Do you hire a housekeeper?

Carrotcake

Hmm. That is a good point. We have renters insurance and I wonder if that covers theft. Something to look into. We don't have a ton of small valuables, though I suppose that's irrelevant.

dalef

$155 every 2 weeks buys 2 cleaners for 2 hours; general cleaning, we are satisfied (W works full time, of course).

TungstenCarbide

When we've both been busy with work we've had cleaners for a few months at a time - a once a week visit with vacuum, dust, clean bathroom and kitchen etc. About £30 for 2 to 3 hours work in the UK. 

Now the kids are older, they take some of the strain on chores and are also a lot less messy, so we manage ourselves, but if chores really started eating into our leisure time, then I wouldn't hesitate to restart the cleaning service. 

Mongrel

Wow, a lot of you have 127 kids. Weird how that happens.

If I could get someone to dust and clean the kitchen floor (white? really? What idiot thought that was a good choice for a high traffic area?) every week or two life would be much better. Mrs M's mother has offered to do this but Mrs M shoots it down along with bringing in an outsider. Her excuse is "it would be weird having someone clean my stuff" but I suspect it's more about her admitting she can't do it all. That, and she's probably worried about other people seeing what's in the drawer next to the bed. 

Terps4Life

I just tried out a service here last week and she did a nice job.  165 for the first cleaning of a standard single family home under 3000 square feet. If they were to come back it would equal about 90 bucks every two weeks.   Take heed though...I did this as a surprise to my wife and it backfired.  Her initial reaction was that I thought she was NOT doing the job well enough, when in reality it was me thinking I WANT MORE TIME WITH YOU instead of spending time cleaning.  Since the job was done we DID have more time for other things so that was good.  But I would suggest talking about it first.  ;-)

seriously

Main house, $135, every ore week.  Cleans floors and floorboards, 3400 sq ft.  Scrubs entire kitchen top to bottom.  Lightly does interior windows and mirrors, plus any glass in cabinet doors and appliances.  Empties trash, straightens pillows, beats rugs, and dusts entire house.

Beach house, $100, about once a month Memorial Day to Labor Day.  Cleans floors, 2400 sq ft.  This is big one, because we end up with loads of sand.  Very little carpet in this house, lots of tile.  Washes tile and beats rugs.  Dusts and does lower lever windows as needed.  Also use her to do things like check in me the house if we haven't been there in a while and let contractors in as needed.

Mr_Brown

We only get someone to clean when we're having a party, I also hired one after the wife had a baby... Usually we pay about $100, usually someone who could use the extra cash. 3,000 sq ft. Bathrooms, mopping, vacuuming, counters, fingerprints, sinks... Not as good as if we'd done it but usually it's just hectic and we could use one less thing to worry about. 

 I really should pay someone to come the day after. 

dalef

Envious, here it is $155 every two weeks for 1700 sq. ft.

Remus

My maid is awesome, and a bargain.  Same woman for several years, $101 + $20 tip every two weeks (plus a generous tip for Christmas) to clean a 1600sq ft apartment in Manhattan.  Totally worth it.  She does a great job.  Having someone come in and clean also takes a lot of pressure off your relationship, as you argue a lot less about who does the cleaning.  Plus, I'm helping employ someone.  I feel like if you can afford it its a win/win.  I think people maybe get too caught up in it going against the 'do it yourself' American spirit, as well as perhaps some element of class elitism.  But you don't refuse to have your waitress bring your food at a restaurant right?  And with most couples having both people working nowadays, its a no brainer.

growingafamily

I was a bit offended at the "my wife is a SAHM so it's her job to keep the house completely clean at all times" comments until I realized some of you have like 2 kids and send them to school. I have 127 and homeschool so there's that. During the weeks I actually have energy to devote several hours a day to cleaning, I realized that to keep it at the level I'd like it to be at, I'd pretty much have to clean for every waking hour. I'd literally clean all day and never do anything else. But we kinda like to have a life, and leave the house sometimes. A house cleaner every 2 weeks would be pointless here, it'd have to be about every 3 days, and no way can we afford that. So we go with "hopefully above bio hazard level" for day to day and when we have parties or what not, we hire my sister to come and clean. she does cleaning, and is flat broke, and if we hired one it would have to be her out of family obligation and what not. but her marriage is a trainwreck and I'd have to hear about it for the hours she's here. or leave the house while she cleans.

Remus

growingafamily said:

I was a bit offended at the "my wife is a SAHM so it's her job to keep the house completely clean at all times" comments until I realized some of you have like 2 kids and send them to school. I have 127 and homeschool so there's that. During the weeks I actually have energy to devote several hours a day to cleaning, I realized that to keep it at the level I'd like it to be at, I'd pretty much have to clean for every waking hour. I'd literally clean all day and never do anything else. But we kinda like to have a life, and leave the house sometimes. A house cleaner every 2 weeks would be pointless here, it'd have to be about every 3 days, and no way can we afford that. So we go with "hopefully above bio hazard level" for day to day and when we have parties or what not, we hire my sister to come and clean. she does cleaning, and is flat broke, and if we hired one it would have to be her out of family obligation and what not. but her marriage is a trainwreck and I'd have to hear about it for the hours she's here. or leave the house while she cleans.

Please tell me 127 is a typo?

Angeline

@Remus, 127 kids is @Alphabelle's kidding but anonymous way of saying she has a bunch of kids. It's become a forumism.

Persephone

Remus said:

My maid is awesome, and a bargain.  Same woman for several years, $101 + $20 tip every two weeks (plus a generous tip for Christmas) to clean a 1600sq ft apartment in Manhattan.  

@remus, Um... I'd like to hear more about this, if you don't mind. How did you find her? Would you mind sharing her?

RedPillLearning

We have a lady and her crew come every two weeks (on Friday).  I love those days simply because everything is clean all at the same time.  If we did all of it ourselves, it would never be that way because we would do something different each day.  The service is two weeks apart so we still do plenty of picking up and general cleaning, but when that crew leaves it is nirvana.  $150 every two weeks for about 3,900 sq.ft.

dalef

@RedPillLearning I'm jealous; ours is just over $150 every two weeks for less than 1700 sq. ft.

Sherando

I have an independent cleaner who comes every 2 or 3 weeks.  It's $130 for my small (1200 sf) house.  But she is a genius at organizing. She is literally the only person to find the carpet in my younger daughter's room.  Sure, I should be more on top of the kid to clean.  But I'm a divorced mom who works 16 hour days in the warm weather.  Plus cooking and the other tasks necessary to keep two small people alive.  

ETA - I need to figure out how she gets the Pergo to dry streak-free.  It always looks dull when I mop it.