<p>I love the woman who cleans my house. When both kids were here, she came weekly (that was 9 years ago). AT that point I think I paid her $75 a week…and it was WELL worth it. As the kids moved out, we asked if she could come less. First she came 2 times a month, and now she comes once a month. We pay her $100 each time. With just the two of us, we really have no trouble keeping up with the day to day cleaning…but it’s really nice to have someone come monthly who looks at the “details” a little better than I do. PLUS having her come forces us to declutter monthly.</p>
<p>I know she is getting close to retiring and I’m not looking forward to when that happens. Could I do this all by myself? Sure. Do I want to…? NOPE.</p>
<p>FlyMetotheMoon … any chance your cleaning lady has a sister or cousin in VT so I can hire her? My cleaning lady was terrible so decided not to continue paying $'s for work I can do better and much faster. She spent more time cleaning small trinkets and zero time getting into corners and under furniture, so after several months of this my allergies really started to kick up. I could see dust bunnies piling up in the corner of the living room under the baby grand piano, so started to look closer throughout the house and realized that the dust had not been getting cleaned, but rather pushed around. We just bought a new vacuum (Miele) and I have been cleaning like a wild woman. I filled up the first bag in less than a week, so am looking forward to cleaner air and less dust in my whole house, but I still want to hire a new cleaning person that so I can do something else more fun on my evenings and weekends.</p>
<p>This is totally a function of where you live and how big your house is. I have a large colonial (4 bedrooms, three baths, bonus room, etc.) and pay $140 every two weeks for vacuuming and dusting and thorough cleaning of bathrooms and kitchen that takes her 8 to 9 hours. I strip the beds before she comes and remake them after she leaves because I feel like I’m paying for the heavy-duty stuff, not for simple chores like bed making. I could probably pay less to someone new, but this amount has resulted from periodic raises over the years. She’s not perfect, but she’s scrupulously honest and totally reliable, so I’ve stuck with her for a very long time. So long, in fact, that I have completely “forgotten” how to do any of this myself and never plan to “remember”!</p>
<p>I have to laugh at the responses to someone who has decided to hire cleaning help–“You should do it yourself!!” “If you just decluttered you’d be able to do it yourself!” CC, the most judgmental spot on the internet!</p>
<p>$130 every two weeks, about 2080 square feet. I seriously don’t clean except for the night before she comes, and having to de-clutter every two weeks (she will not de clutter!) keeps me in check. Same lady for about 19 years, except for about two years when she cared for her grandkids. She misses my kids almost as much as I do, and has really looked out for them over the years, even when we changed sitters briefly. She let us know what she thought or what she saw, when she was not there.</p>
<p>Only down side, besides the expense, I’m sure my kids could have learned better habits if not for her. The do their own laundry, and used to do a few chores, but I’m afraid they are going to turn out like me!</p>
<p>$100 every other week. She’s been with us over 30 years even before our kids were born. She used to come twice a week when the kids were young and we’ve decreased her service when the kids left home. She is not as detail as she once was and used to fold our laundry, iron etc but now there are only two of us, I demand less from her. My H thinks we could just have her come once a month but she needs the money still. I used to pay her even while we were away on vacation and not using her service but I stop doing that now.
But I can’t imagine not having a cleaning lady, not having done any heavy cleaning in over 30 years.
My H doesn’t do gardening either.</p>
<p>My son pays $60 for someone to clean his 1BR apt, changing sheets and laundry once a month in Manhattan.</p>
<p>I love my cleaning woman. I’m not a tidy person naturally, so it forces me to pick up once a week and she does the basic cleaning. She spends about four hours and I pay her $60. In that time she vacuums, washes the kitchen floor and counters, cleans the bathrooms (2), makes the beds and empties all the trash cans. Depending on time she’ll do other stuff, she’s washed the fridge, scrubbed smudges around light switches and door knobs etc.</p>
<p>Yep, though when I read the OP I figured it would be worse and go the way of the how many TV’s people have in one home thread. You know, people who have cleaning services are wasteful, extravagant, and don’t have the “right” values. So it’s actually been a rather tame response.</p>
<p>We use a service. They come with 4 people and go after it for about 2 hours. They have these super duper vacuums they wear on their backs a la Ghost Busters and do baseboards, ceiling fans, wood paneling, drapes, under and between sofa cushions, etc. They even fold the end of the toilet paper roll like they do at hotels. The crew head always asks me to walk through the house when they are done to make sure everything is the way I want it.</p>
<p>The down side is that they are pricey (we have a lot of square feet to cover) and I would never feel I could just give them a key and let them come in while I am gone, which is what we used to do with our former beloved and trusted house keeper. I had to scrub a lot of sinks, tubs, and toilets growing up, so this is one luxury I don’t plan to give up unless I have absolutely no choice. They only come every two weeks, so that still leaves a lot of ground to cover in between visits.</p>
<p>I’ve had the same person over ten years. Mother of someone who used to work for me. She is like part of our family and I dread the day she finally retires. Cries with me when pets die, watched my kids grow up and leave the nest. We pay 55 dollars every two weeks which is cheap. she cleans inside the microwave, inside the fridge, washes windows, mops, toilets, vacuums, etc. I know how lucky I am…</p>
<p>I have had the same woman for more than ten years also. I pay her $25 per hour and she works four hours every week. She vacuums, cleans the bathrooms and straightens and moves things around just a bit more than I would like ;). It’s funny because she likes to open closets and drawers and rearrange–which I could care less about. Like some other posters, the house is more important to my husband than it is to me, so it helps keep a happy home and forces me to straighten up every week.</p>
<p>I guess we are getting a good deal compared to what some people are paying.</p>
<p>Twice a week seems like overkill, even when the kids were little the house didn’t seem to get dirty that fast. Or maybe we just have a high threshold since we both hate to clean.</p>
<p>Two ladies come together twice a week and stay about 2 - 2 1/2 hours. I straighten the house before they come; they clean it. One has come for about ten years, she changes her helper every once in awhile. In addition to all the regular stuff, every so often they clean out a cabinet, or move the furniture away from the walls in one room or another and dust baseboards and vacuum along the edge of the wall, or something else that hasn’t been tackled in awhile. They do a beyond excellent job; I feel spoiled. Oh, I pay $75 dollars each time.</p>
<p>mommaj…i wasnt suggesting the op do it herself…just found it was easier for me to… i wish i did have one that sounds as good as so many here have posted about. very small rural town with no cleaning services, and the few that do advertise they clean wont drive the 30 miles out to my house. i loved having the “nanny”… she took care of the little ones, took oldest to school, tidied up everyday… i was in heaven. after that the few that did clean didnt do a good job (tried them at our office first which was alot easier to clean than our house)… it’s been years since i had one…but this thread has me thinking i may re-look at who is out there.</p>
<p>It appears every other week seems to be the average. So do you vacuum in-between these cleaning visits? I vacuum twice a week and it needs it by then. Dust is the bane of my existence. We have many large windows, forced air heat in the winter, high wind and farm fields in the summer. I can dust in the morning and see it on furniture by day’s end.</p>
<p>^ We don’t do much in-between but wipe the kitchen counters and maybe sweep the kitchen floor.</p>
<p>We have no wall-to-wall carpets though, only a few area rugs, no pets, and a hot water heating system. So dust and pet hair are not big issues for us.</p>
<p>We have to do the mini-vac or dust buster a lot because dog and cat hair goes rolling across our hardwood floors. Other than that, we don’t do a whole lot in between cleanings. H spends a LOT of time picking up before the cleaning lady comes, since he wants the counters clear and everything up off the surfaces of things. I wouldn’t go to that much trouble.</p>
<p>I used to tell the whole family to pick up/declutter before the cleaning lady comes. My H thought it was too much work, plus after she was finished, he would complain that he couldn’t find anything because she had moved it. Now with the kids gone, we just ask her to lift up whatever is on the table and wipe underneath. Less stress this way.</p>