Hiring a house cleaner - is it worth it?

[Anonymous]

For families out there with house cleaners...

Does it help you feel less stress day to day?

What kind of arrangement do you have? (Bathrooms, carpets, etc)?

A little about my family - we're not neat freaks. We both work full time and our house is messy full time. I'm not sure if a house cleaner would really help us though because it feels like the day-to-day things are what causes us to have no time (dishes, picking up toys, etc). My son doesn't help since everday he makes the family room a mess.

Thoughts, ideas?

[Anonymous]

For us, a housecleaner is TOTALLY worth it. We've just been using one for about two months and she does a fabulous job. She pays much more attention to detail than we would. We keep our house neat, though, so it doesn't take much for us to be prepared for her to come. In your situation, you'd have to do a lot of work for the cleaners to be able to do their jobs.

Our crew (it's a woman and her sister) take about three hours to clean our entire house--vacuum, mop, scrub down the kitchen, dust, clean baseboards, deep clean the bathrooms. They're very thorough and it is so nice not to have to find time in our busy schedule to clean the house any longer.

[Anonymous]

So worth it, we only use one every other week wish we could afford twice a week...

[Anonymous]

There is NOTHING else that is worth more than a housecleaner. DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT !!!!!!!!!!!

You will have no regrets.

[Anonymous]

yes, i didn't do it for years.

i do it once a month. at least i know someone cleans the bathroom/kitchen/floors that often. and it's nice to have it look temporarily neat. i have a 6 year old, never stays neat for long....

[Anonymous]

I agree with PP. A house cleaner is nice for taking care of the deep cleaning that needs to be done regularly. They do not, however, help you with day-to-day clutter. In fact, you need to be vigilant about getting rid of clutter for your cleaners, so they have space and room to get to the deep cleaning. Otherwise, they spend their allotted time moving your clutter into nice, neat piles and not on actually cleaning. I'd love a dishes fairy too -- but I've come to the conclusion that they just don't exist and I'll need to stay on top of our everyday messes.

[Anonymous]

Completely worth it! It's really nice to know that things are getting cleaned (toilets, tubs, floors, dusting). We still do day to day stuff like putting away clothes, laundry, tidying, clean kitchen after meals, and pick up after ourselves. I used to feel like just that day to day stuff was all I could handle, so we'd either end up not doing any cleaning (yuck) or I'd do it late at night and feel resentful about it.

[Anonymous]

We keep our house organized for the most part, easier for the cleaners to do their job. I assume that there are extra fees for organizing/picking toys, etc. I think is worthy paying to have a house clean, it just take us (DH and I) too many hours a week to accomplish what the cleaners do in two hours.

[Anonymous]

For me it is 100% worth it. I get very anxious and depressed if my house is dirty and cluttered. My husband and I both work full time at demanding jobs so we do not want to spend our precious free time cleaning rather than enjoying life with our children.

Our housekeeper does all the cleaning, laundry, changes linens, etc. etc. She even cooks once or twice a week if we ask. What she does not do is clean up clutter, pick up toys, change litter. We are responsible for cleaning up after ourselves in that regard.

One thing that helped me greatly with the toy mess is dedicating our finished basement as a playroom. All the toys go in the playroom. There are no toys in the rest of the house, including the kid's bedrooms. THe kids are allowed to bring toys out of the playroom to our living space and play with them but they have to put them away before they can get anything else. This has worked beautifully. Usually what happens is that they'll bring one thing upstairs and play with it for a while and then find other creative ways to play with it. They'll usually keep the same toy upstairs for several days before switching it out. They can play in the playroom with anything they want whenever as well. We also require them to clean up the playroom every time they are done and heading back upstairs. We have a place for everything and they know where everything goes so it makes it a lot easier to stay organized. If they don't know where something goes we have a "lost toys" bin and they'll put it in there for me so we don't end up with things stashed away in odd places.

[Anonymous]

It is so worth it if you can afford it. So worth it! Unfortunately, we had to give up our service as a cost-saving measure and we miss it so!! Maybe, after the kids get out of daycare, we can pick it up again. Wistful sigh....

[Anonymous]

Cheaper than marriage counseling, divorce, bail for murder charges. So worth it. Find someone who is willing to help u get a system together to make it easier to deal with the clutter and actually clean.

[Anonymous]

We don't have one and I'm not sure how much value it would add given what it costs. We both work full-time, kids in daycare and are very neat, clutter-free people. The stuff that the PP listed that her housekeeper does is easy for me really - I vacuum once a week or so and both kids love to help so that's easy. We have two bathrooms - one I clean every other week while the kids are in the tub, the other takes me 10 minutes that I just fit in somewhere. Sweeping in the dining room and kitchen we do every day anyway - when it looks like it needs it, I just sweep through the rest of the downstairs. Upstairs I sweep when I get a free half hour. Baseboard dusting - Eh. Takes ten minutes to wipe around the room when I feel like I need it. We have cut way down on the clutter and the shelves and the knock knacks so I actually don't have that much to dust. That's pretty mch all a typical housekeeper would do, yeah? Eh...not worth the 150-200$ a visit to me. And I think I would want those things done twice a month at least, so that's a lot of money monthly.

Now if I could find someone to come over for 45 mins every night just to clean the kitchen and the dining room after dinner and maybe do our laundry - THAT I would pay for.

[Anonymous]

Best thing we ever did. I would give up meals out, new clothes and so much more to keep a cleaning lady if I ever had to. Also, if you can afford it I would maybe have someone come help you declutter/organize so it is easier to keep your house clean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For families out there with house cleaners...

Does it help you feel less stress day to day?

What kind of arrangement do you have? (Bathrooms, carpets, etc)?

A little about my family - we're not neat freaks. We both work full time and our house is messy full time. I'm not sure if a house cleaner would really help us though because it feels like the day-to-day things are what causes us to have no time (dishes, picking up toys, etc). My son doesn't help since everday he makes the family room a mess.

Thoughts, ideas?

It depends on what is more valuable to you - time or money. Personally, it is worth it to me because I would rather have to myself the 2-3 hours a week it would take to adequately clean the place. It is worth the cost for me to be able to hit the gym or the park on Satruday monrnings instead of having to clean. But I am a "time" person.

[Anonymous]

I'm 13:41 (the sole dissenter - though let me be clear that I've never actually had a housekeeper) and I do want to add that if I had a ton of money, then of course I would get. We're not super tightly budgeted (HHI $210k) but for what I have described in my earlier post, I personally would NOT give up dinners out and new clothes. The stuff that adds stress to my life and my relationship with my husband (though the dinners out and new clothes help with that too!) is the daily stuff. Not the every other week or once a month stuff.