I'm drowning in housework, and I can't seem to hire someone to help

[Anonymous]

I just hired someone for $20/hr for 12 hrs/week. We will see how long she stays though.

[Anonymous]

Taskrabbit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op where are you located ? I’m a house manager that has free time during the day and weekends. I’m interested in the job .

Arlington

Im the PP , I’m located in falls church. How can I get ahold of you op ?

Sketch

? Why sketch ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH and I finally decided we needed more than our weekly cleaners, and we're trying to hire a housekeeper for 20-25 hours a week (or as few as 12-15, if we also keep our weekly cleaners). I've interviewed (on the phone) like a dozen applicants from care.com over the past month and none are even willing to do what we want - and all I want is for someone to do what *I* and *most parents* do on a regular basis: clean up the kitchen in the morning, empty the dishwasher, make the beds, do some laundry, etc. We want four or five days a week, for 4-5 hours a day.

What am I doing wrong here? We're offering $20-35 an hour depending on experience, and we've only rarely gotten to the point of discussing pay because no one gets that far.

I get that this isn't a full-time job, but our weekly cleaners are only paid 180 per visit, and it's two women working 4-5 hours, or about 20 dollars per hour per person - and they work A LOT harder, physically, than someone just putting away dishes and doing laundry would.

Seriously, how do I make this job more appealing? Or do I just keep at it and hope someone eventually comes along?

Can you get your weekly cleaners to come more often?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op where are you located ? I’m a house manager that has free time during the day and weekends. I’m interested in the job .

Arlington

Im the PP , I’m located in falls church. How can I get ahold of you op ?

Sketch

? Why sketch ?

If you’re not sketch you should find her on care.com - she said that’s where the job is posted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I don't think I need to explain myself, but in particular I'm "drowning" in laundry - we are a family of five, including 3 young children, and since my last was born I've had horrible back problems that prevent me from being very active. I don't want to spend my little "active" time doing housework. Also three young kids are messy!

Anyway, we actually were going up to more like 20-25 hours a week to make it a "full" half time job. I can't imagine needing or wanting a full 40 hours a week.

Maybe I should break it into several smaller jobs that are more like 8 hours a week?

Laundry is something you can farm out separately. There are services to pick up up, clean, fold and bring it back.

Laundry is also something you can build into you day. When you get up, put a load in. Before you leave for the day put it in the dryer and put in another load. When you come home, fold the one in the dryer and put the washer load in the dryer. After dinner, fold the load in the dryer. That would be 14 loads a week, which should be more than enough. If it is to much just do one load every other day (or just one load every day). If you are a family that washes towels after one use, consider becoming a family that washing towels after two or three uses.

Make everyone responsible for putting away their own clothes. Very young children can do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op where are you located ? I’m a house manager that has free time during the day and weekends. I’m interested in the job .

Arlington

Im the PP , I’m located in falls church. How can I get ahold of you op ?

Sketch

? Why sketch ?

If you’re not sketch you should find her on care.com - she said that’s where the job is posted.

I guess. I’m not looking for a job though. I don’t want to get flooded with people wanting to hire me when I’m only interested in op’s job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I finally decided we needed more than our weekly cleaners, and we're trying to hire a housekeeper for 20-25 hours a week (or as few as 12-15, if we also keep our weekly cleaners). I've interviewed (on the phone) like a dozen applicants from care.com over the past month and none are even willing to do what we want - and all I want is for someone to do what *I* and *most parents* do on a regular basis: clean up the kitchen in the morning, empty the dishwasher, make the beds, do some laundry, etc. We want four or five days a week, for 4-5 hours a day.

What am I doing wrong here? We're offering $20-35 an hour depending on experience, and we've only rarely gotten to the point of discussing pay because no one gets that far.

I get that this isn't a full-time job, but our weekly cleaners are only paid 180 per visit, and it's two women working 4-5 hours, or about 20 dollars per hour per person - and they work A LOT harder, physically, than someone just putting away dishes and doing laundry would.

Seriously, how do I make this job more appealing? Or do I just keep at it and hope someone eventually comes along?

Can you get your weekly cleaners to come more often?

Op here. We actually did ask our cleaners to come more often and fold some laundry, and they did for a while. Then she told me she didn’t want to do laundry anymore. She said she considered herself a business owner and didn’t want to be a personal housekeeper. I think it’s a status thing I don’t fully understand; she’s an independent contractor housecleaner, she doesn’t have a larger business or anything, but I think she wants to feel like she has “clients” not a “boss”. Regardless, she was very clear that she prefers coming to scrub our showers and toilets than to folding laundry - and I even offered to pay her more!

I do think I need to look some place other than care.com. I just looked at housekeeper.com and it showed over a hundred local house cleaners but only twenty of them selected “laundry” as something they’ll do. Seriously I don’t get why cleaners won’t do laundry.

To the PP who suggested sending it out, I tried using Rinse and it came back in this giant bag and took forever to sort among the five family members, and it cost almost 100 dollars - and I really don’t think it was four hours of labor, so it just seemed like something I should be able to hire someone to come to my house and do.

Anyway I appreciate the suggestions and commiseration all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mind is blown by weekly cleaners spending 8-10 work hours at your house and it’s not enough. How are you this messy/dirty? Have your kids make their own beds..

It is incredibly hard to maintain a house when you are working and also have 3 small kids. The kids need your attention too. I am sure that the weekly cleaners are ensuring that OP's house is not dirty or gross. But, daily living - cooking, cleaning, laundry, paper work also requires a lot of work.

I am a SAHM of grown kids. Before pandemic I had cleaners twice a week. 2 kids in HS and 1 in college. This year, all three are doing college, school, jobs, internships from home and my DH is working from home too. Without maid service, I am now cooking 3 hot meals for 5 grownups, doing laundry every day, changing sheets in 4 bedrooms, cleaning 4 bathrooms, washing pots and pans by hand along with having the dishwasher run endlessley. In all of this, the only good thing is that my kids don't need my attention but they still need everything else done because they are busy.

Yes, the choice is to have lower standards and let everything go (and some days that happens too), but obviously OP does not want that to be the norm in her house much like I don't want that to be the norm in my house. Besides, it is not that letting things slide ever helps things. It just creates a larger mess and things spin more out of control.

You have high school and college aged kids. They can change their own sheets! Also nobody needs 3 hot meals a day. It’s a luxury not a necessity. Everybody is old enough to make oatmeal or just have a bowl of cereal for breakfast or sandwich for lunch. Maybe your kids are just too entitled and demanding and you’re just a pushover. I also have 2 high school aged kids and a husband who worked from home and I made sure that everybody helped out. It’s not that hard. And I never once lowered my standards. My house was never a mess. But it does involve cooperation from the whole family.

Ugh, no. Sorry, my standards are high as far as food is concerned. 3 hot meals a day is not a luxury in our houseful of food lovers. For us, great food signifies home comfort, caring and something delicious and healthy to look forward to at meal times. For me, this is a pretty basic thing to provide for my family. This was something that was happening pre-pandemic also and so we cannot become a household that is eating substandard and uninspiring food. Slapping together a slice of cheese and some meat between two slices of bread for lunch would have made all of us depressed during this pandemic. A real mental health crisis! So for us, crappy and utilitarian food cannot become the norm. Of course, I am not telling you how to run your household.

You misunderstand. My house is never a mess. My kids are excelling in their school/career also so I am ok if their time goes in that rather than doing chores to my standards.

My issue right now is only that I have not been able to get the maids back to clean my house. Pre-pandemic, I have always outsourced some of the domestic chores and paid people well to do so. I have a very good understanding of how much work it takes to have things running smoothly at home (to my standards). And in the end, someone has to do all that work. It can be one person, the whole family or a staff of domestic helpers. But someone has to do the work. It does not happen automagically.

OP's problem is also that of how to outsource the work. We have no idea of what her schedule, her kids schedule, her husband's schedule looks like. She is not thinking of neglecting her household, nor she wants someone to do her work for free. So I don't understand why some posters are getting mad. Obviously, she is earning enough to outsource some of the work and thinks that it will be worthwhile. Why is that making people mad? Why are people taking it personally?

DP. I wish the best of luck to your kids’ future partners, because they’re going to need it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mind is blown by weekly cleaners spending 8-10 work hours at your house and it’s not enough. How are you this messy/dirty? Have your kids make their own beds..

It is incredibly hard to maintain a house when you are working and also have 3 small kids. The kids need your attention too. I am sure that the weekly cleaners are ensuring that OP's house is not dirty or gross. But, daily living - cooking, cleaning, laundry, paper work also requires a lot of work.

I am a SAHM of grown kids. Before pandemic I had cleaners twice a week. 2 kids in HS and 1 in college. This year, all three are doing college, school, jobs, internships from home and my DH is working from home too. Without maid service, I am now cooking 3 hot meals for 5 grownups, doing laundry every day, changing sheets in 4 bedrooms, cleaning 4 bathrooms, washing pots and pans by hand along with having the dishwasher run endlessley. In all of this, the only good thing is that my kids don't need my attention but they still need everything else done because they are busy.

Yes, the choice is to have lower standards and let everything go (and some days that happens too), but obviously OP does not want that to be the norm in her house much like I don't want that to be the norm in my house. Besides, it is not that letting things slide ever helps things. It just creates a larger mess and things spin more out of control.

You have high school and college aged kids. They can change their own sheets! Also nobody needs 3 hot meals a day. It’s a luxury not a necessity. Everybody is old enough to make oatmeal or just have a bowl of cereal for breakfast or sandwich for lunch. Maybe your kids are just too entitled and demanding and you’re just a pushover. I also have 2 high school aged kids and a husband who worked from home and I made sure that everybody helped out. It’s not that hard. And I never once lowered my standards. My house was never a mess. But it does involve cooperation from the whole family.

Ugh, no. Sorry, my standards are high as far as food is concerned. 3 hot meals a day is not a luxury in our houseful of food lovers. For us, great food signifies home comfort, caring and something delicious and healthy to look forward to at meal times. For me, this is a pretty basic thing to provide for my family. This was something that was happening pre-pandemic also and so we cannot become a household that is eating substandard and uninspiring food. Slapping together a slice of cheese and some meat between two slices of bread for lunch would have made all of us depressed during this pandemic. A real mental health crisis! So for us, crappy and utilitarian food cannot become the norm. Of course, I am not telling you how to run your household.

You misunderstand. My house is never a mess. My kids are excelling in their school/career also so I am ok if their time goes in that rather than doing chores to my standards.

My issue right now is only that I have not been able to get the maids back to clean my house. Pre-pandemic, I have always outsourced some of the domestic chores and paid people well to do so. I have a very good understanding of how much work it takes to have things running smoothly at home (to my standards). And in the end, someone has to do all that work. It can be one person, the whole family or a staff of domestic helpers. But someone has to do the work. It does not happen automagically.

OP's problem is also that of how to outsource the work. We have no idea of what her schedule, her kids schedule, her husband's schedule looks like. She is not thinking of neglecting her household, nor she wants someone to do her work for free. So I don't understand why some posters are getting mad. Obviously, she is earning enough to outsource some of the work and thinks that it will be worthwhile. Why is that making people mad? Why are people taking it personally?

A sandwich would lead to a mental health crisis for your family? A bit dramatic PP. And what are your kids going to do when they move out? Will they be able to fix themselves three hot meals a day to your/their standard or will that lead to another mental health crises?

[Anonymous]

OP again.

How do you suggest I find someone who also wants to hire a half-time housekeeper? To be honest I feel really awkward and uncomfortable advertising to my neighborhood or friends that we’re willing to spend so much on this, not because I’m embarrassed to outsource the work but because I try not to talk too much about money.

[Anonymous]

Laundry is time consuming if you have to wait for the load to run. Maybe you could run them and someone else could fold them? I was the same as you in terms of needing help but I couldn’t pay that much, so I powered through. Folks have given you lots of ideas. You will need to be more flexible. My kids are 7 and 9 and they help a ton, so this is a short term need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP again.

How do you suggest I find someone who also wants to hire a half-time housekeeper? To be honest I feel really awkward and uncomfortable advertising to my neighborhood or friends that we’re willing to spend so much on this, not because I’m embarrassed to outsource the work but because I try not to talk too much about money.

Have you posted on your local listserve for a mother’s helper?

[Anonymous]

1) neighborhood list serv—someone will have a cleaner or nanny who is looking for more work or knows someone who is

2) set hours that are logical for another job: 8-1 every day so someone can be an afterschool nanny 2-6; or 8 hrs M, W, F so the person can clean other houses Tues, Thurs.

3) guaranteed hours. She still gets paid if you cancel a day.

[Anonymous]

I can see why a lot of people can’t find cleaners and house keepers. Who would want to work for these people. Unemployment is low and there are better jobs. Pay up and get the service you want. Offer $50 an hour and I guarantee you will get exactly what you want.