Some questions about hiring a cleaning lady/man

So...my mum and I, after years of trying and failing, have finally come to the conclusion that we need help. We cannot keep our house anywhere approaching clean, and my father and I are ready to step up and pay for someone else to do it.

We have a flat level 1800 square foot house, 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms. I want someone to come in once a week, do all the floors, scrub the toilets/sinks/tubs, vacuum the bedrooms, and wipe down everything. I did housecleaning when I was 16, and I know this can be accomplished in 2 hours if the person works efficiently.

I got a quote through a housekeeping company, who don't charge by the hour, and they told me $150 each visit. O.O I am right in feeling that's a bit ridiculous? Is asking $20-25 an hour just plain cheap? I make $10 an hour and often clean all day at work...and I feel that's very fair, honestly. Even if they couldn't get everything accomplished in 2 hours, we could adjust. I know the cost of living on the Peninsula is very high, but...

What do you think?

I'm not at all trying to sound like an ass but if its only 2 hours a week to do it and you don't wanna pay that much then why dont the 3 of you just divide it up into 40min of work each? I know i'm weird but i couldn't imagine someone coming in and cleaning my house. I don't like strangers that far in my business.

If you're set on hiring someone then I would post an ad on craigslist. Someone is probably looking for work like that.

I would try to find a cleaning person that will work separate from the company. Like as a side job.
Companies need to cover the costs for their employees + equipment + gas + themselves + whatever, which is why it's expensive.

My parents have their house deep cleaned every 2 weeks. They hire two ladies that are maids at my mom's gym that are under a cleaning company, but my parents are hiring them directly on the side away from the cleaning company. They're paying around $80 for 4 hours worth of cleaning. They clean the house daily themselves to maintain, but they have the maids deep clean every 2 weeks because they have 3 dogs.

It's also not just about the person cleaning- it's about motivating us to make sure the place is tidy enough for someone to clean as well. So we're not going to sit back and do nothing- believe me, we have a 3 year old. That isn't an option.

There is over head, gas, cleaning supplies, etc. You're going to get your monies worth in the end, it's just that they're going to charge for what they think their time is worth.

Look on Craigslist or in the local paper. But, I mean, can't you guys just get off your butts and do it? What happens when something goes missing? You going to call the company and make accusations, file a police report?

I don't know, I'd just call hoarders and see who they have deep clean the house or something if it's that bad. If it's not that bad, do it yourself.

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lol, wow, thanks for your vocal opinion on how you feel my family should handle things. My house is NOT that bad, thank you. YOU do it yourself.


Just...nevermind. Jeeze. Forget I made this thread. I was looking for an answer to a question and all I got were assumptions that me and my family are all lazy slobs. (Not talking to you, Satomi.) Thanks for that. You don't know my family, you don't know what we're going through, you don't know anything about us.

I DO do it myself, I do dish all the time. Vacuum, sweep, mop, etc.

It's not that hard. Now, had you said we just don't "want" to clean our own house, that'd be different. But you just made it seem like you "couldn't". As if you made messes faster than you could clean them up.

If everyone is proactive in the house (make a mess, clean it up immediately after making it) then there's no time that you actually have to sit down and clean.

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My post wasn't mean at all, i'm not sure why you'd get so bent out of shape over it. The way you made it sound just made you guys sound really lazy, i'm sorry, but that's just how it came off. I get paid to clean and do dishes and do laundry and cook and all kinds of "chore" work too. When i come home i do the same crap and don't get paid for it. If the work doesn't seem worth what people are wanting to charge, then why not try dividing it up to do it yourselves? That was just my initial reaction on how to solve your problem. If that really offended you then maybe your skin isn't thick enough for the internet, because i was NOT trying to be mean.

All you had to say was "no we tried that, too much personal stuff going on to handle it all..." or something like that.

When i lived in Jersey, we had some cleaning ladies come twice a month, sometimes once a month. We had a 5 bedroom house, three floors. With two dogs, my snakes n rats, a cage of parakeets, and a cat. The three of us all worked two jobs each. The cleaning ladies did the whole house in two hours. They were fast and efficient. It cost $89 every time they came. They did not work for a company, and they brought theyre own equipment and supplies. But they did break a few knick knacks and let one of the parakeets out. My roomates and i thought it was worth it since we had the money but not the time.

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Originally Posted by Anya

lol, wow, thanks for your vocal opinion on how you feel my family should handle things. My house is NOT that bad, thank you. YOU do it yourself.


Just...nevermind. Jeeze. Forget I made this thread. I was looking for an answer to a question and all I got were assumptions that me and my family are all lazy slobs. (Not talking to you, Satomi.) Thanks for that. You don't know my family, you don't know what we're going through, you don't know anything about us.

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:( I'm sorry about the assuming comments. I'm sorry that simple questions can't be giving a simple answers without negative assuming answers but that's just how a lot of people on here answer questions. But don't be discouraged :) I'll try my best to give you some good advice that you actually asked for and not tell you to do it yourself because everyone loves to clean their house all day long. I know exactly how you feel on this subject. I have to clean up all the messes in my home and it's exhausting and my house isn't even as big as yours. But I babysit a lot and 3 year olds are like little tornados so I know how hard it is to constantly clean up after them lol. But do you know anyone that have cleaners come to their house? You could ask them to recommend you some good people. But if not I can look around and ask some of my friends and get you someone to fit your needs :)


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I use a maid and laundry service for anything that needs to be ironed.

This is how I see it - I have a 3,000 sq ft house (you must be Filipino if... your house is a hotel for all your relatives passing within 100 miles of you). So, I have 2 choices: Spend 8 hours every week cleaning and ironing or go to work for 8 hours every week so I can have income to pay somebody else to do it for me. I happen to love programming. Even if I wasn't paid doing it, I would still be doing it... kinda like people here and their ball pythons - even if they don't get paid taking care of snakes, they'd still do it. Anyway, I spend 8 hours programming to make money to pay for 8 hours of cleaning and laundry service because I'd rather program than clean.

Okay, that said... I used to have a professional maid service who has 2 maids come every week and spend 4 hours cleaning my house. They divided my house into 4 sections. Every week, they clean 3 sections and deep clean 1 section. I paid them $175/week. Yes, I can make that money programming for 8 hours.

Why so expensive? Because they're bonded and have been in business for over 40 years in my city. They can't just swipe my stuff and take off with it because I can sue them. They're not about to disappear by morning. This company has a key to my house!

I don't use them anymore. I actually found one local woman that does all this for $75 per week and she sometimes spends about 6 hours in my house. But usually she spends less than 4. She's very meticulous and she won't leave until she feels the house has met her standards of clean which is why I love her. She's also bonded and she had glowing references from people in my city who I called and talked to. She was recommended to me by a friend. She works solo. She is an LLC - so she's a legal business entity. But she's her only employee. She doesn't have ads though. She goes completely through word of mouth reference.

It is important that you know and trust a maid service. These guys have access to you, your children, your pets, and your stuff. You have to know that they won't disappear by morning. To me $25/hour for 1 person is super cheap. Remember, these people have to drive to you, bring their own cleaning materials, and carry insurance for anything of value that they break in your house. They have 2-3 houses to clean everyday. So, their per hour rate does not only cover the hours they are physically in your house. They also have to account for driving distance between jobs on top of their materials. And, if they only pocket $10/hour, it is so much easier to go flip burgers or ring groceries at Wal-mart for the same amount of money. Housecleaning is a specialty. Not many people can do that job well - as you know from experience.

We had cleaning ladies come out once every two or three weeks for a deep clean, I think it ran about $100 for 3 floors and 5 bedrooms. Granted, this was probably 5-8 years ago... So I don't think that price is entirely unreasonable. Of course, we would 'pre-clean' before they came but I think it took about 1.5-2 hours. It wasn't really feasible to do it ourselves with all of the animals, and my siblings were pretty young at the time. They got things dirtier faster than we could clean. Much easier to take everyone on a nice little trip to the park and come home to a beautifully cleaned house :). Plus, somehow they got that place cleaner and better smelling than we ever could lol.

You may be able to hire somebody aside from a company to clean in 2 hours and pay them that much per hour. A company has a lot of over head, supplies and what not and advertising and such. They charge by the job and turn around and pay the people per hour cheap normally($10ish/hour) sometimes more. It just depends if it's them doing the cleaning or hired employees.

What I would do is probably put an ad on craigslist or even browse craigslist for somebody that is looking for a job and offering maid services. It can be done and hopefully you have luck finding somebody. With the unemployment rate being so high now days $50ish+ a week is at least something. Even for somebody looking for a side job. That's $200ish a month. Good luck with your search.

Have you ever tried Angie's List? Well worth the small cost to join when hiring ANYone to come and work inside your home!

Believe me hon, I know how you feel about the challenges of keeping a house as clean as you want it. It took me over twenty years to get to the point where I could afford it and justify the expense, but since I hired my girl to come in every two weeks, I LOVE it. It's WAY easier to keep a clean house clean than it is to feel like you're constantly trying just to keep your head above the dust and clutter and don't know where to start.

Consider an every-two-week option. It's plenty for keeping the dust at bay, the floors reasonably clean and the bathrooms pleasant. I've got a family of five (four now that my daughter recently moved out) with a 2900 square foot, two story home. Every two weeks is plenty for us. I pay my girl $150 per visit, regardless of how much work there is to do that day or how long it takes her. She spends a lot more than two hours...typically anywhere from 4-5 hours (she's very thorough!). So I consider her pay very reasonable. It's absolutely a cost I'm happy to bear because it makes life so much nicer for the whole family. We still do chores and keep things clean and tidy in the meantime, but now when chores are done, everything FEELS clean, as opposed to just being good enough to get by.

Anyhow...I'm in south Texas. Costs will vary greatly by region, and by the circumstances of the person you hire. I got very lucky and hired a girl who is working for herself, so I'm not trying to cover some corporate overhead expenses when I pay her.

Good luck!

The price you were quoted for a cleaning service is pretty cheap. You're only looking at the employee's salary, where the company has additional overhead expenses - bonding, liability insurance, FICA, workman's comp insurance, unemployment insurance, cleaning supplies, employee health insurance (or the fee if they don't offer it), advertising, office staff, background checks on employees (do you want a thief in your home?), etc.

My mother and Grandmother live together and my Grandmother is determined that my mother cant clean house right! LOL Hell after cleaning up after my brother and I while we were young I would say she's a Pro! Anyways, my Grandmother wanted to hire a cleaning crew to do their house. WOW the Merry Maids here in Texas wanted $80 hr for 2 ladies. That's $640 for a 8 hr day!!!!!!!!! I couldn't believe it! Well she looked around and found someone who only charged $25 hr and was willing to only do 4 hrs a day once a week. Just look around, you can find someone who needs some extra cash!

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Originally Posted by AlexisFitzy

:( I'm sorry about the assuming comments. I'm sorry that simple questions can't be giving a simple answers without negative assuming answers but that's just how a lot of people on here answer questions. But don't be discouraged :) I'll try my best to give you some good advice that you actually asked for and not tell you to do it yourself because everyone loves to clean their house all day long. I know exactly how you feel on this subject. I have to clean up all the messes in my home and it's exhausting and my house isn't even as big as yours. But I babysit a lot and 3 year olds are like little tornados so I know how hard it is to constantly clean up after them lol. But do you know anyone that have cleaners come to their house? You could ask them to recommend you some good people. But if not I can look around and ask some of my friends and get you someone to fit your needs :)


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Thats pretty rude to just say everyone on here assumes stuff and answers negatively. I don't really think you've been on here long enough to make such broad statements.

I think you need to reread the original post. You're right, no one loves to clean their house all day long. That's not what anya said though. She said about 2hrs a week worth of cleaning. Divide that by her, her mom and her dad, thats 40minutes a week per person. Divide that by 7 days and thats LESS THAN TEN MINUTES a day. Seriously, make a chore chart or lists for everyone. When im given chores at home or tasks that need to get done at work i always prefer a list. That way its on paper, EXACTLY what i need to get done. I finish it and its all good. Helps me stay on task and not get distracted with other less important stuff. It'd be really easy to make up at home and switch it up so people aren't doing the same stuff week after week. Even her 3y/o sibling could be given small tasks to help out, kids usually like to be involved and they're learning good habits.

I wasn't avoiding her question or answering it negatively. I saw the problem she presented and offered what i would do. She did say she didn't wanna pay the $150. Idk, i just figured why pay someone to do something you could do yourself. I understand that i don't know anything about her personal situation so if my suggestion wasn't a possibility then thats fine, just say that instead of blowing up about it lol.

no idea

I used to clean for money, and yes, 20 bucks an hour is too cheap. You get what you pay for - if you want a clean place, pay a decent wage.

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Originally Posted by Hypnogaja

I used to clean for money, and yes, 20 bucks an hour is too cheap. You get what you pay for - if you want a clean place, pay a decent wage.

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$20 an hour is too cheap to clean? I'm clearly in the wrong business lol

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

$20 an hour is too cheap to clean? I'm clearly in the wrong business lol

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It is for a professional cleaner, yes. You're paying for knowledge, efficiency and timeliness. There's a difference between cleaning a toilet in a hotel that gets wiped down daily (where the going rate for maids is minimum wage) and cleaning a toilet in someone's home, where nothing is wiped down daily and god only knows how much scrubbing is involved and the chemical pharmacy needed to get the grunge and stains off, to give an example. When someone calls for a housecleaner it's usually for an in depth cleaning and then for a further keeping-up on the cleanliness every week. I never took less than thirty a room, and that was a decade ago. As I said, you get what you pay for. If'n ya want someone to run off with your jewelry, hire 'em for twenty. I'm sure someone will take the job - but when people feel like they're getting ripped off, they're more likely to rip you off.

Well, I might've done $25 a room, come to think of it, but only for people I knew well.