How much for this service?

[Anonymous]

I need help cleaning and pick up and drop off of one child. I hired someone to come 3x week to help out. Currently she’s cleaning only but she will begin to drive kid (6) to various camps too.

Every day - do dishes, empty dishwasher, wipe down powder room, vacuum, do laundry, pick up main level, make 2 beds, take out trash, clean kitchen, vacuum

Mondays: deeper cleaning- bathrooms, mop floors, wipe out appliances
Wednesdays: change and launder sheets
Fridays: Costco run

Plus a drop to off or a pickup nearby of kid. (Never both). 1 kid no pets.

4 hours every other day. 2900 SFT house
How much? $20/hr?

[Anonymous]

Bare minimum $25/hour. MOre like $28 and gas money if she's driving her own car.

[Anonymous]

That seems low. When we had nanny we paid $20/hr with no cleaning and no driving for 1 kid. We pay cleaning lady $30/hr.
For all the above I think $30/hr. Minimum $25. This is basically part time nanny who cleans/does housekeeping.

Also depends where you are. I am thinking NW DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That seems low. When we had nanny we paid $20/hr with no cleaning and no driving for 1 kid. We pay cleaning lady $30/hr.
For all the above I think $30/hr. Minimum $25. This is basically part time nanny who cleans/does housekeeping.

Also depends where you are. I am thinking NW DC.

We are in NoVa. She has almost no childcare responsibilities. 30 min/daily at absolute most. Maybe more like 15 min. The rest is housework.

[Anonymous]

I feel like at $20/hour you’ll get some bites. Undocumented mostly, if you’re ok with that. The driving part is the biggest curveball. You need to pay a premium for the most in demand hours. And having them come 3x week is just enough for you to outsource the worst stuff but still get by not doing day to day shit. So the houskeeper has to do ALL your pots pans plus every other day dishes (full loads ugh). You should try to pay more if you want the driving piece.

[Anonymous]

She's hired, but doesn't have an hourly rate?

[Anonymous]

IME, housekeepers are a bit more expensive than babysitters. You are hiring a housekeeper willing to do childcare and that can drive. I would guess $25 minimum, but maybe more because of the driving piece.

[Anonymous]

4 hours every other day (including weekends? Or just M/W/F?) means she will need to piece meal your job plus several others to make up a full time salary.

[Anonymous]

Wait, how did you already hire her without having a rate agreed to?

[Anonymous]

Her Monday duties sound like a ton of work.

Twenty dollars an hour would not be enough $$ for me to do all those tasks in one visit.

[Anonymous]

IME having the same person do housework/cleaning and any childcare never goes well.

[Anonymous]

You basically have a housekeeper who drives so $25/hr.

[Anonymous]

Why not hire her full time? You are asking for a lot of things that are difficult to predict. Some laundry takes longer then others. Some drive to camp takes longer then you’d expect. Some kids don’t want to leave camp so it takes longer to get them in the car. Will she be using her car or yours? What happens if your kid gets in the car muddy or wet? Who will clean her car?

What happens if the vacume bars? I was here when our monthly cleaning crew was cleaning. Their vacum started to spark, and they literally just turned it off and called their boss to bring them another one which the boss did. Your lady won’t have that resource. Remember too, most women won’t want to wear clothes they like to deep clean, so you’ll need to keep that in mind. Also know that some people are really nasty in their bathrooms. That can’t be helped sometimes and people shouldn’t be teased for it, it’s just not a job people want to do in tandem with kid duties.. remember many moms look to outsource deep cleaning if they outsource nothing else.

If it were me, I’d hire a biweekly or monthly cleaning company to do deep cleaning for you. That will be their focus and your lady can focus on keeping the house tidy and taking care of the kid.

Know that some kids and some adults tend to trash the house because “The maid will get it”. If you guys do this, her job will take longer, the bigger the mess, the less reasonable 4 hours will be to clean it up.

If it were me, I’d have her drive the kid (again figure out who’s car will be used) be able to pick up the kid if camp calls for whatever, have the ability and desire to do things with the kid if camp is closed for whatever reason, and have her do grocery shopping. I’m sorry, I don’t know how much to charge for this. My suggestion would be $15 an hour and take away the deep cleaning.