How to split the work with cleaning lady?

December 4, 2015 2:02 PM

If you hire help for housecleaning, I'd like your advice on dividing the cleaning work with your helper. I have someone come in to clean the house every three weeks. Most of what she does is "fluff" the house. That would be great right before hosting a party, but I'm beginning to feel like it's not the best use of her time.

She gets the mirrors perfectly shined and all of the cushions plumped on the couches. When she leaves the house is ready for visitors. However, in our household, these things last about 30 minutes after she's gone before someone rearranges the couch cushions, gets water spots on the stainless steel, and tracks in a few leaves in the sunroom. I feel like this isn't an efficient use of her three hours.

Also, the tasks she works on are mostly tasks that can't really wait three weeks between being done. I have to sweep daily, vacuum weekly, and wipe up the kitchen and bathroom as needed. I noticed one day that I unintentionally skip doing those things for a few days before she comes. I guess it's nice to be a slob for a few days, but again, it seems inefficient.

I've noticed that she does not do most of the things that I'd do less often but that might last longer, like vacuum under the couch cushions, scrub the tile grout on the floor, clean the mildew from the shower curtain or the edges of the shower, clean under the fridge, or clean inside the cabinets. I end up doing these things myself when they get to be too annoying or when there's some kind of crisis like signs of mice.

How do you divide the cleaning labor between yourself and your cleaning help? How would you broach the subject in a way that doesn't sound ungrateful for the perfect finish that she has been creating so far?

posted by SandiBeech to Home & Garden (19 answers total)

I have a biweekly schedule (in a low traffic household.). I declutter and do dishes.

She folds my clean laundry, makes beds, mops floors, vacuums and cleans bathrooms and other surfaces.

I don't do these things in between Her visits unless I'm cooking or otherwise make a big mess or my mother is coming over to judge my housekeeping skills. If I didn't live alone that would probably not work.

You sound like you need higher frequency services.
posted by slateyness at 2:06 PM on December 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

You're paying for a service -- this isn't a friend or family member helping out, I don't see any reason that you need to be especially diplomatic or worry about seeming ungrateful (as Don Draper says, that's what the money's for).

The only thing I would be aware of is that a lot of housecleaning services charge different rates for a standard cleaning session and a "deep clean," and the things that you want might be more like "deep clean" tasks (the things that you're taking care of are more like standard clean). Therefore, you should feel free to request the cleaning tasks you want taken care of, but be prepared to hear that your housecleaner might expect to be better compensated for it.
posted by telegraph at 2:09 PM on December 4, 2015 [8 favorites]

Last time I had a housekeeping person, she came weekly and did all the cleaning: sweeping/mopping/vacuuming/bathroom & kitchen cleaning stuff. I did all the tidying, including laundry and making sure surfaces were available for cleaning when she came. I did extremely little cleaning outside of when she came (with exceptions for like cleaning up spills or taking a wet paper towel to the kitchen counters as needed.
posted by brainmouse at 2:13 PM on December 4, 2015 [16 favorites]

I'm with brainmouse. For me "cleaning" includes sweeping, mopping, dusting, cleaning all of the bathroom and maybe the windows and any random stains or other dirtiness. However we do our own laundry and dishes (and other "tidying").

How big is your house? Every 3 weeks might be insufficient.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 2:18 PM on December 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

How would you broach the subject in a way that doesn't sound ungrateful for the perfect finish that she has been creating so far?

She's your employee/contractor. If you have a certain set of things you'd like her to do, you should totally be able to tell her "hey, here are the things I'd like done, and here are the things I don't really care about." She may say that the amount of time you're scheduling/paying her for is insufficient for your list, and then you need to decide to pay more or pare down your list.

But as others have said, if you feel like you need to vacuum weekly and you don't want to vacuum, then you need to schedule more frequent cleanings.
posted by craven_morhead at 2:27 PM on December 4, 2015 [5 favorites]

It sounds like you're both making different assumptions about what's expected. Some housecleaning services list exactly what they include and exclude (examples 1, 2, and 3). Making a list might help both of you.
posted by bentley at 2:34 PM on December 4, 2015

Every three weeks is not enough. At the very least you need someone every other week and even then you are going to have to wipe down the bathrooms and sweep/vacuum a couple times in between. I have our biweekly cleaners do a deep scrubbing and sanitizing of the bathrooms, showers and kitchen. Dust all the ledges, vacuume the whole house and wash the floors. Each visit I also have a special request, like wash the windows in one area of the house, clean out the fridge/oven, mop the garage entry way etc..
posted by saradarlin at 2:41 PM on December 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

We have a service come in once a month. What we do: tidy, declutter, dishes, clean the kitchen during the weeks they're not there. What they do: wash floors, sinks, toilets, counters. Dust surfaces. Vacuum rugs and furniture. Clean surface of stove. They'll clean the oven and the fridge if we request it beforehand. They make beds if we put clean sheets out before they arrive. It takes them 2-3.5 hours, depending on how many cleaners the service sends that day (2 to 4).

They also fold towels and throws, tend to tidy a bit by straightening up items on surfaces, and take out the garbage that is already in cans when they arrive, but don't throw anything out. Well, they're not *supposed* to toss stuff, but twice a couple of things that looked like trash to an outsider--packing strapping we were using as cat toys, and packaging and receipt for clothing that I was going to return--got thrown out. The website for the company says they're not supposed to pick things up and clean around them for these regular light cleaning sessions, but often they do. I think it offends them how messy I leave my desk and they can't help but put it into neat piles. (I would not mind if they skipped my desk!)

They also fold the toilet paper into a little triangle and once left a towel animal in the bathroom, which is silly and I loved it.
posted by telophase at 3:12 PM on December 4, 2015 [5 favorites]

One way to handle it is to tell the cleaner to add certain things to the job, and that specific other things are 'low priority' or even unnecessary. A lot of clients love the streak-free mirrors, immaculately polished surfaces, couches without indentations, and so housekeepers make sure to do those. But yours will probably do as you ask if you're clear about the tasks and the amount of time you'll pay for.

I wrote down my formerly mental list of cleaning tasks that need to be done from time to time. When I want one of those done, I ask for it and suggest that the cleaner not change the bed that time, or ignore the half bath and let me clean it. If you have enough 'occasional' tasks that you'd need one done every time she comes, create a rotation and write it on the calendar or give her a note for every visit.

I can understand that you don't want to criticize her priorities or imply that her work isn't valued. Open by saying you're happy with how clean the place is, her reliability, professionalism, whatever sounds right to you. Say that you want her to start doing some of the deeper cleaning because those things are important to you as well. In my experiences, housekeepers have respect for deep cleaning but rarely get to do it. You may have to be very specific about the surface things, because she might have trouble believing that you really want her to skip those. Also, continue to give compliments from time to time about the hidden cleaning.
posted by wryly at 3:17 PM on December 4, 2015 [4 favorites]

I think there are several issues here.

One is that every three weeks is probably not often enough. We have someone come once a week in a 1br (with a small low-shedding dog).

Another is that, well, things get un-tidy. Of course your family is going to track in leaves and mess up the cushions. A good cleaning person is always going to do little things to make everything look neat when they're done, but hopefully they are actually *cleaning* too.

If she's not doing enough deep cleaning, then that's also an issue. You should definitely make a list of deeper things that need to be done, and have her attend to those (possibly on a rotating basis). But that's a separate issue than her not coming enough or your family messing up the neatness.

In terms of our household, in between cleanings we:
- Keep the clutter at bay (and I tidy up before my cleaner comes)
- Wipe down the kitchen and bathroom counters daily
- Sweep/vacuum mid-week (although I don't always get that done)
- Wash own dishes and laundry (I think my cleaner would do my dishes but I'd rather them not focus on it
posted by radioamy at 3:38 PM on December 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

My answer is similar to many above - our house cleaner comes every other week for three hours. She says that coming in less often means she's always playing catch up. So we have a baseline clean to start with. Maybe you need one massive-reset, then it's just maintenance?

In our two bedroom bungalow, she has just enough time to clean the upstairs so all we have to do is tidy and straighten up a little every day. The downstairs requires a separate visit, but since it's just the office/tv room and a spare bathroom, we either manage it ourselves or I'll have her for an extra hour or two. Those rooms don't get grimy - just dusty. My husband works from home and says she's busy every minute. We had a conversation before she even started about the things I care about. I mentioned specifically that I care about "round corners" (meaning what you do when you give a quick swipe instead of getting right into the windowsills and corners of the floor in the room and such) and baseboards and cleaning under things (like picking up the area rug in the living room and vacuuming under it too.)

In the kitchen she wipes every surface down, gives the glass stove top an extra polish and cleans under the oven and fridge. When I saw that she was cleaning the floor (after sweeping) by using a rag and her foot, I mentioned that when I clean the floor, I'm on my hands and knees with a scrub brush and a particular tile cleaner - and would she like me to purchase a different type of implement if she wasn't going to do that?

In the main rooms, I ask her to really vacuum, dust the radiators and surfaces making sure to get the tops of lamps and light bulbs and the baseboards (I dust my own plants) and to vacuum the sofa and chair.

In the bedrooms she cleans the surfaces, polishes the mirrors, vacuums/dusts the floors and changes the sheets. When my husband found dust under the bed a few weeks ago, we made sure to park the vacuum in the bedroom for her next visit.

The bathroom has every surface cleaned and disinefected, and the shower curtains get a little dip in bleachy water at the bottom to get rid of any biofilm.

I leave notes about things to do if she has extra time, but she never has extra time. And I know from before we hired her that it does take about three hours to do everything she does, so I'm satisfied - it's just that my cleaning tends to expand. If I'm putting dishes away and notice that there are crumbs in the flatware drawer, I'll take the time to dump everything, wash it out and put it all to rights. That makes it about five hours if I decide to refold the dishtowels to sit better and match up all the plastic containers and consolidate boxes of things and re-fill the cleaning product containers from the bulk bottles...

But the cleaning she does lets me do the other things that used to feel overwhelming on top of the basics, but now don't For example, Monday nights the fridge gets cleaned (and there's soup for dinner) because it's garbage night. Tuesday night is grocery shopping night, so that's when the inside of the cupboards are cleaned as I put stuff away. Other weeknights are laundry nights.

But as others have said above too, a lot of it is just daily keeping up - but radioamy has it with the keeping the clutter at bay as the number one thing we do. And yes, Konmari helped immensely. Having relatively empty surfaces means wipedowns isn't arduous, and having clutter-free floors means it takes less than 5 minutes to use a huge dustmop to sweep the entire main floor.

And, well - the last thing is now that we pay to have the house cleaned a certain way, and all the drudge work is done, keeping tidy is easier. I have re-trained the kid and even the husband and especially myself toward neater habits. We only eat at the table or at the counter. If you dry your hands on the nice towel after washing at the sink, you don't spatter water droplets on the stainless. Use the handles. Don't touch the walls - walk upright, you bipedal creature. Wipe crumbs into your hand and then put them in the compost, don't just brush them onto the floor. Wipe your feet on the mat. Shake the umbrella before bringing it in. Wipe the sink and faucets down with your facecloth before hanging it to dry on the edge of the laundry basket. And we got rid of the dishwasher, and tell ourselves that doing dishes means "wash, dry and PUT AWAY." That's working. Not having to be tired by deep cleaning means that good habits aren't a chore too.
And I treat my self to nice cleaning products that I'm happy to use, so a 20 minute tidy up after dinner every night where we EACH go off and do a few chores works. We wake up to a nicely-kept house, and it's easier to maintain. Everybody's pitching in at your house, right?
posted by peagood at 5:21 PM on December 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

Tell. Her. What. To. Do.

She will not think you are "ungrateful." She is not working for your gratitude. She is working for your money. Tell her what you want her to do, say thank you, give positive feedback regularly, tell her if you'd like her to do something else, or something in a different way. If you don't like the way she does something, tell her specifically how you would like it done differently. Say thank you.

We have a cleaning woman two hours every week. Usually it's clean the surfaces in the kitchen and bathroom, and dust surfaces and clean the floors in the living room and dining room. (She brings her own equipment and supplies.) Sometimes I'll ask her to clean the guest bedroom and guest bathroom, and then do start in on the regular areas. Or clean all the leaves off the porch and then start in on the regular areas. She does as much as possible in two hours, then picks up missed areas the next week.

But that's us. You're sure to be different. Just remember you're not "dividing" the cleaning chores between you. You're deciding what you want someone else to do -- mildew, cleaning furniture, cleaning under the appliances -- and then paying her to do it.

Oh, and the length of time and frequency is between you and her. There is no right way. Some people have a cleaner come in once a month and it works for them. Figure out what works for you; and ask her.

Good luck!
posted by kestralwing at 6:37 PM on December 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

I've noticed that she does not do most of the things that I'd do less often but that might last longer, like vacuum under the couch cushions, scrub the tile grout on the floor, clean the mildew from the shower curtain or the edges of the shower, clean under the fridge, or clean inside the cabinets.

Have you ever communicated this? A house cleaner cannot read your mind. Your cleaner is probably doing the work she assumes you'd want based on her past experiences (from other clients and from not receiving feedback from you) and her allotted time.

You can inform her that you greatly appreciate the terrific work she's done and, going forward, you'd appreciate her focusing on X, Y and Z.

Without communication/directions, someone can only guess at what you need. And absent feedback, why would they change what they've been doing?
posted by JackBurden at 7:43 PM on December 4, 2015

I have someone come in to clean the house every three weeks. ... I feel like this isn't an efficient use of her three hours.

We pay for the same number of hours of cleaning, but instead we do it at one hour per week. That is frequent enough to keep things from getting grubby and avoids the more complicated questions you are asking about dividing labor. So she does all the vacuuming (unless there is a special mess that requires instant attention, of course), all bathroom cleaning, etc, while we take care of daily minor stuff like wiping the stove top after cooking and so on.

Every three or four months we pay her double to stay an extra hour and do some deeper cleaning, because there are always some things that need infrequent attention and take more time. We also pay extra when we add on small tasks that either take her more time, or cause her extra effort.

I pay well above market rate (and actually above my own hourly rate), partly because she works extremely hard, but also because I want to establish a professional relationship where I am comfortable asking for changes when they are needed. (I also pay well because I make her use ecological cleaning products which don't work nearly as well as the more toxic options, and so she has to work harder and longer.)
posted by Dip Flash at 8:34 PM on December 4, 2015

The person who cleans my place comes every two weeks for a flat fee. I know she works differently with other people, but over time we've settled on the following understanding:

There are things she does every week (kitchen, bathroom, mopping and vacuuming, basic dusting, and so on), and other things she only does occasionally (like the refrigerator) or seasonally (like windows). She's much better at spotting what's needed than I am, and I trust her to make those decisions and take care of things. I'm not at home when she cleans, so I'm not sure how long it takes her. Some weeks she probably works for longer than others.

The only laundry she does pertains to the cleaning: the sheets she's just taken off the bed, the bathmat, cleaning cloths, and so on.

For my part, I try to make sure everything is put away and all the surfaces are clear so she can do her job without having to deal with my stuff. That means no dishes except maybe a stray coffee cup or breakfast bowl. On one occasion the aftermath of a huge dinner party left my kitchen unexpectedly in disarray, so I left her a big extra cash bonus.

My place is a one-bedroom with one fairly neat human and a short-haired dog, but even so I don't think it would work for her to come less often than every two weeks. That would involve just too much buildup between visits.
posted by tangerine at 11:23 PM on December 4, 2015

I've found that cleaners clean how they clean and I will be damned if I've ever elicited any actual change. You may need to prepare yourself for finding a new cleaning professional whose version of clean is the same as yours. Our cleaning person came bi weekly and did an AMAZING job. She scrubbed and bleached/vinegared EVERYTHING, our cupboard surfaces were always sparkling, every inch of the bathroom. Toilets perfect. Unfortunately she cleaned how she cleaned and that meant she demanded full control of the house for 3-5 hours and wasn't flexible at all when I was pregnant (and on the day she was due to come she wouldn't tell us when!) and I needed to be resting at home and free to get a snack from the kitchen...
posted by flink at 12:12 AM on December 5, 2015

I do the same thing brainmouse does
posted by Joseph Gurl at 12:20 AM on December 6, 2015

My cleaner comes in biweekly. I live alone, I travel a lot and have no pets but it is a reasonable size apartment and I have no carpets. She comes in for 3.5 hrs and cleans the kitchen, bathroom, vacuums everywhere and mops floors everywhere and she dusts all surfaces. That doesn't take her 3.5 hrs so she spends whatever time is left ironing. She always seems to have time for 5-6 pieces if I've been at home most of the last two weeks and for more if I've been away for a good chunk of the time.

In between her visits I wipe down kitchen/bathroom surfaces as required and clear up any spillages and such as well as tidy up to make sure she can get to surfaces to clean. I just leave notes or send text messages if there is anything out of the ordinary - this is by mutual agreement as I'm rarely home whens she comes.

If you clean as much as you say in between visits you need somebody to come much more frequently (weekly?) and specify a list of tasks. Alternatively, if you want to stick to every 3 wks you need to identify a number of more specific, high priority tasks, that aren't covered by your own cleaning. Unless the work is significantly more labour intense/time consuming/involved (not light cleaning, if that's what you're paying for) they won't care what they spend the time on.
posted by koahiatamadl at 1:46 AM on December 6, 2015

The fundamental issue is that you have a cleaning person coming in every three weeks when you clean on a weekly basis. In my experience, most people who hire a cleaning person are not as clean as you, and would clean less often than their cleaning people does. Like bi-annual vacuuming.

So I think the only solution is to have her come weekly.
posted by smackfu at 9:23 AM on December 7, 2015