Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I frequently hear the advice “just hire everything out!”. That makes sense if you live overseas and have 2-3 people on staff, but how does it work here? For example, I was thinking about this when I realized that the LL Bean water hog mat under my dog’s food and water dish stinks. So I had to go outside and scrub it with oxyclean and hose it down, and now I have to remember to bring it in before it rains.

Do weekly cleaners notice this stuff if you find the right ones? Do you have to list all possible one-offs or deep cleans and they rotate through them? Are there special cleaners who do this? Or do you have another method for managing the intermittent things that need to get done but aren’t obvious?

I’m fine managing it on my own now, but I never see any of my neighbors doing this kind of stuff and I’m wondering what secret I’m missing.

You don't see my DH scrubbing the car mats? You don't see us taking all porch furniture outside to clean the room 1x per year? Maybe you're just not paying attention?

No, I think I need to move! This is how I was raised but I don’t see it in my neighborhood. The last time I was scrubbing the car mats my nosy neighbor strolled by and just stared like I was an actor making candles in colonial Williamsburg.

We live near a bunch of indoor cats who don’t seem to clean. You’re my people.

Anonymous wrote:These days I use Task Rabbit quite a bit. There seem to be many more taskers working in the DC area now than there were five to ten years ago. It used to be more of a NYC thing.

I do not have dogs, but would a restaurant drain floor mat work better? Maybe with a thin Armor All mat underneath?

Anonymous wrote:We do a lot of it ourselves. But my weekly cleaners also notice when the fridge needs to be cleaned out and take care of it. But ive had the same team for 8 years and paid then all of covid not to come. I also schedule a deep clean which takes 3 people 6 hrs once a year.

Anonymous wrote:All the posters answering either have weekly cleaners or someone who comes 2X each week. What about the households who have a cleaner every other week? My bet is that it doesn’t get done.

Anonymous wrote:I frequently hear the advice “just hire everything out!”. That makes sense if you live overseas and have 2-3 people on staff, but how does it work here? For example, I was thinking about this when I realized that the LL Bean water hog mat under my dog’s food and water dish stinks. So I had to go outside and scrub it with oxyclean and hose it down, and now I have to remember to bring it in before it rains.

Do weekly cleaners notice this stuff if you find the right ones? Do you have to list all possible one-offs or deep cleans and they rotate through them? Are there special cleaners who do this? Or do you have another method for managing the intermittent things that need to get done but aren’t obvious?

I’m fine managing it on my own now, but I never see any of my neighbors doing this kind of stuff and I’m wondering what secret I’m missing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I frequently hear the advice “just hire everything out!”. That makes sense if you live overseas and have 2-3 people on staff, but how does it work here? For example, I was thinking about this when I realized that the LL Bean water hog mat under my dog’s food and water dish stinks. So I had to go outside and scrub it with oxyclean and hose it down, and now I have to remember to bring it in before it rains.

Do weekly cleaners notice this stuff if you find the right ones? Do you have to list all possible one-offs or deep cleans and they rotate through them? Are there special cleaners who do this? Or do you have another method for managing the intermittent things that need to get done but aren’t obvious?

I’m fine managing it on my own now, but I never see any of my neighbors doing this kind of stuff and I’m wondering what secret I’m missing.

You don't see my DH scrubbing the car mats? You don't see us taking all porch furniture outside to clean the room 1x per year? Maybe you're just not paying attention?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My relatives just add the one-offs to the list of chores for the house cleaner to do that week. If there's too much, she can't do it all, and will spread it out over several visits (over several weeks), unless the homeowner wants to do it themselves. Some people do it themselves, because they're not the type to wait around while something curdles, but others are fine living with the problem until it's fixed by someone else (and disabled or elderly persons are also in that category).

I can't afford to outsource anything, so either it sits undone, or I muster up the courage to do it: this week I cleaned the walls and baseboards that my fluffy dog likes to brush against, because after several months he ends up leaving an oily deposit that contributes to "old house smell". I have a keen sense of smell, like PP, so anything smelly bothers me until it's taken care of.

But I'm not good with clutter. My space is small and the piles of books and papers never go away. I just dust them...

For the dog walls: try a spin mop in a bucket of hot water and a cleaner that cuts oil, like Mr clean or ammonia. Just a quick swipe with the spin mop isn’t as thorough as scrubbing all the baseboards by hand, but you’ll get 80% of the result in like 10% of the effort.