Who has a house cleaner?

It's kind of embarrassing and makes me feel lazy but I'm seriously thinking of hiring someone to come out once or twice a month to clean my house. It's almost all I can do to keep the laundry done and put away, the fish tanks cleaned, and the dogs taken care of. I HATE cleaning with a passion. I'm wondering if it might be worth it to have someone come in.

What do you guys pay? How do you find someone that is responsible and all that stuff?

I made a thread about this a while back. I still really want to get a housekeeper, but I'm a little weird about having a stranger come into our house. I'd feel the need to be home while he/she cleans, and then I'd feel weird not helping! Haha. It would definitely be worth the cost to me, since I don't like to clean.

I started looking on care.com, and there are a TON of listings. Some of them have background checks done and everything. Do you have any family members or friends who have house keepers for word of mouth references?

ETA: Here's my old thread if it helps

http://www.chazhound.com/forums/showthread.php?t=129960

Lol, this is always how I feel.

I still live at home, but whenever we have cleaning people come in, I feel like a freakin' BUM when I'm, like, sitting on the couch watching them clean. lol. I feel like I should be helping... but my parents paid them for a reason.

They only get them out around once a month. I am not entirely sure what they pay. But my dads house has these two American girls who just started their own company, I think. And my mom used to use a company that was a franchise.

Thanks! Yeah my dad has a housekeeper that comes weekly. I'm not sure if she's got openings or not or how much she charges. I would think mine would be cheaper since my house is less than 1/3rd the size of his. He found her through his neighbor's. My coworker has one she loves but it's across town.

I HATE cleaning!

I hate cleaning SO much, but I love having a clean house- so it's a constant battle. It would be really nice to get someone to come once a week or once every other week to get the big chores that I'd rather not do. I just have to get over my fears of having someone do it, because it would be very much worth it to me!

I was interested briefly in the deep cleanings (like scrubbing floor boards and cleaning fridge shelves and such). The vacuuming/dusting/straightening I can do myself, and generally enjoy, but it would have been nice to have a true cleaning done once in a while. Unfortunately, even just for vacuuming/mopping/etc, the average price is around $150 for every/other week. I'm not comfortable paying $300/month for it.

My parents hired someone a few months ago because of my their lack of time to really get to cleaning the house. (They both work full time & my mom is going to night school).

We found her through neighbours I think we pay 10€ (about $13) an hour. She comes once a week - for about 4 hours.

From what I've researched, I had expected to pay $10-15 an hour for someone. I was guessing $50-60 a week for 4-6 hours of work.

Yeah. Her name is Mom.

Lol but seriously my mom is super obsessed with cleaning, so there's no way she'd ever let something sit for someone else to do. I hate cleaning very much but I can't see myself ever wanting to pay for someone else to do it.

My parents have a housekeeper who comes once a week and changes the sheets, mops the floors, cleans the stone courtyards and dusts everything indoors. They LOVE her, she's very respectful of their things and they haven't had an issue in 3+ years.

The moment we have the extra cash I'll be hiring a housekeeper to come every so often to keep up with the difficult things like walls, baseboards, floors, etc. I loathe laundry too though and it always gets pushed back after those things. Right now however we're stretched too thinly for a housekeeper.

My parents have one and love her.

My mom LOVES to clean. I'm so jealous of her!

I used to clean houses as well as pet sitting at one point, GREAT money, but not easy work

I charged a minimum of 50$ for 2 bedroom house, each additional bedroom went up 25$.

I had really great clients, some would clean the house before I came LOL...

IF i charged by the hour which was rare, I charged 20$ an hour, believe me you can get alot of cleaning done in an hour if you have a routine and no breaks..

Wish I could afford to have someone clean my own house, but alas, it's my burden to bear

Wow, $10-15/hour sounds incredibly cheap to me! I'd do it for that price in a heart beat. I paid way more than that for someone to ride a lawn mower around my yard (it was $35-40 for around 20-30 minutes of work), and scrubbing behind appliances is way more work intensive than a ride-on lawn mower.

Maybe I just underestimate the time they spend there? The quotes I got for an 1800 sf home were between $120-$185. I guess if they're spending 6 hours there, it's only $20-30/hour. I just assumed they'd be in and out in 2-3 hours, since I keep my house pretty tidy.

We have a cleaner come once a month to do a really good clean of the house, and we pay her $100 plus tip I believe.
We've had her since I was a little kid and she LOVES our dogs and is just super awesome. My dad always tidies the house and I tidy my room before she comes, as in making things are off the floor and what not.
She was recommended to us from a close friend. I'd ask friends, relatives or neighbours if they have someone they like first before going through a service.

We've had both a live in and once a week cleaning lady before and both have been awesome.
Even just having someone once a week/month to do BIG cleaning projects (mopping everything, vaccuming, laundry/folding, window cleaning) just makes life so much easier lol

Prives vary by area and how ok you are with hiring people who are, *ahem*, not exactly legally supposed to be working.. if you know what I mean..

It's not lazy or wrong lol it's paying someone to do things you don't want to do so you can spend more of your life doing the things you DO want to do. COULD I move out of my house by myself? Ya, probably.. but movers just do it better, in less time and I hate getting sweaty and lifting heavy objects so why not? Lol same thing with house keepers.

In the words of my brother "I work all day, doing stuff I'd rather not be doing. I'll be damned if the time I spend enjoying my life at home is going to be cut even slimmer by doing stuff I'd rather not be doing, and not even getting paid for it!"

We leave a list of things to do. Laundry/folding/putting stuff away is always at the top.. followed by basic cleaning stuff that needs to be done every week (mopping, dusting, cleaning rooms etc..)
and then the rest of the list is random stuff that isn't really urgent but we'd like done at some point and she works her way through those when she can (sometimes she has school and needs to leave immediately, sometimes she is ok with working an extra hour or two) extra stuff is stuff like cleaning fridge, mopping down balcony and other random stuff.
I like the list thing, with NEED TO DO TODAY and LONG TERM tasks. It ensures everything that needs to be done gets done without rushing her, and the long term stuff always gets done and done WELL


She is awesome and is very open with us in discussing how we want tasks done and her pay. She has been with us for a while and does a great job

SHE EVEN FOLDS UNDERWEAR! ..which is one of those things I really didn't think I would love until she started doing it and now..

I HATE cleaning, and wish I could afford to hire someone to come in once a week to clean bathrooms, and do big things like cleaning out the fridge, etc.

I am not good at cleaning either. I have no idea what kind of products work best for doing things like taking the hard water stains off my faucets/counters and what works best for cleaning tile, etc.

I find people through Angie's List or word of mouth.

Cali, your quotes were in line with what I recently paid to one of the bigger companies in my city-- for 2 people for about 4 hours, I think (for a 3 BD condo). I've since found someone much cheaper through word of mouth (an individual, which I think tends to be cheaper).

I will say, though, that there can be a big difference in quality depending on who you use (and not necessarily based on what you pay). The woman who comes now isn't amazing (e.g., she doesn't really move things around to dust underneath), but she's really sweet (and loves the dogs!), works really hard and is affordable enough that I can have her come every week, which is awesome. I don't mind doing the perfectionist stuff if I don't have to clean my bathrooms, lol. Plus, TBH, and it's not something I'm super proud of, having someone come in regularly helps me to keep things picked up.

I had a guy once who was so amazing -- he did things like hand washing my floors and ironing my pillowcases. But there was too much drama so we parted ways. Sometimes I wish I'd stuck it out and dealt with his drama because I've since realized how rare that is to find!

All that to say that you might have to try a few different people. Be really clear about what you want, and what you care about. (I had one company that beat the sh!t out of my furniture with the vacuum -- it made me so sad!)

My lady has just arrived. She is a young Zimbabwean woman who is worth her weight in gold. I still want to get a company in every 6 weeks or so to do a deep clean. Like vacuum mattresses and wash down cupboards etc. Coleta does basic cleaning, washing and ironing.

We have someone who comes every 2-3 weeks depending on our house and availability. She has been coming for like 5-6 years now? Very nice, sweet lady and so nice to have the extra help. She doesn't do any tidying, mostly just cleaning (vacuuming, wiping down surfaces, dusting, cleaning bathrooms, scrubbing, etc.) so we always do a bit of tidying for her so cleaning is easier

I would feel way too guilty paying her $10-15 an hour I think. Cleaning the way she does is HARD work, and she is an immigrant who has had a hard life and is working to support her family. Our house takes her about 2.5 - 3 hours and we pay her ~100 I believe, and at christmas and holidays we give her more. My mom also drives her to the bus stop when she is done. If we had hired a student and they did more basic tidying and cleaning we would maybe pay less, but paying her minimum wage for such a physical job seems cheap to me. Over the years we have come to really like her

I think we found her through a friend, and that is what I will do if this lady is no longer working when I hire one someday. We are comfortable leaving her at the house and running errands, so I guess thats a good thing I would be more comfortable having a good reference for an individual from someone I know than just hiring a company.