Hiring a house cleaner - is it worth it?

[Anonymous]

I wish my husband would let me get a maid. I'm so tired of cleaning!

[Anonymous]

Those of you who have housekeepers - can you post how frequently they come and what your HHI is? (duh - this is DCUM - how come everyone's not posting their HHI in their first sentence of every post??)

[Anonymous]

I love my housekeeper more than I love some of my blood relatives. She comes every week to clean our 4 bed room 2 FB 2 HB house. She washes our sheets, but does not do other laundry. Cleans bathrooms, kitchen, vacuums, baseboards, dusts, neatens, changes linens, does whatever dishes are in the sink. $85 per week.

[Anonymous]

I'll join the lone dissenter (not insulting people who do value cleaning services, I'm just not one of them). We don't have a service. We hired one once -when I was pregnant - to get the house really clean. It was a big pain, because we have a dog who isn't crate trained, so my husband had to be here to make sure she didn't freak out, so it didn't really save him time. And when I got home - expecting the house to be super clean - I was greatly underwhelmed - and found a pile of hair in the middle of my bathroom floor. All I could think it what a waste of money. I can half-ass clean for free. And while I am sure there are great cleaning services out there, I'm noticed most of our friend homes - who do have cleaners - houses don't seem that clean. And heck, I'm not at all a neat freak.

But I don't find cleaning takes that long - IF - and this is a big if- the house is tidy. Clutter is my battle and I would still have that battle with a housecleaner. If the house would just stay tidy, I can clean pretty easily - I just break it down into smaller maneageble parts, and it is something I can with my son or after my son goes to bed.

Now, lawn service. I think that is where we will bite the bullet next year and start spending some money to get some time back. I can't stand spending time picking up twigs, raking, mowing, weeding, only to have it all look like crap in a week. Our yard looked so bad this year, when I finally weeded and mulched, all my neighbors came over to cheer me on (and brought me tools). And I can't mow the lawn and watch my kid (or at least I don't fee safe doing it).

[Anonymous]

Totally agree on lawn service. So much more difficult than housekeeping! Also, to those who only have once or twice a month cleaners come - a few PPs have said everything gets messed up again shortly after the cleaner comes. So is your house a mess for all but a few days a month? That would drive me crazy!

And finally - PP - $85 for all that??? Who is this person?

[Anonymous]

16:40, do you actually scrub floors, bathtubs/showers and toilets?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish my husband would let me get a maid. I'm so tired of cleaning!

Let you? Don't you make your own money or have a say in how his income is spent?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those of you who have housekeepers - can you post how frequently they come and what your HHI is? (duh - this is DCUM - how come everyone's not posting their HHI in their first sentence of every post??)

Twice a month, $400,000 (but I had a biweekly cleaner when I was making $68,000, it's really worth it to me to have a clean house, not just a picked up one)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'll join the lone dissenter (not insulting people who do value cleaning services, I'm just not one of them). We don't have a service. We hired one once -when I was pregnant - to get the house really clean. It was a big pain, because we have a dog who isn't crate trained, so my husband had to be here to make sure she didn't freak out, so it didn't really save him time. And when I got home - expecting the house to be super clean - I was greatly underwhelmed - and found a pile of hair in the middle of my bathroom floor. All I could think it what a waste of money. I can half-ass clean for free. And while I am sure there are great cleaning services out there, I'm noticed most of our friend homes - who do have cleaners - houses don't seem that clean. And heck, I'm not at all a neat freak.

But I don't find cleaning takes that long - IF - and this is a big if- the house is tidy. Clutter is my battle and I would still have that battle with a housecleaner. If the house would just stay tidy, I can clean pretty easily - I just break it down into smaller maneageble parts, and it is something I can with my son or after my son goes to bed.

Now, lawn service. I think that is where we will bite the bullet next year and start spending some money to get some time back. I can't stand spending time picking up twigs, raking, mowing, weeding, only to have it all look like crap in a week. Our yard looked so bad this year, when I finally weeded and mulched, all my neighbors came over to cheer me on (and brought me tools). And I can't mow the lawn and watch my kid (or at least I don't fee safe doing it).

Do you work full time? I can't imagine working full time with small children and not having both a cleaning service and lawn service.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Totally agree on lawn service. So much more difficult than housekeeping! Also, to those who only have once or twice a month cleaners come - a few PPs have said everything gets messed up again shortly after the cleaner comes. So is your house a mess for all but a few days a month? That would drive me crazy!

And finally - PP - $85 for all that??? Who is this person?

Cleaners do not prevent mess. Mess is about tidy, not clean. Two totally different things. How would a cleaner begin to prevent mess anyway?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'll join the lone dissenter (not insulting people who do value cleaning services, I'm just not one of them).

But I don't find cleaning takes that long - IF - and this is a big if- the house is tidy. Clutter is my battle and I would still have that battle with a housecleaner. If the house would just stay tidy, I can clean pretty easily - I just break it down into smaller maneageble parts, and it is something I can with my son or after my son goes to bed.

Now, lawn service. I think that is where we will bite the bullet next year and start spending some money to get some time back. I can't stand spending time picking up twigs, raking, mowing, weeding, only to have it all look like crap in a week. Our yard looked so bad this year, when I finally weeded and mulched, all my neighbors came over to cheer me on (and brought me tools). And I can't mow the lawn and watch my kid (or at least I don't fee safe doing it).

Do you work full time? I can't imagine working full time with small children and not having both a cleaning service and lawn service.

Yes, we bot work full-time and have two preschoolers. No cleaning service or lawn service. $210k HHI. Yes, I do clean the floors and the tub. You'd think I had a cleaner if you came over and no it doesn't take me hours.

[Anonymous]

TOTALLY WORTH IT!!!! We have cleaners come every two weeks (2 people, here for 3.5-4 hours). Totally worth it. OP, why not try it out for 4-6 months and see how it goes?

[Anonymous]

1800 sq ft 3bed 2Fba house here. Two little kids. Work full-time. Would I love a housekeeper? Of course. Is it worth $200 or more a month to me? Nope. Taking the daily kitchen cleaning, stuff picking up tasks out of the equation since housekeepers don't so that anyway, I probably spend an hour a week cleaning. I guess my house is smaller than some of yours but seriously it really doesn't take that long. Especially if you do a little here and there and don't let it really build up to where you're seriously having to deeply scrub. I get wanting a housecleaner ... I'd rather not spend even an hour a week on it honestly. But there are other things I'd rather use that money for and I'd rather not deal with the time it takes to prepare for a maid to come, to deal with managing and scheduling her, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Totally agree on lawn service. So much more difficult than housekeeping! Also, to those who only have once or twice a month cleaners come - a few PPs have said everything gets messed up again shortly after the cleaner comes. So is your house a mess for all but a few days a month? That would drive me crazy!

And finally - PP - $85 for all that??? Who is this person?

Cleaners do not prevent mess. Mess is about tidy, not clean. Two totally different things. How would a cleaner begin to prevent mess anyway?

I should have said "so your house is dirty for all but a few days of the week?" thanks for allowing me to clarify. I do a little cleaning here and there so it's always pretty clean. Seems like if you only get a housekeeper once or twice a month it would be pretty gross in the final days before she came. That's all I'm saying.

[Anonymous]

My house is about 2400 square feet including the basement and we have 2.5 bathrooms. I pay $80 for a crew of two every other week and our HHI is $117k.

My cleaning people get my house 100 times cleaner than I ever got it on my own, and I thought I was doing a decent job.