads.
Donate all the stuff in your cabinets that you do not use, have duplicates, don’t like anymore, are just keeping for no reason.
Simplify your prep and stove area.
You will have less to clean.
What do have is functional and essential.</p>
<p>It REALLY depends on the local market. When we moved from Dallas to Nashville, just about everything in the Nashville area was less expensive. One really big exception was cleaning help. In Dallas (ending in 2006) we were paying $75 for about 4000 sq ft and in Nashville it was going to be twice as much. Also, in Dallas almost everyone I knew, including us, LOVED their cleaning help and tended to have someone for years. When I got here to TN and started asking around, I got very bleh responses. We were fortunate to find someone (through a flyer on the mailbox) who we have kept since 2006. We DID cut back to every 3 weeks due to the higher cost. In Dallas we did every 2 weeks. This woman is excellent and her husband has a small contracting business and does all our painting and other light contracting work.<br>
We don’t have her do laundry, change sheets or do dishes. I just need cleaning. We have a lot of pets, so it takes some work</p>
<p>We don’t have a regular person, but I found someone who I bring in for “spring” cleaning a couple of times a year to do “big” cleaning – dusting and then washing down all the glossy baseboards (and we have a ton of them), washing the exteriors (and some of the interiors) of kitchen cabinets and drawers, moving furniture and vacuuming behind it, vacuuming blinds, washing down the porch and decks and associated woodwork, wiping down the patio furniture, and going after the bathroom floor grout with a scrub brush (vs. my shmop cleaning other times), and giving all the bathrooms a heavy clean. I pay her $20 an hour, and she’s a hard worker. She takes care of horses most of the time, and is really strong. These are all tasks that I can’t/won’t do myself, and regular cleaning services mostly don’t do, but it makes a real difference to us. (I found her on Craigslist when I posted an initial gig for wiping and washing baseboards, and liked her so much that I expanded it to the other stuff.)</p>
<p>I also pay $20/hr and use her rarely. Mostly for when I’m having company come stay for a few days. Use her to do the bathrooms, windows, dusting, etc. Generally to make the house “look” better. She’s cheaper than the service companies and works harder. I do tip her. I had a service company a couple of times. They REALLY don’t care.</p>
<p>I’ve never been a fan of cleaning ladies. I like knowing what has been done and want to know that my bathtub is really clean. I also don’t like having non friends or family in my house. But for the occasional deep clean, this seems to work.</p>
<p>We decided that, no matter how much it costs, a cleaning lady is cheaper than marriage counseling. 
</p>
<p>Ours cleans the kitchen, 2.5 bathrooms, dusts everything, cleans the floors/vacuums the whole house. $70, every other week.</p>
<p>
Do you seal your grout? It can make a big difference.</p>
<p>We have our person come every other week. She does the laundry, changes the sheets and a general cleaning (sometimes I wonder if she closes the door in some of the bathrooms because there are usually dust bunnies behind the door. We pay $100 but they also clean the finished basement when our DS has been home, and he is a total slob, so they earn their $ and then some!</p>
<p>I love my cleaning service!</p>
<p>I pay $60 every 2 weeks- approx 2500sq ft. It is a husband and wife small business and they hire additional women. They change bed linens, vacuum, dust ( including ceiling fans and blinds) clean bathrooms and kitchen ,and mop down hard floors. Every so often the husband shows up and moves the sofas etc to clean behind.</p>
<p>I love the feeling of opening the door every second wed and the house is so clean! Also makes the girls pick up their rooms before the cleaners come. My view is the cleaners job is to clean not tidy their mess!</p>
<p>Love my cleaning ladies. When we tried to do it ourselves never had the time to do the whole house so we had a clean kitchen or clean bathrooms or vacuumed floors. Now we have a clean house every other tuesday.</p>
<p>We pay $85.00 every other week for 2100 sq ft. We have 4 BR 2.5 baths. Our cleaning lady cleans the entire house, changes sheets on all four beds, and will usually fold any clothes she finds in the dryer. We live in Southern Maryland about 20 minutes south of DC</p>
<p>Ours is a high cost area and ours has been coming for over 25 years managing her own helpers, 2 levels, large house, 3 full baths, changes beds and does the linens laundry. $150 every 2 weeks. Also agree it is better than marriage counseling. But when I retire we will probably give her up, she’ll be retiring too.</p>
<p>I pay $133 every other Tuesday. I use a franchised service. </p>
<p>They do 3 out of 4 bedrooms (guest room is the exception; it’s rarely dirty)
4.5 bathrooms
kitchen
family room
formal living & dining
just the floor in H’s office (800 sq ft hardwood)</p>
<p>I’ve been with them since 2004 and am very pleased. They do baseboards, windows, upolstery, sheets if I ask, move the furniture to get behind/under it, etc etc. 2 girls do it all in about 3 hours, 3 girls need 2 hours, roughly. </p>
<p>Sure, I could do it myself…on Saturday or Sunday. But I have better ideas for how to spend my weekends.</p>
<p>Twenty dollars an hour is too much for me, and after reading Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, I had second thoughts about going with one of the big services.</p>
<p>I do have the grout sealed, but D and I both use various hair products that tend to build up some grunge as spray lands on the floor, and so a good scrubbing periodically really gets them looking nice again. We re-seal about every other year.</p>
<p>The biggest challenge for me is keeping my house uncluttered. When stuff is put away where it belongs, ongoing cleaning isn’t onerous. But, I get lazy and stuff starts to build up, and the decluttering takes me longer than the cleaning most times. (In the kitchen, getting stuff I didn’t use often off the counters/island really speeded up the cleaning.)</p>
<p>We pay $20/hr, although she is increasing it to $22/hr starting tomorrow. She is anal. I’ve learned that this is the best personality type to have as your cleaning lady. If I ask her to vacuum the floormats in the garage, she then notices that the floor needs to be swept and the cement step needs to be bleached. She really gets things to shine. I’m still trying to get my sink and stove to shine like she does, and I have stood by and watched her do it so I can emulate the same action. I still fail.</p>
<p>She will dust the baseboards, wipe down doors, clean shower curtains, wipe down kitchen cabinets, etc., on a rotating basis, so I never feel as though I have to do a deep cleaning periodically. My neighbor uses her also, and has her do her china closet. That takes hours, so I do my myself.</p>
<p>The person we had before this one, only did the basics, and then I would spend the entire summer cleaning “into the corners”. It finally didn’t seem worth it.</p>
<p>If you don’t want to hire someone, I suggest following the Flylady method of cleaning your house. Just go to flylady dot com, and find the link for cleaning by zones. Essentially, you do a light vacuuming and dusting of the entire house once a week, but divide the house into zones to concentrate on deeper cleaning for 3-5 days each month. by the end of the month, you have thoroughly cleaned the entire house. I like this method, and plan to follow it when we no longer can afford the great gal we have now.</p>
<p>$50 bucks every two weeks. She can be there anywhere from 2.5 hours to 4 hours…according to the kids and neighbors. I don’t really care we have a “list” and as long as she gets through it I’m happy. She dusts, vacuums, cleans 2 3/4 bathrooms, mops the kitchen floors, sweeps or damp mops the wood floors and wipes down the kitchen counters and cupboard doors. A couple times a year I have her come and do a special project like take all the books off the bookcases and wipe them down or clean grout etc. It’s worth every penny and gives my H and I a week off each month so he cleans one week, our housekeeper cleans the next, then I clean then housekeeper, etc. and whatever kid are home have to do whatever chores get assigned. </p>
<p>The key is finding someone who really does clean. I don’t know how big our house is, it’s not huge…bigger than a ranch and smaller than a McMansion. 125 years old so it’s not perfect thankfully. I had one for a while who never did the corners behind the doors. I would go into the bathroom, shut the door look down and OMG and I’m not anal about my housekeeping. I had another one that was too anal…she would leave us “notes” about what we should and shouldn’t do (like get 4 “boys” to squeegee the shower walls after each shower…are you kidding me???). Those two didn’t last long, as soon as I found one that suited our personalities better I switched. I had to give up a housekeeper for a couple years and I really missed having one and found I was pretty cranky without some help and so glad I could finally afford one again.</p>
<p>$120 per day, two times per week. We used to have live in help, but I gave that up several years ago. Four thousand square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, two large long haired dogs, two daughters who never met a hanger.</p>