Wife finally agreed to a cleaning lady

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Life changing - you all should get one now.

Great.
Hire, train, and manage the cleaning lady.

Tidy up and organize things before she comes each time too, so she can actually scrub, dust or clean surfaces areas and floors.

You're just trying to convince yourself not to do it for some reason.

Here's how the hiring process went.

Me to neighbor who has cleaner: You like your cleaner?
Them: Yes, here's their number.
Me: thanks

Me (texting cleaner): can you clean my house?
Cleaner: Yes, be there on Tuesday
Me: thanks

Here's how the training process went:

Me: So, yeah, the whole first floor, the basement playroom, upstairs but not the master bedroom.
Cleaner: Got it.

Here's how the managing goes:

Me: So here's a key, I'll venmo you when you're done.
Cleaner: Okay!

Here's how the decluttering process goes:

Me: Sorry we didnt' pick up more, is this okay?
Cleaner: this is great!

That's it. That's all. And frankly, the amount of hassle it would have to entail to be worse than the stress of spending my weeks irritated because me and the wife are too busy to clean up enough and my weekends feeling swamped because we can never catch up... would have to be really high.

Eh. I don’t think it’s quite that easy. Following that script makes me think your wife probably does it.
Finding someone that’s really good is hard. We’ve had broken things and cleaners who rush through things. It takes a ton of prep to get the house ready (which is also one of the upsides is that it gets done). My cleaners don’t do the dishes, clean sheets needed to be layed out. I timed myself once and spent about four hours just getting the house in order (big family) for the cleaners.
Having cleaners is helpful but it’s certainly not perfect.

Agree. op is naive and ignorant, hopefully he’s constantly thankful to his wife for her being on the ball all the time whilst he’s cluelessly posting here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Life changing - you all should get one now.

How much is it per week?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes if my family could pick up their crap from surfaces, I’d get one too.

My wife’s excuse for years was that the house was too cluttered and we just needed to declutter it and we could

A)get ahead of the mess
B) talk about a cleaning person

But guess what? They decluttered for us. And magically all our seasonal allergies went away because they were actually dust allergies.

Would love to know how you found cleaning people who would declutter. Ours just clean around any clutter, and they don't dust at all as far as I can tell, unless it's a really obvious place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Life changing - you all should get one now.

Great.
Hire, train, and manage the cleaning lady.

Tidy up and organize things before she comes each time too, so she can actually scrub, dust or clean surfaces areas and floors.

You're just trying to convince yourself not to do it for some reason.

Here's how the hiring process went.

Me to neighbor who has cleaner: You like your cleaner?
Them: Yes, here's their number.
Me: thanks

Me (texting cleaner): can you clean my house?
Cleaner: Yes, be there on Tuesday
Me: thanks

Here's how the training process went:

Me: So, yeah, the whole first floor, the basement playroom, upstairs but not the master bedroom.
Cleaner: Got it.

Here's how the managing goes:

Me: So here's a key, I'll venmo you when you're done.
Cleaner: Okay!

Here's how the decluttering process goes:

Me: Sorry we didnt' pick up more, is this okay?
Cleaner: this is great!

That's it. That's all. And frankly, the amount of hassle it would have to entail to be worse than the stress of spending my weeks irritated because me and the wife are too busy to clean up enough and my weekends feeling swamped because we can never catch up... would have to be really high.

Eh. I don’t think it’s quite that easy. Following that script makes me think your wife probably does it.
Finding someone that’s really good is hard. We’ve had broken things and cleaners who rush through things. It takes a ton of prep to get the house ready (which is also one of the upsides is that it gets done). My cleaners don’t do the dishes, clean sheets needed to be layed out. I timed myself once and spent about four hours just getting the house in order (big family) for the cleaners.
Having cleaners is helpful but it’s certainly not perfect.

This is exactly the problem. At this point, I feel like I am paying them to force me to clean up once a week. And if I don't do a good enough job, they barely clean at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes if my family could pick up their crap from surfaces, I’d get one too.

My wife’s excuse for years was that the house was too cluttered and we just needed to declutter it and we could

A)get ahead of the mess
B) talk about a cleaning person

But guess what? They decluttered for us. And magically all our seasonal allergies went away because they were actually dust allergies.

Would love to know how you found cleaning people who would declutter. Ours just clean around any clutter, and they don't dust at all as far as I can tell, unless it's a really obvious place.

You have to pay and direct an Organizer for $200/hr. She has a brain, is older, and can reorganize your closets, kitchen pantries, storage areas, etc. In a way that makes sense and looks good and is highly functional.

The bad Organizers overcharge you by buying lots of high end baskets and put baskets and spaces into each shelf.
It looks beautiful but doesn’t store much not allow you to see or know wtf is there. Then you gotta go print labels out for everything and train your husband to it stuff back where it below.

enjoy! It’s quite the racket

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If I piled up junk and then sprayed $100 of someone else’s cleaning products all around a house for two hours it’d look or at least smell clean! And less scrubbing then.

Ours does this chemical dump thing. Now we have to re-grout all the bathroom tubs and sinks since they chemical scrub out grout! What the heck. Can’t stand the stupidity.

[Anonymous]

I've been wanting one for years. We can afford it and dh says no. He grew up very middle class, doing everything himself and thinks it's morally wrong to pay other people to clean up after you. UGH

[Anonymous]

I love cleaning! There is not way I am paying someone else to clean for me. It is rather therapeutic. I also like that it teaches my children to clean up after themselves and they a house needs a deep cleansing and constant maintenance to be livable. However, if a maid works for you, that is great

[Anonymous]

I hired house cleaner once I hit 30 and started having children. I had a busy career and family life and having someone doing a good cleaning every two weeks was a huge help. We are on our 3rd set of house cleaners (they have all been long term). My DH and I are now retired and have plenty of time to clean the house but know our cleaning lady needs the business so we keep her on for the twice a month schedule and it's nice to have the whole house cleaned at once.

[Anonymous]

Broke our murano glass flowers. Ugh

[Anonymous]

We are all going to be thrown into concentration camps by DOGE soon so who cares?!?!??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The main benefit we get from the housecleaner is being forced to tidy up before she comes. But the actual cleaning is also a big benefit.

Totally agreed. I pushed back against it for a long time, and then with a new house I relented. The bi-weekly need to pick up and declutter, since we have a paid service coming the next day, it worth its weight in gold--buy in from all in the household to tidy up!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Life changing - you all should get one now.

Great.
Hire, train, and manage the cleaning lady.

Tidy up and organize things before she comes each time too, so she can actually scrub, dust or clean surfaces areas and floors.

You're just trying to convince yourself not to do it for some reason.

Here's how the hiring process went.

Me to neighbor who has cleaner: You like your cleaner?
Them: Yes, here's their number.
Me: thanks

Me (texting cleaner): can you clean my house?
Cleaner: Yes, be there on Tuesday
Me: thanks

Here's how the training process went:

Me: So, yeah, the whole first floor, the basement playroom, upstairs but not the master bedroom.
Cleaner: Got it.

Here's how the managing goes:

Me: So here's a key, I'll venmo you when you're done.
Cleaner: Okay!

Here's how the decluttering process goes:

Me: Sorry we didnt' pick up more, is this okay?
Cleaner: this is great!

That's it. That's all. And frankly, the amount of hassle it would have to entail to be worse than the stress of spending my weeks irritated because me and the wife are too busy to clean up enough and my weekends feeling swamped because we can never catch up... would have to be really high.

Eh. I don’t think it’s quite that easy. Following that script makes me think your wife probably does it.
Finding someone that’s really good is hard. We’ve had broken things and cleaners who rush through things. It takes a ton of prep to get the house ready (which is also one of the upsides is that it gets done). My cleaners don’t do the dishes, clean sheets needed to be layed out. I timed myself once and spent about four hours just getting the house in order (big family) for the cleaners.
Having cleaners is helpful but it’s certainly not perfect.

OP here and if i'm being truthful, we didn't ask one neighbor, we asked two who use the same woman, and they both love her. They told us how much they paid her, what she does and vouched for her doing a good job. The rest of it is pretty much exactly it.

And my wife doens't do anything. I don't do much either. But has the anxiety about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes if my family could pick up their crap from surfaces, I’d get one too.

My wife’s excuse for years was that the house was too cluttered and we just needed to declutter it and we could

A)get ahead of the mess
B) talk about a cleaning person

But guess what? They decluttered for us. And magically all our seasonal allergies went away because they were actually dust allergies.

Would love to know how you found cleaning people who would declutter. Ours just clean around any clutter, and they don't dust at all as far as I can tell, unless it's a really obvious place.

We didn’t mean to, we just asked recommendations from the neighbors. They came in the first day and just started picking things up and putting them away. Things that don’t have an obvious place they neatly arrange near where they found it. What they did with our son’s room (with his permission) was stunning.

They don’t do laundry, but the pick up and arrange before cleaning. It’s sometimes odd how they arrange things, but it beats having a messy house. There have been a few times when small but crucial things (sons mouthguard for practice) was “put away” somewhere mysterious but we’ve found everything and we weren’t finding a lot of things before. We pick up dirty laundry and put away bills and things like that but it’s a lot easier to keep track of that without the mess.

It’s too anxiety inducing for my wife to watch but I’ve hung around a few times and they do a decent job. There’s the actual cleaner we hired and two assistants and they don’t know I speak Spanish and despite my wife’s greatest fears, they don’t talk about us or our mess.

I keep telling my wife they probably see some real gross shit and we’re not gross just overwhelmed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Life changing - you all should get one now.

How much is it per week?

$190 every two weeks and they’re here for about 90 minutes.