What do you do while the housecleaner is working?

[Pandora II]

We have a cleaner 3 or 4 hours a week. She came with my husband - has been cleaning for him for nearly 12 years now (also does ironing). She's practically our daughter's Polish grandmother - she babysits, has even taken her for a whole Saturday occasionally and loves her as if she was her own.

I generally try to be out for at least 2 hours - enough time to say hello, swap news etc, but not enough to get under her feet. In 12 years she's broken 2 IKEA glasses, one cheap bedside lamp and one espresso cup so not bad going at all. I have no issues with leaving jewellery or valuables around - I trust her completely.

She also has our housekeys - v useful when I locked myself out. We give her an extra weeks pay at xmas and bring her presents back if we go on holiday. I also send her 6 year-old grand-daughter a parcel at xmas every year.

If I'm at home I generally just do stuff on my laptop.

Jennifer knows that I share her sentiments entirely.

 

[jaysonsmom]

I'm usually at work.

Currently our helper comes in once a week, but as soon as we're preggers we'll increase that to three times a week. By the time baby gets here she'll be full time, Mondays to Fridays, 07h30 until 16h30.

Those of you who work and have kids but only have help every second week, how do you cope?

Not being facetious, genuine question (threadjack?) here.

Hi Trekkie,
I thing your interpretation of house-cleaner is different in South Africa than here in the US. Here in the US, a cleaning lady, or maid literally just means cleaning. They do not cook, they do not iron or do laundry, nor do they babysit.

I lived in South Africa, and we had a full time maid that was relatively inexpensive, and did all of the above things that cleaning ladies here do not do. But to answer your question, I have 2 kids, and as a working mom, I had to have send them to a private childcare provider until they were 2, then they switched to a private full-day preschool, then once they started atending elementary school they had to go to an after school program until 6PM. These places provide not only care and supervision, they provide education as well. When my kids are teens, and no longer need childcare, I'm planning to hire a college student, or someone part time just to drive them to all their after school activities!

 

[Gypsy]

Jason's Mom, while maid services don't do laundry or iron you can find plenty of people who will. The stuff I ask mine to do are outside the bonds of typical for most services as they won't do laundry, iron, windows, clean the refrigerator or a whole host of stuff that I feel they should for the money.

One thing I draw the line at is petcare. The litterboxes and stuff are our responsibility or a pet sitter's. And I'd feel the same about childcare too.

 

[TristanC]

I am at work. I leave the housekeeper to do her job. It involves only cleaning, and ironing. The price is negotiated for both the tasks, and the amount of time it should approximately take.

I believe in paying for a job done, not for an hourly wage. Heck, I could iron a shirt for 5 hours if I really wanted. What does that help?

It is a negotiated service through word of mouth recommendations. She is local, and as such we know her mobile, and where she lives etc. If anything were to be stolen, it is a simple case of pinning it down. But that's the practical aspect - she is honest and we trust her. So it becomes an invisible cleaning service.

Absolutely indispensible. We pay a decent price, in exchange for a good service and honesty. I hate having to lock up valuables and so I don't. Couldn't be happier.

 

[Gypsy]

I agree with Tristan. Flat fee not hourly!!!

I once had to work overtime (stupid BigLaw) and leave my DH (then FI) alone with a new service (their first cleaning was hourly, and we were in NJ and there wasn't a lot of choice) just before Christmas (couldn't reschedule). They spent 6 HOURS cleaning for NO REASON (they actually cleaned the PHONES with TOOTHBRUSHES!) and cost us over 550 dollars. I was fit to be tied.

He didn't know better (WHY, WHY, WHY didn't common sense kick in), and just let them go. And go. And go. AND THEN TIPPED THEM!!!

They were licensed bonded and insured. That's NO guarantee of ethics.

If you HAVE to deal with hourly:
Ask how many cleaners are coming. Ask how many hours the size of your house usually takes. Ask for an hourly fee. DO this with THREE places and get an average price. Then tell them: Fine, you are hourly but my house will NOT take more than 2 hours with 3 people and if it does... it's on you. At 2 hours you walk out. If anything is undone: I won't use you again. This is a luxury and there are plenty of places who would want my business. So you get it done in 2 hours or don't bother coming. Say it nicer, but that's the message.

 

[Trekkie]

I'm usually at work.

Currently our helper comes in once a week, but as soon as we're preggers we'll increase that to three times a week. By the time baby gets here she'll be full time, Mondays to Fridays, 07h30 until 16h30.

Those of you who work and have kids but only have help every second week, how do you cope?

Not being facetious, genuine question (threadjack?) here.

Hi Trekkie,
I thing your interpretation of house-cleaner is different in South Africa than here in the US. Here in the US, a cleaning lady, or maid literally just means cleaning. They do not cook, they do not iron or do laundry, nor do they babysit.

I lived in South Africa, and we had a full time maid that was relatively inexpensive, and did all of the above things that cleaning ladies here do not do. But to answer your question, I have 2 kids, and as a working mom, I had to have send them to a private childcare provider until they were 2, then they switched to a private full-day preschool, then once they started atending elementary school they had to go to an after school program until 6PM. These places provide not only care and supervision, they provide education as well. When my kids are teens, and no longer need childcare, I'm planning to hire a college student, or someone part time just to drive them to all their after school activities!

Ah, that makes sense. It's such a pity though...

I grew up in SA and we had a full time nanny to look after me. It was amazing, like having a second mom. She's now retired and living in the Transkei. As part of her "retirement package" we built her a 4 bedroom house on a huge plot of land in her home town. She is still a huge part of our lives, we phone her on Mother's Day and she phones us for our birthdays and knits jerseys for us. When my mother passed away last year, my uncle drove 6 hours (a 12 hour round trip!) to fetch M so that she could be at the funeral... And a couple of days after the funeral he took her back home, another 12 hour round trip.

And Jaysonsmom, you've lived here, you know that's not an unusual story. Many people my age and older grew up with an "ousie", in some cases the ousie looked after several generations of the family. The ousie and her family really become part of the employer's family and it's not unusual for the ousie to put forward a daughter for her position when she retires.

I must say, it was interesting reading everyone's perspectives here. I can't imagine having to send my kids to daycare... I would far rather have them cared for in my home. I guess, as messed up as South Africa is, the country does have its benefits.

 

[Trekkie]

I'm usually at work.

Currently our helper comes in once a week, but as soon as we're preggers we'll increase that to three times a week. By the time baby gets here she'll be full time, Mondays to Fridays, 07h30 until 16h30.

Those of you who work and have kids but only have help every second week, how do you cope?

Not being facetious, genuine question (threadjack?) here.

I can't answer your question, but I'm curious as to why you would need a cleaner full time(or even 3x per week) after baby arrives? I can't imagine a house getting THAT messy to require 9 hours each day. Are you referring to someone more like a nanny to watch the baby too? What will they do full time(and 3x per week)?

Sorry for so many questions, I'm currently expecting and now worry about what I will/won't be able to do on my own. I'm a bit naive to these things as we've only had someone to come do the heavy cleaning.

Hi there!

Jaysonsmom clarified things for me. I was clearly having a brain fart. What we in South Africa call the home helper/domestic worker is obviously very different from a part-time cleaner.

In SA it's normal for a middle class family to have someone live-in or come in for 8 or 9 hours a day to take care of the child(ren), clean the house, do the laundry and perhaps even the cooking.

Jeeze, reading that makes us sound terribly spoilt, doesn't it?

 

[MissStepcut]

Hi there!

Jaysonsmom clarified things for me. I was clearly having a brain fart. What we in South Africa call the home helper/domestic worker is obviously very different from a part-time cleaner.

In SA it's normal for a middle class family to have someone live-in or come in for 8 or 9 hours a day to take care of the child(ren), clean the house, do the laundry and perhaps even the cooking.

Jeeze, reading that makes us sound terribly spoilt, doesn't it?

My SO's family lived in Bangladesh until my SO was 5 years old, when they immigrated to the United States. They have some pretty hilarious adjustment stories about learning how to get along without full-time help. No one in the family had no idea how to cook or clean, my SO had been quite spoiled by a cook, nanny and housekeeper... Honestly it seems like their quality of life dropped dramatically when they left the third world!

 

[Amber St. Clare]

I have severe RA in my hands which limits what I can do around the house and my guys have made it clear they WILL NOT do housework so a cleaning woman was the only alternative.

She comes every other Friday {usualy with someone else}. We negotiated a price for the bottom floor of the house which does not include my husband''s room, which is a big mess and he's perfectly happy with it. I let her in and promptly disappear into my bedroom after I tell her anything special that needs to be done. Sometimes I clean my room, most times I nap. I don't know what financial consideration she has made with the woman who comes with her, she gets her fee agreed upon with me. She leaves a list of any cleaning items she needs on the kitchen table and often offers to go in and clean my husband's room. No way. She's entirely trustworthy {but I do keep checkbooks, etc put away} and have on occasion gone out and left the alone.

 

[Trekkie]

Hi there!

Jaysonsmom clarified things for me. I was clearly having a brain fart. What we in South Africa call the home helper/domestic worker is obviously very different from a part-time cleaner.

In SA it's normal for a middle class family to have someone live-in or come in for 8 or 9 hours a day to take care of the child(ren), clean the house, do the laundry and perhaps even the cooking.

Jeeze, reading that makes us sound terribly spoilt, doesn't it?

My SO's family lived in Bangladesh until my SO was 5 years old, when they immigrated to the United States. They have some pretty hilarious adjustment stories about learning how to get along without full-time help. No one in the family had no idea how to cook or clean, my SO had been quite spoiled by a cook, nanny and housekeeper... Honestly it seems like their quality of life dropped dramatically when they left the third world!

OMG! This is so true!

This is how I grew up too! There was someone to clean the house, another person to look after me, a full time gardener and, when my parents entertained over the festive season, we had *extra* help because it was just too much work for *only* three people! Crazy, eh?

When I have Americans on exchange here they invariably remark on what a "luxury" it is for them as students to have a weekly housekeeper. For any South African middle class university student, a weekly housekeeper is considered the bare minimum!

A couple of years ago my DH and I went to Australia for an "LSD Trip" (completely not what it sounds like!) and about 80% of the ex-South Africans I encountered bemoaned the lack of domestic help!

When I came back to SA friends asked me if we were going to move to Oz. I jokingly replied "Hell no! They don't have maids there - I'd have to make my own bed and clean my own house and wash my own car and..." and the South Africans just accepted that as a serious answer.

So yes, I can totally see how moving to a country where this is not the norm, can be seen as a drop in living standards.

 

[Octavia]

Hi there!

Jaysonsmom clarified things for me. I was clearly having a brain fart. What we in South Africa call the home helper/domestic worker is obviously very different from a part-time cleaner.

In SA it's normal for a middle class family to have someone live-in or come in for 8 or 9 hours a day to take care of the child(ren), clean the house, do the laundry and perhaps even the cooking.

Jeeze, reading that makes us sound terribly spoilt, doesn't it?

My SO's family lived in Bangladesh until my SO was 5 years old, when they immigrated to the United States. They have some pretty hilarious adjustment stories about learning how to get along without full-time help. No one in the family had no idea how to cook or clean, my SO had been quite spoiled by a cook, nanny and housekeeper... Honestly it seems like their quality of life dropped dramatically when they left the third world!

OMG! This is so true!

This is how I grew up too! There was someone to clean the house, another person to look after me, a full time gardener and, when my parents entertained over the festive season, we had *extra* help because it was just too much work for *only* three people! Crazy, eh?

When I have Americans on exchange here they invariably remark on what a "luxury" it is for them as students to have a weekly housekeeper. For any South African middle class university student, a weekly housekeeper is considered the bare minimum!

A couple of years ago my DH and I went to Australia for an "LSD Trip" (completely not what it sounds like!) and about 80% of the ex-South Africans I encountered bemoaned the lack of domestic help!

When I came back to SA friends asked me if we were going to move to Oz. I jokingly replied "Hell no! They don't have maids there - I'd have to make my own bed and clean my own house and wash my own car and..." and the South Africans just accepted that as a serious answer.

So yes, I can totally see how moving to a country where this is not the norm, can be seen as a drop in living standards.

This makes me think of a book I'm currently reading called "At Home: A Short History of Private Life" by Bill Bryson (really interesting book, highly recommended). He writes, in his chapter on domestic service in eighteenth and nineteenth- century Europe:

Three servants to look after one bachelor clergyman might seem excessive to us, but it wouldn't have seemed so in Markham's day. Most rectors kept at least four servants, and some had ten or more. It was an age of servants. Households had servants the way modern people have appliances. Common laborers had servants. Sometimes servants had servants. . . . In America, the servant situation was very different in almost every way. Americans, it is often written, didn't have nearly as many servants as Europeans. . . . What America didn't have a lot of were free servants. Even at the peak of service in America, fewer than half of U.S. households employed a servant, and many servants didn't see themselves as servants at all. Most refused to wear livery, and many expected to sit down to meals with the family -- to be treated, in short, as something much closer to equals. As one historian put it, rather than try to reform the servants, it became easier to reform the house, and so from an early period America became besotted with convenience and labor-saving devices, though nineteenth-century appliances often added nearly as much labor as they saved.

Anyway, I just thought this was an interesting tangent. I've never had a cleaning person, though I imagine we'll get one when we finally have a bigger place. I'm sure they will come while I'm at work, so it will be up to DH to decide what to do (he's the one pushing for it, so it's only fair, haha).

 

[Amys Bling]

I wish I had a housekeeper! I hate cleaning!!!

 

[kenny]

What do I do while the housecleaner is working?

Dirty the house, of course.

Seriously, we've never had one and never will but I supposed I'd help him/her clean.
This would minimize the time I had the person in the house and increase that the odds the cleaning is done my way.
(You can see why I'd never have one.)

 

[MichelleCarmen]

If we had a housekeeper I'd either sit and laugh hysterically or giggle quietly to myself in the corner b/c I didn't have to do the cleaning.

Truthfully tho, I'd have to have the person come when I wasn't there b/c I'd feel weird if I wasn't doing anything when they were there. Rough my hair all up and run around pretending to be extraordinarily busy or something, looking at my watch all the time ohhh all these appointments I have, things to do, people to see..

hehehe...I'd drink beer, play on the internet, and watch chick flicks!

Basically what I do now, except there'd be a person cleaning the house instead of three guys making it messy while I hide away in my office.

 

[Enerchi]

hehehe...I'd drink beer, play on the internet, and watch chick flicks!

Basically what I do now, except there'd be a person cleaning the house instead of three guys making it messy while I hide away in my office.

Can I come and hang with you some w/e??? Sounds like a blast!!!

 

[Cehrabehra]

Lazy is awesome! ^5 Jennifer! My Chinese name is Bai Lan (2,2) but I joke to my ayi that it's (2,3) because that LAN means lazy lol. Anyway... My housekeeper lives with me and I will sit on the couch like a pajama potato all day while she cleans (and cooks) for me. Truly lazy and loving it. 3 mos and it all goes away.

 

[erinl]

I have a cleaning lady who comes in every other week. She is here for about 6-7 hours. I have two small kids (3 and 1) and I actually am cleaning/pickup up most of the time she is here. She gets here between 10-11 in the morning, so by that time I have picked up the upstairs and put everything away so she can clean. I have also gotten all her supplies together and brought them upstairs. She doesn't do beds or any laundry, just washing floors (all hardwood and bathroom is tile) and cleans the bathrooms, dusts and vacuums. I pick my daughter up from school at 11, and either grab something to eat and bring it home or make pb and js when we get back. She moves down to the main floor at around 1 or 1:30 and I am usually racing around to pick up and get it ready for her to do the main floor. I have all the counters cleared off, dishes washed, and papers, clothes, books, shoes, toys, and other junk put away. I am usually racing to get this done. I then move the kids down to the basement, where we pick up all the toys and they watch tv, I can make phonecalls and mess around on the computer while doing laundry down there such as beds, etc. By the time she moves to the basement I am back upstairs making dinner for the kids. My husband works out of town during the week so the clutter really piles up.

My kids are at the age where it feels impossible to keep things put away-- while i am folding laundry they are destroying something else, so the idea of getting all three floors tidy enough for the housekeeper to do what she needs to do is unattainable. I also don't feel comfortable leaving gross messes for her, so I might be doing more than I should. I do a sweep under all the furniture before she comes since there are so many toys under there, for example. I also have a small dog who uses an indoor box so I am cleaning her bed and her pee box and cleaning garbage cans outside (when the weather is nice). I may sound like a total jerk for saying this, but I am never more tired than on the days when the cleaning lady comes!

Sorry if TMI!

 

[zoebartlett]

Lazy is awesome! ^5 Jennifer! My Chinese name is Bai Lan (2,2) but I joke to my ayi that it's (2,3) because that LAN means lazy lol. Anyway... My housekeeper lives with me and I will sit on the couch like a pajama potato all day while she cleans (and cooks) for me. Truly lazy and loving it. 3 mos and it all goes away.

So what's your next adventure? I love reading your posts about the different places you've lived and the experiences you have while in each spot.

 

[tammy77]

We don't have one. Our family keeps up after their own daily messes and on the weekend the four of us (dh, myself and the two kids - ages 7&9) work together to do routine cleaning. I'm sure that if we could easily afford help we would, but since we can't I just look at it like a good chance to work together and teach the kids how to keep up after a home.