Do you employ a housekeeper / maid service?

[digman6]

I do home daycare so i feel like I am spending my life cleaning I am OCD . I want it all perfect and if its not stress out time. I would LOVE some one to do it for me. Anyone know the cost usually ??

I would love it if they came 2xs a month.

 

[*KeepMovingForward*]

We can afford it, but I personally get a bit put off by someone coming into my home in that way. Maybe I'm just a very private person, but it would be more of stress inducer for me than anything. Plus I tend to leave things out...jewelry, cash, credit cards...whatever...and I'd feel like I had a baby in the house with having to make sure that is all put away or locked up. I am the type that would clean before the housekeeper got there anyway.

My MIL has a cleaning service due to her physical limitations and none of the ladies that comes to her home seem to clean terribly well. Seems they are good at a cursory cleaning, but nothing major-I still have to go to her house and wipe the dust off her headboard, pictures, etc. and TRULY scrub her tub and floors. Then again we could just be clean freaks in my family, but I don't think so.

One of my friends had a cleaning service come to her home for years (same woman for probably over 10 years-trusted her implicitly) and my friend wound up suing the cleaning company...turns out the maid had some very quick and sticky fingers and was pilfering cash out of her husbands dresser. Lovely! I have better things to do than follow someone around as they clean my house, if I had that kind of time, then I'd just do it myself. I don't know...I'm sure there are many reputable people and services out there, but I'm just too nervous to ever do it.

 

[LglBlonde]

I said Yes. We both work outside the home.

We just hired a company. They will come every other week started 7/31. I cannot wait. I've been lobbying for this for nearly a year. DH finally told me Yes around my birthday in May - I told him that was good enough as a birthday present for me!

Fortunately, the timing is great. Just 4 days before Jacob's birthday party. It's great b/c I can focus on straightening & organizing instead of cleaning.

The company guarantees 100% satisfaction & will come back if you aren't happy. I hope they do well. I'm really excited about the bathrooms & the dusting. I maintain the rest pretty well.

 

[SalandJeff]

Can folks post what they pay for their maid service?

 

[LglBlonde]

Initial clean $130-160.

Biweekly - $85-92.

Raleigh NC

 

[flipflop]

Biweekly, 2100 square foot home, 4 bd, 2.5 baths - 2 bedrooms unused. $90 - and I think that is cheaper than the norm - would have expected $100 or so. Central NJ.

Having someone come in and clean is the nicest thing we do for ourselves. It gives us weekend time to spend with the kids and forces us to tidy up every other week.

 

[Luv Bunnies]

I've been doing a major clean-out on our house since I've been off for the summer (I work at a school and get summers off too!). In the next couple of weeks, we are going to recarpet the living room and downstairs den. The 4 bedrooms upstairs will follow when we get the junk cleaned out. I can't believe the amount of "stuff" I've gotten rid of - toys, baby stuff, etc. It feels so nice to actually have empty spaces in the house.

So now that everything is getting organized, I think it will be easier to keep the house clean. Dirt seems to hide behind clutter!

In the fall, I will probably be adding another 1/2 hour to my workday (5.5 per day instead of 5). So, I'll be making a little extra money and have a little less time to clean. I'm seriously thinking of getting a cleaning person to come in every 2 weeks and do the heavy stuff. I'll continue to do the kitchen, laundry and immediate messes.

 

[terri01p]

Are you kidding... I am the maid service, and frankly I need to be fired !

 

[Minnie_me]

DH and I both work. I'm a teacher (in a rural county), DH is a social worker (same county). We're not bringing in much $$!. We built a house in a desirable area, and now we pretty much live to pay for the house. We're not sure if we would do things differently, though - - -we really love being here! And it will get better.

As far as a housekeeper, though.......we would LOVE to get one, to come in at least every other week. But it's just not going to happen right now.

It's so difficult to work full time, have two kids with after-school activities, run errands & grocery shop, and still have time to clean the house!! I try to keep up the housework during the week so I'm not faced with a disaster on the weekends. I just wish someone would come do my bathrooms and floors!!!

 

[DISNEYFOS]

The maid service I use came in and did a quote for me. The first cleaning to get things "up to their standards" is an hourly rate (but you can put a limit on the # of hours). Then every two weeks is $90. We have a 3000 sq ft house. They clean 3 bds, 3 bath, kitchen, family room, dining, stairs, hallway. They don't clean the 3rd floor office or spare bedroom because its my husbands dumping ground..or my office. We have to get rid of clutter before they come, i.e. toys, DH's dirty socks etc....(which DH does not understand "Why clean before the maids come?" )

I think its pretty reasonable. I work from home, so I see how they work..They are literally on their hands and knees scrubbing my bathroom floor.. Can't beat that with a stick.

 

[Vacation Lover]

I admit it...I'm a SAHM and we have a cleaning service that comes every other week. I'm a terrible housekeeper! My parents gave me a few sessions of the cleaning service after baby #3 was born and it was so great that we've continued it.

Cost is $75 and includes the downstairs of our 3300 sf home: kitchen, family room, sunroom, dining room, master bedroom & bath, hallway, and 1/2 bath.

 

[FinallyBoughtDVC]

We used to have a full-time housekeeper - she came 5-6 days a week - did everything (laundry, food shopping, cooking, total house management). She was with us for years. Once my youngest was about 7, we decided to forgo her and had an au pair to hang out with the kids (her responsiblities include keeping the children's laundry done, rooms clean, feeding the children, etc.) and a twice a week cleaning lady who is marvelous.

I work full-time (as does my dh). Our time home is spent with our kids or alone with each other having fun. Cleaning, laundry, food shopping, etc. is a waste of our time and we'd rather pay someone else to do it.

To answer about the cost - our full-time housekeeper was paid $600 a week her last year with us (with two weeks paid vacation and we bought her a plane ticket home to visit her family for a month each year). She was going to college on the weekends and in the evenings - so our family was a perfect place for her to be. She graduated with her Masters at just about the same time we no longer needed her. It was a match made in heaven. Now, we pay our cleaning lady $190 a week and the au pair averages out to $350 a week (including agency fees).

 

[Golden Rose]

We actually share a housekeeper with my mom, my grandmother, and a couple of family friends. She does a mix of cleaning and child-care help for me and one friend; she just cleans for the others. She does half days for us two or three times a week (we trade around with my mom.)

I'm only working out of the home part-time, but I've had a lot of health issues that really limit me. (It's not so much that I can't do housework these days... I just hate doing housework.) Having her here gives me time to run errands without and active 2 yr old, actually get some work done, and take the occasional soaky bath.

This is the second housekeeper we have had, and she has been with us for two years and a bit. The previous one was actually with us for three years, but she did cleaning only and we really needed someone we trusted to help with our son.

We did not find her through a service; we found her through personal recommendations. (She used to work for my grandmother's neighbors until they moved.) We found our previous one the same way. So did many of our friends - asking people you know who have help is often a good way to find someone.

We trust her completely, my son loves her, and we couldn't do without her.
I am also one of those people who leaves cash and jewelry around, and we have never had any trouble. In fact, she sometimes leaves me a little stack of cash that she found when she was cleaning up!

As far as cost goes, she gets $280 a week from me and my mom for four half days, which she divides between my home and my mom's home. Those "half" days usually run between 3.5 and 5 hours, and she gets some flexibility around which days she works mornings/early afternoons and which she works afternoons/evenings.

 

[momto2girls]

Oh yes!! I'm a SAHM but I find housekeeping services to be essential.

 

[thepeach80]

As soon as I can afford it, bring on the maid!

 

[Grendalynn]

I am it - chief cook and bottlewasher. I am a working mom (25+ hours a week minimum) of 3 and also soley incharge of laundry, kids, groceries, bills and 85% of the house cleaning. I think that I would like a cleaning lady/maid/housekeeper, but sometimes I enjoy the homey feeling of doing it myself... call me weird. Don't ge me wrong, DH helps when he can, but owns his own business and that can be time consuming. Don't think for a minute that I don't moan and groan about all that I do and all that he doesn't, but thats just the way it is. When I need him, I call on him and he is good to take the boys here or there or what not, but the general running of the household, laundry, cooking and clean (and kids) is my responcibility.

 

[TottenKing]

Our kids are 3, 5, and 9 and they're all pretty self-sufficient. We have our sitter 30 hours a week and, since babysitting really just meant feeding the kids and making sure they didn't destroy the house, we added light housekeeping to the duties.

She does the dishes, straightens up, and sweeps/mops the floors. It works out great. The house stays a lot cleaner, the kids get watched and fed adequately, and the sitter still gets pretty significant time to sit around.