s/o: For those of you with housekeepers, what is your situation?

[cvanbrunt]

We pay our housekeeper $20 an hour. She works for herself and comes every week. How long she stays varies from week to week depending on what else she has going on. Occasionally she can only stay 3 hours, other days we are her only house. Usually she is here for 5 hours and can clean the 3800 square feet. If she has extra time she does laundry, ironing, cleans the pantry, whatever. She's a former nanny who got tired of working for other people so she's our go to babysitter as well!

[Andi98989]

We have a cleaning company come every other week. They send a two person crew and sometimes there is a third person with them who is training. They general clean 3 of 4 "zones" of the house and deep clean the other "zone." The zones are Bathroom, Kitchen/Eating Area, Bedrooms, Living Room/Office

We pay $70. Our house is 1300 sq. ft. I love having them come. Even before DS I was having time keeping up with everything. I really enjoy being able to spend time with my family and not having to worry about dusting every nook and cranny. I would love to have them come every week!

[jgenie]

How much you pay per hour? Not per hour - we pay a flat rate and add to that if she does extra things I ask for. Usually $50 per visit.

How many sq. feet your house is? We have 2900 sf - not including a separate home office / half bath area. We don't use the whole house regularly so she generally cleans the main areas and any extra parts I want done. sunshineandme you might ask what they would charge just to clean certain parts of your house every time they come. I have the kitchen, bathrooms and floors cleaned every visit as well as dusting of the living room and the master bedroom.

How many hours it takes? Generally about 3 - 3.5 hours

How often you have someone come? When we started she would come every 3 weeks or so. She now comes weekly. When I became a SAHM I figured we would stop having a house cleaner and just do it ourselves. DH insisted we keep her. DH travels a lot and works very long hours. The weekends (when he's home) are his only down time. I am so glad I listened to him. He is also the reason we increased to a weekly cleaning.

[hillview]

How much you pay per hour? We pay per visit and it is 120 for 2 people for about 3 hrs.
How many sq. feet your house is? 3000 maybe
How many hours it takes? About 3 hrs.
How often you have someone come? Every week.

/hillary

[scrooks]

How much you pay per hour? we pay per visit $70
How many sq. feet your house is? 2600 (I don't have her mess with the spare bedroom we don't use or the living room we don't use)
How many hours it takes? 3-4
How often you have someone come? every 3 weeks (I would like her to start coming every other week but I have to get that to fly past DH)

[TwinFoxes]

OP, thanks for posting this.

Can I piggy back with a question or two? Do you normally stay at home when the cleaners clean, or do you leave? What about "messy" rooms (I'm thinking DH's "office") do they skip those, or do a straighten, or what?

I really want to hire a housekeeper. DH just can't bring himself to do it. He says he "likes to clean" which he does, but it takes frickin' forever, and he can only do it on the weekends when he could be relaxing. He works hard and deserves to relax. I want to have some numbers to convince him we need a housekeeper.

[jgenie]

Originally Posted by TwinFoxes

Can I piggy back with a question or two? Do you normally stay at home when the cleaners clean, or do you leave? What about "messy" rooms (I'm thinking DH's "office") do they skip those, or do a straighten, or what?

In the beginning we had our house cleaned on Saturday mornings because DH did not want anyone in the house alone. Six years later - she has the code to our garage door and just comes in that way. We really should give her a key I just keep forgetting to bring it up with DH. She now cleans on Friday and depending what we have going on we may be home or we be out of the house.

My guest bedroom is my "messy" room. I keep the door closed and she doesn't clean that room. Before DC - DS1's was the home office and she didn't clean that either. Now that it is DS1's room - she will vacuum and dust but I make sure to pick things up off the floor to make it easy for her.

[egoldber]

I pay $80 every other week. It's a business owned by one woman and she brings 3-4 people (they are various relatives) with her. Our house is about 3000SF. They clean the house top to bottom in about 1.5 hours.

Can I piggy back with a question or two? Do you normally stay at home when the cleaners clean, or do you leave? What about "messy" rooms (I'm thinking DH's "office") do they skip those, or do a straighten, or what?

We have asked them not to touch DH's office. But they clean most everything else. I stayed the first few times in case they had questions, but after that no. But I used them on recommendation from a friend that I know to be extremely picky and fastidious.

[dotgirl]

We have one person, from a company owned by a girl we know and like, who comes once every other week for 4 hours. We pay $30 an hour. Our house is about 2100sq feet, and she does everything except the bedrooms and office. We don't stay while she's here, although I've had odd work days that led to me being here for part of her time here - personally, I like to get just out of her way.

We have some "set" tasks that get done every time, and then with any of the 4 hours left, she does additional cleaning. Since the set tasks only take about 3 hours, we get an hour of "surprise" cleaning every visit, which is always fun.

I know I've said this before, but it's definitely one of the best things I've ever done for myself - has dramatically decreased my stress and removed one of the large pain points DH and I used to quarrel about.

[nrp]

We pay $90, one day per week, for one person who spends 7 hours, give or take, on our 3500 sq ft house, including laundry and changing the sheets. At one point we had her two days a week, for less time (4 to 5 hours per day) and that was much better. She had a conflict for awhile but is about to start back two days a week. We are usually in and out when she's here - she has a key. Our nanny also does some very light cleaning - some wiping down the kitchen, loading the dishwasher, keeping the kids toys picked up and some of the kids laundry. Most people I know have one person who cleans and watches kids, but we were aware when we hired our nanny that cleaning was not her strong suit. She is fabulous with the kids, and in the end that was of course most important. I'd rather find two people that are great at their individual jobs.

I work two days per week, and most all of my income goes to funding my 401k and paying for the housekeeper and nanny. I know it is a luxury, but it is a huge stress reliever for me and for our marriage. Either I would fret all the time about keeping the house clean or fret because it wasn't.