Do you pay someone to clean your home? If so, I have some questions!

[SeaSpray]

I'm wondering how much everyone pays the person who cleans their home, and what the person does each week/bi-weekly/monthy. Floors, windows, etc??

I recently hired a friend, and I think she's doing more work than what I expected, for how much I'm paying her! I told her that I had x-amount of money that I could pay her, and for her to ONLY do however much work she felt that it covered. I am surprised at what she does! Then again, I've never paid anyone to clean my house before on a regular basis, so I don't know what the usual is.

What does your cleaning person do? And how much do you pay them? Thanks!

 

[minniecarousel]

We have a 5 bedroom/3 bathroom house - around 3300 square feet. We paid a crew $75 every other week for basics. They stripped and made up the beds, cleaned the bathrooms, dusted & vacuumed and cleaned the kitchen, which included special cleaning of the hardwood floor. We let them go when DH lost his job. I got used to doing it myself, so for now, we haven't rehired them.

 

[Rebelmom67]

Heck no - they might find something!!!!

kidding, kidding, no really I am.

 

[lovetoscrap]

I have a good friend that I have paid to help me out while I was off my feet. She does this on a regular basis for many people. She charges me $60 for 3 hours and will do whatever she can in those 3 hours and she is FAST! She can get my 3 bathrooms scrubbed and sparkling, vaccuum and mop all my floors, clean up my kitchen, clean the stove and microwave, change sheets, and a bunch of other little things. Best money I have ever spent!

 

[Barb D]

I don't now, but I have in the past. They did the living room, dining room, kitchen, hall, DD9's bedroom, and one small bathroom for $76 every other week. When they also did the master bedroom, family room and 2 half baths it was $105 every two weeks. Our house is very small.

 

[Frankiesmom]

I pay $60 every 2 weeks-it takes her about 3 hours. Pretty much same as above PP. Floors,vacumning out of couch cushions,baseboards,bathrooms,4 bedrooms and she cleans my fridge if needed and oven. I have to have hospital corners on the beds so I do those myself. She does a great job. Hope that helps!

 

[rie'smom]

I pay our housekeeper $10/hour but I pay her $50/ day even if she finishes early. SHe comes in 2 days/week. My husband and I also paid for her total bathroom redo, and filled out her paperwork so she could get a 1% government loan to redo her kitchen and upgrade her windows. For her Christmas present, we treated her to a cruise.
So even though the %/hour may not be a lot of money, we pay her in other ways.

 

[bicker]

We also live in Massachusetts. We pay $115 every other week for two cleaners that spend about two and a half hours cleaning. Our cleaners are bonded -- that makes a big difference in price. Many years ago, we had other cleaners, who were not bonded, and they charged $85 every other week.

 

[Imzadi]

OP, if you and your friend are happy with the situation, just be grateful. You can also show your appreciation every now and again, if you want. Especially with a nice Christmas bonus.

Also, there are a lot of freebie deals, where you can get gifts, tickets, gift certificates, clearance deals for practically nothing, but as a gift, seem like you spent a lot to show your appreciation. Check the Budget Board for deals.

 

[aprincessmom]

Another MA person. have recently had to hire cleaning company due to health issues. I pay $114. It's biweekly and two people come in and clean the house over 2 hours. The cleaners are bonded and insured for workers comp. They do a decent job but I can do (or could do before this) it better in 3 hours. And by better I mean more thoroughly.

For this amount they: vacuum all rugs/carpets, wash all tile/hardwoods, dust furniture in all rooms, clean bathrooms (scrub sinks, tubs/showers, toilets, counter surfaces), clean kitchen (wipe down appliances, scrub sink, wipe down countertops, clean shelves in the fridge), dust all baseboards/window and door frames/ceiling fans, and empty trash. For an extra $10, they'd change the sheets. All I'd have to do is leave the clean sheets on the bed and they would strip the beds, make the beds, and toss the sheets into the laundry basket.

I miss cleaning my house!

 

[bicker]

I don't miss my wife and I cleaning the house, quite frankly. Yes, we would do a more thorough job, but then it wouldn't be cleaned again for a month or so. I'd rather have a house 90% clean most of the time than 100% clean a small percentage of the time.

What they miss, mostly, is dusting under things. I'm a bit torn, actually, because the last time they moved something to dust under it, they ruined a glass coffee table. (Not their fault. What they moved was a berry bowl a friend of my step-sister made, for her to give us as a gift. It wasn't professionally finished, of course, so the bottom had sharp points on it. If I was doing the cleaning, I would have ruined the table too. And that's an important qualification to keep in mind: I doubt there are any "reasonably-priced" cleaners who will consistently clean our home "better" than we could if we tried. Some can come close, some can do a little better perhaps, most will do a little worse, but for what we're paying, we're not going to get cleaning far better than we could do ourselves.)

 

[Avalon_toon]

We pay a woman $60 a week, she cleans our 2400 square foot home top to bottom - she is a blessing! We started out paying her $10 an hour, for 4 hours, then noticed she was staying longer than 4 hours to get everything done. So we started leaving $50 for her, then noticed that she now stayed 5+ hours, so we upped it to $60 without asking her, now she stays 6 hours! We tell her she doesn't need to stay so long, but I think she feels we'd fall apart without her (and its possible she's right.) She does both bathrooms, all the bedrooms, changes the sheets, vacuums, washes the hardwood floors, does laundry (!), cleans out the kitty litter, and picks a bigger job - cleaning the oven, washing windows, etc. - every week. She is pretty quirky - she throws out the cardboard box on the tinfoil, for example, so we have to tear it with our fingers, or she'll throw out a cereal box that had only a bit of cereal left, then a week later we'll find that bit of cereal in a ziplock baggie inside another cereal box, sharing space - but we are so grateful for all she does, we just chuckle and say something got "eleanor'd" if it winds up in some quirky place after her visit. It sounds like you are equally blessed with a wonderful house cleaner.

 

[java]

Oh how I miss my cleaning lady from Long Island. Lidia! She rocked! This was years ago and we paid her $50 a week for a 2 bedroom apartment that was all hard wood floors. So she was cleaning the one bathroom(also hardwood in there ) sweep the entire place. Mop the floors in the kitchen and bathroom. She didn't do our bedrooms at all other than sweep. Clean the kitchen- really really clean it. And every week she would add in one "major job" like cleaning the windows inside and out, or cleaning out the fridge, or whatever we asked her to do.
She was fantastic! And she cleaned way better than we did. When we moved, we had another woman clean when I was pregnant and it wasn't great- she was nice but just not very immaculate. So I let her go after.
I have to say I like the thought that you'd rather have a place 90% clean all the time than 100% clean for a day. Good point!
And if I could Lidia now I would pay her whatever she wanted. We asked her to move out of state with us! (We asked a couple of our favorite "people" and the painters actually wanted to do it!!! They were willing to come out for the week and bust out the house!)

So how much are YOU paying? And what is she doing?

 

[mjkacmom]

I pay 2 women $60, every other week, 2 hours max, to do the basics (no laundry, windows, sheets, etc.). I'm getting off cheap, because I've had them for years - most people I know pay about $100 for the same.

 

[Imzadi]

a berry bowl a friend of my step-sister made, for her to give us as a gift. It wasn't professionally finished, of course, so the bottom had sharp points on it.

Professional ceramic artist here. You can smooth down the sharp points of the bowl. Take a ceramic cup or mug. Turn it over. See the ring of unglazed clay on the very bottom? Turn it over, and rub that unglazed area over the bottom of the berry bowl. Spend more time on the sharp areas.

If that doesn't work well enough, (the clay used may be extra sandy, or the potter really didn't finish the bottom well,) go to Home Depot. get a little white sanding stone block from the grouting area. It is what is used to smooth the edges of ceramic tile. Wet it and the bowl down and rub.

 

[SeaSpray]

Thanks for the replies, everyone!

I pay $50, every other week. She's only been here once so far, and I don't know how long she stayed for, but she did the following: Scrubbed the kitchen floor, wiped down all surfaces in the kitchen (cabinets, fridge, countertops), scrubbed the entire bathroom top to bottom to the point that it looked like brand new fixtures, swept and mopped the livingroom and hallway floors (hardwood), dusted livingroom, polished the furniture, dusted and cleaned the bedrooms (3), vacuumed all area rugs (we have hardwood floors throughout the house), Windexed all mirrors and windows.

I didn't ask her to change sheets or anything, I make the bed before I leave each morning. I'm sure she'd change the sheets if I asked her to. I will be adding the family room to the list of rooms I want cleaned; as for right now I asked her to not do anything in there because I have piles of clothes which I'm donating, all over the place, and I'm also in the middle of going through my desk and getting rid of old paperwork and organizing what I'm keeping. So...in addition to the above, the next time she comes she'll also be dusting and vacuuming a fairly large family room, too. She said that each time she comes she'll also do one other job such as the inside of the fridge, outsides of windows, etc.

I think for $50, it was well worth it! I have health issues that have been getting progressively worse and my mobility is now limited, and while my DSs and DH have been pitching in doing work around the house, there's just no comparison! lol

 

[Imzadi]

Wow! Please send her my way!

If the rooms haven't been cleaned in a while. This is a "deep cleaning" the first time. But if she's coming back every other week, it will get more down to a "maintenance" level and it wont require as much work for her to do everything.

She definitely sounds like a keeper!

 

[bicker]

Thanks for the ceramics advice!

 

[Loverly]

My Mom pays 2 ladies $20 each every week-strip 2 beds-remake-start laundry, mop and vacumn-they are there about 1 1/2 hours....small 1600 sqr foot one story condo

 

[U2_rocks!]

Our cleaning lady comes 2 afternoons a week for about 4.5 hours each time, and she does all the laundry (kids, ours, sheets and towels), whatever dishes are in the sink and generally cleans the kitchen to sparkling, sweeps and mops the ceramic tile floors, makes the beds, irons our work clothes and the kids' school uniforms, cleans the bathrooms (including the toilets), tidies up a bit (how much depends on the amount of other work she's had to do and how long it takes). She doesn't have time to clean the glass louvres or dust things. Occasionally my parents' cleaning lady will do those things for us when my parents are away and she's looking for some extra work. She will also cook for us. Both ladies will look after any kids who are home sick or on vacation. Our regular lady has been working for us for 20 years, and my parents' lady has been with them since I was about 8, so there's a lot of trust there.

Our wages are on a different scale to yours, so you can't compare them. We pay $50/half day, which is the equivalent of $25 US Dollars.