Paying someone to help wtih household chaos
June 23, 2023 9:30 AM Subscribe
I can't handle the chaos of my household, is it possible to find a household assistant that I can afford, and if so, how?
I am at a breaking point today and this is not going to be very organized, but here goes:
I am married with two kids and fostering a relative teen, and helping a couple other covid-refugee relatives get back on their feet. My three-bedroom house has seven people in it (I sleep in a closet), and I am the only fully-functioning adult. I could go into more detail, but it gets really personal, and it's probably enough to say that everyone but me has special needs. Getting the two relatives back on their feet and into their own lives takes work. Parenting the kids takes work. Rehabilitating the teen takes work. Everyone's healthcare takes work. All of this is more than a full time job.
I am the only income, and I have a great job. I am paid well and I like my work, but I can barely focus on it with my home life being what it is. I cannot lose my job. I know I am phoning it in on many days, and drawing from a virtual bank of past competence which will eventually run out. This is terrifying.
Family is more important than work, so it takes priority, but it is a devil's bargain.
My house is always a messy disaster except for the 3 or 4 times a year that I turn into a cleaning elemental for a few days. It's seriously gross most of the time, and it feels bad.
I am bad at organization - like really bad. I do my best, and I am better than I used to be by necessity (so much better), but I fail many times a week - missed appointments, unpaid bills, late work meetings, missed healthcare visits - lots of apologizing for wasting other people's time.
A lot of this isn't a crisis, it is just corrosive. The apologizing for missed obligations, the mess, phoning it in at work.
I am 47, I can feel my energy waning.
Every once in a while I go hunting for information about personal or household assistants and think to myself: that would be amazing. If someone could just help handle all of the chaos, maybe this would all be ok. If my chaos was someone else's job. Someone who is competent at dealing with chaos. But I would have to give that person deep access to my entire life, and that is scary. It's not something I would want to cheap out on, but I couldn't afford to pay someone what it is actually worth to me. I don't want to rely on an exploitative system to get my life in order.
Maybe there is a refugee who loves running households and could mutually benefit in this situation and I can feel good about offering someone an opportunity that they otherwise would not have, and we both win. But what happens if either one of us hates the situation? How do I feel confident that this is safe?
If I could wave a magic wand, I would find a way to subdivide a portion of my property and add that to what small stipend I would be able to pay in cash. You can have this land and some money, and in return, help me run my house. but we would need to agree on some way to back out if it doesn't work, and make it legally binding. Digging into the logistics of how this would work get complicated (or sketchy) very quickly. I am out of my depth for sure.
I haven't the first clue how to connect my resources to a solution in a way that is not exploitative or extremely dangerous for my family. Maybe there are agents who specialize in this? I have no idea how to find them. How do I make sure I am not supporting human trafficking? Maybe I am looking for the wrong solution? I literally don't have time to do this.
Maybe I just need to stop whining and deal with it... my suffering is really not that bad in comparison to the universe of possible suffering.
But it feels really bad today.
I am at a breaking point today and this is not going to be very organized, but here goes:
I am married with two kids and fostering a relative teen, and helping a couple other covid-refugee relatives get back on their feet. My three-bedroom house has seven people in it (I sleep in a closet), and I am the only fully-functioning adult. I could go into more detail, but it gets really personal, and it's probably enough to say that everyone but me has special needs. Getting the two relatives back on their feet and into their own lives takes work. Parenting the kids takes work. Rehabilitating the teen takes work. Everyone's healthcare takes work. All of this is more than a full time job.
I am the only income, and I have a great job. I am paid well and I like my work, but I can barely focus on it with my home life being what it is. I cannot lose my job. I know I am phoning it in on many days, and drawing from a virtual bank of past competence which will eventually run out. This is terrifying.
Family is more important than work, so it takes priority, but it is a devil's bargain.
My house is always a messy disaster except for the 3 or 4 times a year that I turn into a cleaning elemental for a few days. It's seriously gross most of the time, and it feels bad.
I am bad at organization - like really bad. I do my best, and I am better than I used to be by necessity (so much better), but I fail many times a week - missed appointments, unpaid bills, late work meetings, missed healthcare visits - lots of apologizing for wasting other people's time.
A lot of this isn't a crisis, it is just corrosive. The apologizing for missed obligations, the mess, phoning it in at work.
I am 47, I can feel my energy waning.
Every once in a while I go hunting for information about personal or household assistants and think to myself: that would be amazing. If someone could just help handle all of the chaos, maybe this would all be ok. If my chaos was someone else's job. Someone who is competent at dealing with chaos. But I would have to give that person deep access to my entire life, and that is scary. It's not something I would want to cheap out on, but I couldn't afford to pay someone what it is actually worth to me. I don't want to rely on an exploitative system to get my life in order.
Maybe there is a refugee who loves running households and could mutually benefit in this situation and I can feel good about offering someone an opportunity that they otherwise would not have, and we both win. But what happens if either one of us hates the situation? How do I feel confident that this is safe?
If I could wave a magic wand, I would find a way to subdivide a portion of my property and add that to what small stipend I would be able to pay in cash. You can have this land and some money, and in return, help me run my house. but we would need to agree on some way to back out if it doesn't work, and make it legally binding. Digging into the logistics of how this would work get complicated (or sketchy) very quickly. I am out of my depth for sure.
I haven't the first clue how to connect my resources to a solution in a way that is not exploitative or extremely dangerous for my family. Maybe there are agents who specialize in this? I have no idea how to find them. How do I make sure I am not supporting human trafficking? Maybe I am looking for the wrong solution? I literally don't have time to do this.
Maybe I just need to stop whining and deal with it... my suffering is really not that bad in comparison to the universe of possible suffering.
But it feels really bad today.
Before anything else - before you even read the rest of my comment - I'd encourage you to stop and take a deep, deep breath.
Okay.
Let's break this down into a two-pronged approach first. You clearly need help, but you are in so much chaos that you are fretting about things that you don't need to be fretting about (human trafficking, housing yet ANOTHER person, etc.). So I am suggesting a two-step approach:
1. A bunch of one-time-only helpers to give you the overhaul you need right now.
You have been trying to create operating systems AND maintain them all on your own, and that's a whole hell of a lot. Creating a system takes a whole lot of work; especially when you're already trying to maintain the ineffective system that got you into this mess in the first place. So I'm thinking: off-source some help to get you back to a nice clean fresh start again.
And yes, you can do that cheaply and without having to put anyone up or house them or engage in human trafficking. I'm thinking of things like, hiring people through TaskRabbit. Hire one person to get you set up with an organization system that will work for you, a second person to get things cleaned, and if there's any other hole in the system, there's probably a person that can help you with that.
Again, these people are just the one-time setup and then they're done. What they are there for is to create the plan for you so that you can take care of just maintaining the plan going forward.
And then the second step:
2. Once you've figured out what you need to do, then you can see where you need to hire outside help.
What I mean is: once you've gotten that initial setup help with organization, they can also help you figure out how to keep things running. For instance - maybe they can do something as simple as "this app will sync to all your emails and send you calendar reminders, and even share them with Cindy if they're Cindy's appointments - so she can also get the reminder too and you don't have to remember to send it to her." Or maybe the person who helps you clean might point out that "you know, your kid was really into helping me doing the dusting, maybe that could be one of his chores from now on." And so on.
Because it's way easier to maintain a place that's been whipped into shape - and some of that maintenance can be offloaded onto the other six people in your house. Like, okay, maybe your foster teen can't drive people to appointments or cook meals, but surely they could help wash dishes, you know?
There very likely will still be places you will need outside help (i.e., you really need someone to drive one of your family to appointments every Thursday, but you're stuck at work); but it'll be a lot easier to look for just that one thing once you've figured out that everything else is taken care of.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:59 AM on June 23, 2023 [13 favorites]
Okay.
Let's break this down into a two-pronged approach first. You clearly need help, but you are in so much chaos that you are fretting about things that you don't need to be fretting about (human trafficking, housing yet ANOTHER person, etc.). So I am suggesting a two-step approach:
1. A bunch of one-time-only helpers to give you the overhaul you need right now.
You have been trying to create operating systems AND maintain them all on your own, and that's a whole hell of a lot. Creating a system takes a whole lot of work; especially when you're already trying to maintain the ineffective system that got you into this mess in the first place. So I'm thinking: off-source some help to get you back to a nice clean fresh start again.
And yes, you can do that cheaply and without having to put anyone up or house them or engage in human trafficking. I'm thinking of things like, hiring people through TaskRabbit. Hire one person to get you set up with an organization system that will work for you, a second person to get things cleaned, and if there's any other hole in the system, there's probably a person that can help you with that.
Again, these people are just the one-time setup and then they're done. What they are there for is to create the plan for you so that you can take care of just maintaining the plan going forward.
And then the second step:
2. Once you've figured out what you need to do, then you can see where you need to hire outside help.
What I mean is: once you've gotten that initial setup help with organization, they can also help you figure out how to keep things running. For instance - maybe they can do something as simple as "this app will sync to all your emails and send you calendar reminders, and even share them with Cindy if they're Cindy's appointments - so she can also get the reminder too and you don't have to remember to send it to her." Or maybe the person who helps you clean might point out that "you know, your kid was really into helping me doing the dusting, maybe that could be one of his chores from now on." And so on.
Because it's way easier to maintain a place that's been whipped into shape - and some of that maintenance can be offloaded onto the other six people in your house. Like, okay, maybe your foster teen can't drive people to appointments or cook meals, but surely they could help wash dishes, you know?
There very likely will still be places you will need outside help (i.e., you really need someone to drive one of your family to appointments every Thursday, but you're stuck at work); but it'll be a lot easier to look for just that one thing once you've figured out that everything else is taken care of.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:59 AM on June 23, 2023 [13 favorites]
Can your spouse help with anything? Can anyone help with anything? How is it possible all the other people in your home can do absolutely nothing?
Ok everyone takes care of their own laundry, first of all. Everyone picks up after themselves. Puts things back where they found them.
For appointments and bills: I too am not organizationally gifted. Google Calendar takes care of things for me and has completely rehabbed my reputation from that of a chronic mess to that of someone who’s always on time and completely reliable.
The second I’m told of or learn about an appointment or bill, it instantly goes into Google calendar. The time it’s happening, the date, full location details. I set reminders for three weeks, one week, three days, one day, and one hour. I colour code - medical appointments are red, bills are yellow, maybe for you business meetings are purple.
Once I do this I completely rely on the reminders to make me do things. With location info in there I access Google maps right from the calendar one hour ahead.
(I book blood tests in there too, like if the doc says “do this bloodwork two weeks before I see you next”, it goes in there.)
Before I book something new I take a look at my calendar.
(I use Google organizational products even though I’m on iOS because you get more reminders.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 10:14 AM on June 23, 2023 [14 favorites]
Ok everyone takes care of their own laundry, first of all. Everyone picks up after themselves. Puts things back where they found them.
For appointments and bills: I too am not organizationally gifted. Google Calendar takes care of things for me and has completely rehabbed my reputation from that of a chronic mess to that of someone who’s always on time and completely reliable.
The second I’m told of or learn about an appointment or bill, it instantly goes into Google calendar. The time it’s happening, the date, full location details. I set reminders for three weeks, one week, three days, one day, and one hour. I colour code - medical appointments are red, bills are yellow, maybe for you business meetings are purple.
Once I do this I completely rely on the reminders to make me do things. With location info in there I access Google maps right from the calendar one hour ahead.
(I book blood tests in there too, like if the doc says “do this bloodwork two weeks before I see you next”, it goes in there.)
Before I book something new I take a look at my calendar.
(I use Google organizational products even though I’m on iOS because you get more reminders.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 10:14 AM on June 23, 2023 [14 favorites]
Ask for help. Don't feel this is all on you and that only you can do it. Tell your family and friends that you are close to a breaking point. The other adults and teenager can offer ideas even if they cannot help physically.
Ask the people who live with you to help as much as they are able. One person may not be able to do the dishes, but they can rinse out used cups and put all the silverware into this bin after it is used. Can they watch the children while you are doing chores? Do they have any other friends or relatives who can take on a small part of this, like doctor appointments? You are housing them and that is a big thing. Any other local relatives can be asked to help and you can be more like a project manager than a details person.
There may be programs out there to help your family with certain things, like transportation to doctor appointments or meals. If you're not claiming them as dependents, they might qualify for monetary benefits as well. In my community, you can call 211 to get information about services in your community. You may not be used to using social programs if you have been a working family your whole life, but some of these are really miraculous.
You might also need to get help for yourself to figure out if the cause here is all this stress or if you legitimately have some difficulties with executive functioning or something. Does your employer have any kind of Employee Assistance program?
posted by soelo at 10:30 AM on June 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
Ask the people who live with you to help as much as they are able. One person may not be able to do the dishes, but they can rinse out used cups and put all the silverware into this bin after it is used. Can they watch the children while you are doing chores? Do they have any other friends or relatives who can take on a small part of this, like doctor appointments? You are housing them and that is a big thing. Any other local relatives can be asked to help and you can be more like a project manager than a details person.
There may be programs out there to help your family with certain things, like transportation to doctor appointments or meals. If you're not claiming them as dependents, they might qualify for monetary benefits as well. In my community, you can call 211 to get information about services in your community. You may not be used to using social programs if you have been a working family your whole life, but some of these are really miraculous.
You might also need to get help for yourself to figure out if the cause here is all this stress or if you legitimately have some difficulties with executive functioning or something. Does your employer have any kind of Employee Assistance program?
posted by soelo at 10:30 AM on June 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
You need time and space to clear your head to understand why you are letting the only earning person in the house be the person who is sleeping in a closet. Which is you. So much of what you say above is about further splitting yourself apart for others (literally subdividing your land in exchange).
Can you source out some local teens who you can pay a decent teen wage to come over once a week and clean your house? I'm inferring that maybe some help you need is caring for folks with medical needs/disabilities, hence the "deep access"? I suggest an actual service that does this. They are used to being tangled up in people's personal lives.
Maybe there is a refugee who loves running households and could mutually benefit in this situation
Please don't do this. You are not in a place to take on another drain on you. You need people who for whom this is a transaction only. Cash for service, period, thank you see you next time. Depending on where you live, you can outsource almost any household chore on a one-time or recurring basis.
posted by archimago at 10:33 AM on June 23, 2023 [11 favorites]
Can you source out some local teens who you can pay a decent teen wage to come over once a week and clean your house? I'm inferring that maybe some help you need is caring for folks with medical needs/disabilities, hence the "deep access"? I suggest an actual service that does this. They are used to being tangled up in people's personal lives.
Maybe there is a refugee who loves running households and could mutually benefit in this situation
Please don't do this. You are not in a place to take on another drain on you. You need people who for whom this is a transaction only. Cash for service, period, thank you see you next time. Depending on where you live, you can outsource almost any household chore on a one-time or recurring basis.
posted by archimago at 10:33 AM on June 23, 2023 [11 favorites]
Ugh hiring people and managing them is _itself_ more work. And then, nobody is as smart or organized as you are, or as good at catching details (actually they totally are, but they can't be if you're not awesome at communicating and managing, so...). I mean, don't let me bring you down if the other ideas here work for you -- but I have chaos and overwhelm, and I'm stuck too.
1) What can you outsource? If it's cleaning, do that. If it's meals, do that. But you still have a bunch of people to coordinate.
2) Rather than delegating tasks to family, what if you delegated missions? Can you get the teen to make sure nobody goes hungry? Or that the young ones are happy and on track? Or get one of the relatives to make sure the teen has what they need -- you still need to check in and make sure people are OK, but maybe the other household members can be given enough responsibility that they will care about problem solving?
3) This is out of left field, but maybe a workgroup tool like Monday.com could help stuff feel more in control, if everybody uses it. Think about how you want the system to work (You set up a task for A to plan meals, with a deadline, and a 15-minute meeting about it with the eaters involved), and _get them on board_ by letting one or two of them set it up (you put in payment stuff, I guess, but let them set up the workspaces, etc.). They will learn it, make some cool widgets/status things, and make sure you give a metric of "If I can spend less than 15 minutes with this per day and still be confident stuff is improving, then that's success!" (Don't promise a reward/dinner/ice cream unless you know what you're doing -- this is about building a team that is motivated by their internal desire to do good, and external rewards can prevent that.)
posted by amtho at 10:38 AM on June 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
1) What can you outsource? If it's cleaning, do that. If it's meals, do that. But you still have a bunch of people to coordinate.
2) Rather than delegating tasks to family, what if you delegated missions? Can you get the teen to make sure nobody goes hungry? Or that the young ones are happy and on track? Or get one of the relatives to make sure the teen has what they need -- you still need to check in and make sure people are OK, but maybe the other household members can be given enough responsibility that they will care about problem solving?
3) This is out of left field, but maybe a workgroup tool like Monday.com could help stuff feel more in control, if everybody uses it. Think about how you want the system to work (You set up a task for A to plan meals, with a deadline, and a 15-minute meeting about it with the eaters involved), and _get them on board_ by letting one or two of them set it up (you put in payment stuff, I guess, but let them set up the workspaces, etc.). They will learn it, make some cool widgets/status things, and make sure you give a metric of "If I can spend less than 15 minutes with this per day and still be confident stuff is improving, then that's success!" (Don't promise a reward/dinner/ice cream unless you know what you're doing -- this is about building a team that is motivated by their internal desire to do good, and external rewards can prevent that.)
posted by amtho at 10:38 AM on June 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
I highly recommend paying a cleaning service for a one time deep clean. Ask the folks in your house to help each other put stuff on surfaces that they don’t want touched into big storage tubs or similar, and talk with the cleaners about making sure all communal spaces (and yours) are clear for foot traffic and to place anything in the way into neat piles nearby. If anything in those piles belong to the other house residents they go in their storage boxes afterward, and the other things get put away a couple items at a time when you can manage it, like while coffee is brewing or while you are chatting with someone. Because the cleaning service will have done the actual cleaning, what remains will be tidying, which is a task that is much easier to break up into tiny little chunks, and do spontaneously because there is no setup like getting a mop bucket or putting on gloves. Also the mental relief of having open clean spaces to walk through can be enormous and is totally worth the money.
For today, please try to let go of your need to make sure every monetary exchange is super duper morally correct and non exploitative. You are positioning yourself against capitalism, and that is like fighting the ocean. You will absolutely do your best in the moment, we all know that, but if every struggle is one against the systemic oppressors of the entire world you will get crushed. For example, hire a cleaning service that is clear about their pay and benefits, that has full time employees and not gig workers. The systems in place are not ideal but they are there to help you offload some of that moral burden via bureaucracy. Inventing some kind of refugee live in butler housekeeper scheme is just your brain struggling against all the injustices of the world.
Ask your household to step up. People with special needs are still able to do many things. Maybe some of them have compatible disabilities, like maybe the teen would benefit greatly from some increased responsibility and a relative would love some help doing laundry. Maybe your spouse can take on scheduling medical stuff for other people as long as someone else handles it for them because anxiety is annoying like that. Maybe your younger kids can help your relatives remember to pick up after themselves or your relatives can teach them how to load the dishwasher. I don’t know what the different issues everyone is struggling with are, but everybody has skills and knowledge, even little ones and chronically ill folks. You are not alone, quite literally. Try to make that beneficial.
posted by Mizu at 10:42 AM on June 23, 2023 [6 favorites]
For today, please try to let go of your need to make sure every monetary exchange is super duper morally correct and non exploitative. You are positioning yourself against capitalism, and that is like fighting the ocean. You will absolutely do your best in the moment, we all know that, but if every struggle is one against the systemic oppressors of the entire world you will get crushed. For example, hire a cleaning service that is clear about their pay and benefits, that has full time employees and not gig workers. The systems in place are not ideal but they are there to help you offload some of that moral burden via bureaucracy. Inventing some kind of refugee live in butler housekeeper scheme is just your brain struggling against all the injustices of the world.
Ask your household to step up. People with special needs are still able to do many things. Maybe some of them have compatible disabilities, like maybe the teen would benefit greatly from some increased responsibility and a relative would love some help doing laundry. Maybe your spouse can take on scheduling medical stuff for other people as long as someone else handles it for them because anxiety is annoying like that. Maybe your younger kids can help your relatives remember to pick up after themselves or your relatives can teach them how to load the dishwasher. I don’t know what the different issues everyone is struggling with are, but everybody has skills and knowledge, even little ones and chronically ill folks. You are not alone, quite literally. Try to make that beneficial.
posted by Mizu at 10:42 AM on June 23, 2023 [6 favorites]
I hear your concern about how to trust strangers with personal data. Also, with random teenagers or taskrabbiters, sometimes it takes more time instructing and supervising and checking and correcting than if you did it yourself.
And so, I would start the search with NAPO, the National Organization of Productivity and Organizing Professionals. I had a good experience with one -- came in, was highly focused and organized, and set up very practical systems.
posted by dum spiro spero at 11:26 AM on June 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
And so, I would start the search with NAPO, the National Organization of Productivity and Organizing Professionals. I had a good experience with one -- came in, was highly focused and organized, and set up very practical systems.
posted by dum spiro spero at 11:26 AM on June 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
What you can do immediately is to hire a maid service that will come in once a week and clean the place. This will not solve the larger organizational problems, but removing the never ending task of keeping a house clean should buy you some breathing room.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:06 PM on June 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:06 PM on June 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks for the first round of responses, much of this advice is fuel for my despair engine, even though it is meant in good faith. :(
So far, most of the advice is to add more work with the hope that later there will be less work. But I can't do any more work right now. I need to do less work (or the same work - the devil you know and all that).
Getting Rid Of Things
- this is a lot of work. I agree it is a worthy goal, it would be nice to hire someone to do it, but it also feels like it is re-arranging deck chairs. I would love to pay someone to do this. I did pay a cluster expert to help me, but they didn't actually do work, they basically did a coaching session where I cleaned a zone of the house for 4 hours with them coaching, and yeah, it worked, but... that's not the help I need.
Delegate to Family
- this is more work, and they are all varying degrees of fragile and incapable. It requires tons of oversight and it's very easy to accidentally hurt feelings and cause a household meltdown. Most of it is old unresolved family trauma, but I am unqualified to solve that. I am trying to just get them to leave at this point, but that is also more work.
- asking other family to do work makes my day harder.
- maybe if i was a different person, i would be better at delegating. maybe I could hire a "tell people what to do" coach, but.. This idea does not spark joy.
One-Time task workers to get to baseline
- Maybe I am wrong, but the amount of work to do this feels like a lot. I mean the work that is required to identify what I need and hire people to solve those needs. I don't know why the systems I currently am using don't work. I live rural and the availability of random people to do jobs is limited. Hiring cleaners has always been a bust, they do a couple hours of work limited only to what I specifically describe, and then leave and charge me $40/hour (which is more than I can afford).
- Ideally I could hire someone who would hire these other people. Seriously. That's what I think might work. Hiring people to do things takes more time than I have.
- I don't know why my current myriad of alerts and notifications are not working. Sometimes I am deep in a happy focus zone, and I just miss them. Sometimes I am dealing with family things and I miss them. Sometimes I fail to record them soon enough after the appointment is made, and forget. All bills are on autopay. I make sure that all healthcare providers call multiple times with reminders if they offer that functionality. This saves my ass all the time, but not everyone will do this and it is noisy. My phone rings a lot. I wish I only had to pay attention to one source of noise instead of all of them. I wish that my computer could look at the notifications from email, slack, and calendar, and do extra super ALERT notifications for some subset of the alerts. The calendar app alerts on all things, not just some things. When someone invites me to a random meeting, I get the same level of alert as when my boss needs an important meeting. Slack alerts behave differently than calendar or email (which is just chrome). but all the slack alerts are the same, I can't get extra alerts for some people or topics. Ultimately all of this is trying to make up for the fact that this is not my wheelhouse and I don't think will ever be my wheelhouse. It is a lot of work for me to get a solid C- in personal organization (fail like 30% of the time), and this is as good as I have ever been at it.
Find Help
- in my experience, finding help is a lot of work. And, I make decent money so I don't qualify for assistance programs (and they get pretty weird about the whole situation, honestly).
Maid Service
- they cost too much. I think it would cost maybe $400/wk to keep my house clean? And I need to get the other family out of my house first, and then I think I could do that. But I would be even happier if someone else would take this on. I could give them a budget, and they could do the work of finding someone and... you know.
- The only deep cleaners I have found are people who empty houses after someone died. They just throw everything away.
Managing People and Injustice
- I am bad at managing people I live with (and can't fire).
- I am good cop ISO bad cop.
- Yeah, the world is awful, but I still don't want to take advantage of people.
NAPO
- thank you for responding to some portion of my question! I didn't know that this existed. While I don't really have the time to do this, I think I will set aside some to investigate.
My question was: is it possible to hire someone to help me with this, and a lot of the advice is not for that, it is some variant of "you are doing it wrong". I have left out A LOT of detail in my quick overview, if "just get the family to do more" was an option, I would have done that. I have discovered that I am bad at finding a solution to this problem, and am looking to pay someone to solve it for me. If that is something a person can pay for. And if I can afford it. Is that a thing.
This post is itself more work in service of my goal. I have spent maybe an hour on it so far? I do not have the time to be doing this, but I also don't have time to be doing the other things either. I should make my responses more terse. :(
posted by pol at 12:31 PM on June 23, 2023
So far, most of the advice is to add more work with the hope that later there will be less work. But I can't do any more work right now. I need to do less work (or the same work - the devil you know and all that).
Getting Rid Of Things
- this is a lot of work. I agree it is a worthy goal, it would be nice to hire someone to do it, but it also feels like it is re-arranging deck chairs. I would love to pay someone to do this. I did pay a cluster expert to help me, but they didn't actually do work, they basically did a coaching session where I cleaned a zone of the house for 4 hours with them coaching, and yeah, it worked, but... that's not the help I need.
Delegate to Family
- this is more work, and they are all varying degrees of fragile and incapable. It requires tons of oversight and it's very easy to accidentally hurt feelings and cause a household meltdown. Most of it is old unresolved family trauma, but I am unqualified to solve that. I am trying to just get them to leave at this point, but that is also more work.
- asking other family to do work makes my day harder.
- maybe if i was a different person, i would be better at delegating. maybe I could hire a "tell people what to do" coach, but.. This idea does not spark joy.
One-Time task workers to get to baseline
- Maybe I am wrong, but the amount of work to do this feels like a lot. I mean the work that is required to identify what I need and hire people to solve those needs. I don't know why the systems I currently am using don't work. I live rural and the availability of random people to do jobs is limited. Hiring cleaners has always been a bust, they do a couple hours of work limited only to what I specifically describe, and then leave and charge me $40/hour (which is more than I can afford).
- Ideally I could hire someone who would hire these other people. Seriously. That's what I think might work. Hiring people to do things takes more time than I have.
- I don't know why my current myriad of alerts and notifications are not working. Sometimes I am deep in a happy focus zone, and I just miss them. Sometimes I am dealing with family things and I miss them. Sometimes I fail to record them soon enough after the appointment is made, and forget. All bills are on autopay. I make sure that all healthcare providers call multiple times with reminders if they offer that functionality. This saves my ass all the time, but not everyone will do this and it is noisy. My phone rings a lot. I wish I only had to pay attention to one source of noise instead of all of them. I wish that my computer could look at the notifications from email, slack, and calendar, and do extra super ALERT notifications for some subset of the alerts. The calendar app alerts on all things, not just some things. When someone invites me to a random meeting, I get the same level of alert as when my boss needs an important meeting. Slack alerts behave differently than calendar or email (which is just chrome). but all the slack alerts are the same, I can't get extra alerts for some people or topics. Ultimately all of this is trying to make up for the fact that this is not my wheelhouse and I don't think will ever be my wheelhouse. It is a lot of work for me to get a solid C- in personal organization (fail like 30% of the time), and this is as good as I have ever been at it.
Find Help
- in my experience, finding help is a lot of work. And, I make decent money so I don't qualify for assistance programs (and they get pretty weird about the whole situation, honestly).
Maid Service
- they cost too much. I think it would cost maybe $400/wk to keep my house clean? And I need to get the other family out of my house first, and then I think I could do that. But I would be even happier if someone else would take this on. I could give them a budget, and they could do the work of finding someone and... you know.
- The only deep cleaners I have found are people who empty houses after someone died. They just throw everything away.
Managing People and Injustice
- I am bad at managing people I live with (and can't fire).
- I am good cop ISO bad cop.
- Yeah, the world is awful, but I still don't want to take advantage of people.
NAPO
- thank you for responding to some portion of my question! I didn't know that this existed. While I don't really have the time to do this, I think I will set aside some to investigate.
My question was: is it possible to hire someone to help me with this, and a lot of the advice is not for that, it is some variant of "you are doing it wrong". I have left out A LOT of detail in my quick overview, if "just get the family to do more" was an option, I would have done that. I have discovered that I am bad at finding a solution to this problem, and am looking to pay someone to solve it for me. If that is something a person can pay for. And if I can afford it. Is that a thing.
This post is itself more work in service of my goal. I have spent maybe an hour on it so far? I do not have the time to be doing this, but I also don't have time to be doing the other things either. I should make my responses more terse. :(
posted by pol at 12:31 PM on June 23, 2023
I hear that you want a household assistant but there's a lot of anxiety around how much it will be and how to find someone reputable but affordable but then also what if you end up not liking the job they do, etc.
I would recommend hiring someone for a trial period and communicate that the first week is just to see how things go (still paid of course) and then you can both discuss how it is going before setting up a contract for a longer term like for a month etc. Or if you don't feel it's a good fit, say thank you but it's not a fit for now.
So you really just need to hire someone and just know that it might not be perfect but you are taking steps to get there.
There's care.com but these are anyone who sets up a profile to do any type of carework (nanny, cleaning, petsitting, eldercare). I don't know if care.com is international or not.
Also, you say you don't want to hire cleaners because it's too expensive. So I'm not sure what more advice to give on that end.
I've been overwhelmed too and it's very hard. I hope things get better.
posted by AnyUsernameWillDo at 12:59 PM on June 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
I would recommend hiring someone for a trial period and communicate that the first week is just to see how things go (still paid of course) and then you can both discuss how it is going before setting up a contract for a longer term like for a month etc. Or if you don't feel it's a good fit, say thank you but it's not a fit for now.
So you really just need to hire someone and just know that it might not be perfect but you are taking steps to get there.
There's care.com but these are anyone who sets up a profile to do any type of carework (nanny, cleaning, petsitting, eldercare). I don't know if care.com is international or not.
Also, you say you don't want to hire cleaners because it's too expensive. So I'm not sure what more advice to give on that end.
I've been overwhelmed too and it's very hard. I hope things get better.
posted by AnyUsernameWillDo at 12:59 PM on June 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
You're in Vermont, it's summer, and you have some land. Could some of those people in your house vacate the rooms they're in and move into tents?
Another possibility would be to offer a free place to camp and a bit of money to someone who has the time and skills to manage/clean/organize your house for you while living in their camper in your woods for the summer. I'm a member of some women travelers facebook groups and have the sense that some women might be glad of such an opportunity. Message me if that appeals.
posted by mareli at 1:02 PM on June 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
Another possibility would be to offer a free place to camp and a bit of money to someone who has the time and skills to manage/clean/organize your house for you while living in their camper in your woods for the summer. I'm a member of some women travelers facebook groups and have the sense that some women might be glad of such an opportunity. Message me if that appeals.
posted by mareli at 1:02 PM on June 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
There's a professional organizer who posts here and has offered several times to help mefites connect to professionals who can help them. That might be one place to start (even if you think what they do is not exactly what you need, they might know have some good ideas about where to point you and some insight about budget and so on).
Barring that, what about a cleaning service that will do whatever they can for the amount you're able to offer? It might be less than getting your whole house clean, but it'll be something. It sounds like you're under a shitload of stress, and coming home to a clean(er) kitchen or living room or bathroom can feel like a load off your back even if it's not everything.
Before your update I'd written this - it's not a 'you're doing this wrong', more of a 'this has sometimes worked for me', so I'm leaving it on the off chance that it's in any way helpful. It's definitely 1000% absolutely not meant to make you feel bad. I have such a hard time getting things done, and such emotional issues with authority and being told to do stuff, that 'we're all doing this together' is the only approach that's ever gotten me to do stuff long term.
My house is always a messy disaster except for the 3 or 4 times a year that I turn into a cleaning elemental for a few days.
Depending on how disabled the other members of your household are - is there any chance you all (or some subset of you, but ideally all so that it feels equal) could take one day a week or one day every two weeks or even one day a month and all spend one-two hours on that day cleaning up and cleaning the place together? Maybe with some music on? And then a half-hour or hour every week getting everyone synced up on medical appointments, bills, etc., household meeting style. And then you all order pizza or something and you personally take an hour or two to relax ahead of the workweek. Even if the amount of time spent cleaning isn't enough to take care of everything, it's enough to make some difference and keep things from getting worse.
posted by trig at 1:04 PM on June 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
Barring that, what about a cleaning service that will do whatever they can for the amount you're able to offer? It might be less than getting your whole house clean, but it'll be something. It sounds like you're under a shitload of stress, and coming home to a clean(er) kitchen or living room or bathroom can feel like a load off your back even if it's not everything.
Before your update I'd written this - it's not a 'you're doing this wrong', more of a 'this has sometimes worked for me', so I'm leaving it on the off chance that it's in any way helpful. It's definitely 1000% absolutely not meant to make you feel bad. I have such a hard time getting things done, and such emotional issues with authority and being told to do stuff, that 'we're all doing this together' is the only approach that's ever gotten me to do stuff long term.
My house is always a messy disaster except for the 3 or 4 times a year that I turn into a cleaning elemental for a few days.
Depending on how disabled the other members of your household are - is there any chance you all (or some subset of you, but ideally all so that it feels equal) could take one day a week or one day every two weeks or even one day a month and all spend one-two hours on that day cleaning up and cleaning the place together? Maybe with some music on? And then a half-hour or hour every week getting everyone synced up on medical appointments, bills, etc., household meeting style. And then you all order pizza or something and you personally take an hour or two to relax ahead of the workweek. Even if the amount of time spent cleaning isn't enough to take care of everything, it's enough to make some difference and keep things from getting worse.
posted by trig at 1:04 PM on June 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
I think it would cost maybe $400/wk to keep my house clean?
!!!
I don’t know how big your house is or what special situation you’re in but having a service in to clean the house once a week is usually a lot closer to $100/wk .
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:35 PM on June 23, 2023 [9 favorites]
!!!
I don’t know how big your house is or what special situation you’re in but having a service in to clean the house once a week is usually a lot closer to $100/wk .
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:35 PM on June 23, 2023 [9 favorites]
I'm glad to see from your update that you are trying to get your guests to move out. You're very concerned about taking advantage of other people, but they are taking advantage of you, even if they have the best of intentions. You are feeling completely defeated and they are not helping you.
Running a household while working under ordinary circumstances is absolutely exhausting. There's nothing wrong with wanting help! I don't know what the solution is, but I hear you and if it would help you to spitball with a sympathetic stranger, feel free to memail me.
posted by chaiminda at 1:38 PM on June 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
Running a household while working under ordinary circumstances is absolutely exhausting. There's nothing wrong with wanting help! I don't know what the solution is, but I hear you and if it would help you to spitball with a sympathetic stranger, feel free to memail me.
posted by chaiminda at 1:38 PM on June 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
I want to add to the suggestion to hire a professional organizer. They don't just organize -- they declutter and create systems for you. I hired one and was so, so, so surprised by what she did. It's my understanding that they can do even more than this, but here's what the person I hired did for me.
She came into a very messy space (a guest room that was unusable for anything because it was so full of junk -- not furniture, but things like art supplies and boxes that had not been unpacked from a move). She talked to me about what the room was for and what kinds of things were in it (about 15 minutes). She went through all the things in the space and grouped them together, like with like. Then she came and got me, and asked me questions -- do you want this? do you need this? what is this? do you use this? Then we spent 30 minutes together putting all the things away. She was in my home for 5 hours, and I spent about 45 minutes of that time with her. At the end of the time, she took the recycling, bulk trash and goodwill donations with her and handled that for me (normal sized trash went into my own trash bins outside).
After she was done, my space was organized, usable and clean. And the two best parts were: A) the systems she made for me just worked because they made sense. All my plant care supplies were together in one place and I could find them. I didn't need to look in several different places in my house. I didn't have a complicated system to learn how to use, because it was intuitive. And B) having her here did NOT lead to more chores/errands for me. Since she took the recycling, bigger trash and donations with her, I didn't have to find the time to do those errands myself.
posted by OrangeDisk at 1:41 PM on June 23, 2023 [11 favorites]
She came into a very messy space (a guest room that was unusable for anything because it was so full of junk -- not furniture, but things like art supplies and boxes that had not been unpacked from a move). She talked to me about what the room was for and what kinds of things were in it (about 15 minutes). She went through all the things in the space and grouped them together, like with like. Then she came and got me, and asked me questions -- do you want this? do you need this? what is this? do you use this? Then we spent 30 minutes together putting all the things away. She was in my home for 5 hours, and I spent about 45 minutes of that time with her. At the end of the time, she took the recycling, bulk trash and goodwill donations with her and handled that for me (normal sized trash went into my own trash bins outside).
After she was done, my space was organized, usable and clean. And the two best parts were: A) the systems she made for me just worked because they made sense. All my plant care supplies were together in one place and I could find them. I didn't need to look in several different places in my house. I didn't have a complicated system to learn how to use, because it was intuitive. And B) having her here did NOT lead to more chores/errands for me. Since she took the recycling, bigger trash and donations with her, I didn't have to find the time to do those errands myself.
posted by OrangeDisk at 1:41 PM on June 23, 2023 [11 favorites]
Look, you are basically working at least 2 or 3 full time jobs by taking care of the people in your household, of the household itself, and your job. You are a single person. There is no way to get 3 FTE out of 1 stressed-out person. Your stress is palpable through your post and I wish I could just give you a hug (and then go wash your dishes or clean something).
Unless you have serious money to throw at problems (therapy for everyone instead of you playing the therapist, $$excellent $$cleaning $$services, catered meals etc), I would ruthlessly cut whatever is not a priority. In your case, I guess your priorities are: 1. doing a good enough (didn't say great!) job to keep the money coming, 2. caring for your people (but only because you say so - I think you're far from the average person with the amount of care and support you're providing), and only then, at distant third, doing the bare basics of the household stuff - keeping people more or less fed (doesn't have to be gourmet or home-cooked meals), urgent repairs for the house if needed (eg. leaky roof, burst pipe, and similar), bills and taxes.
I know that not having a nice, clean place can be another source of stress, but worrying about the place not being clean is stress you're piling on all by yourself. Try to let this go. Try to let go of everything but the bare necessities.
Right now you're looking for a solution that is simply not practical - you have identified the problems yourself. It either takes too much of your time and effort or costs too much or isn't up to your standards. It takes so much effort to even find someone to do the work, and then you have to explain how to do it, and then you have to pay them too! Even if you found the perfect someone to take over the household, would they really get the house clean up to your standards, when you don't like what the cleaning service is doing? Would they be able to keep track of all of your work appointments when you get incoming urgent requests from your boss? Would they be able to both run a household effectively AND take care of everyone's healthcare needs?
I would encourage you to try to improve your current situation instead of daydreaming about deus ex machina stepping in and making order out of chaos. Can you keep all your appointments in the calendar? Can you review everything in the calendar the day before, so you know what's coming up tomorrow? Can you pay bills immediately? Can you tell people on Slack to ping you directly if they need you and mute everything but the private messages? Can you set up filters in email to forward emails from boss to IFTTT and do something to give you a different alert if it's coming from your boss?
And if things get overlooked or a bill doesn't get paid here and there, give yourself some grace. You're 1 person doing the work of at least 3. You're helping 6 other people have a better life, when a lot of people are barely taking care of themselves. There is a silver lining, and your situation will change eventually - kids grow up, people change. Your household will change. I know you're dreaming of a total overhaul, but try to do something a little better today, just a small thing that won't take all of your energy, then another small thing tomorrow or the day after or the day after that... and you may be surprised at the results. Sending you big hugs.
posted by gakiko at 1:44 PM on June 23, 2023 [4 favorites]
Unless you have serious money to throw at problems (therapy for everyone instead of you playing the therapist, $$excellent $$cleaning $$services, catered meals etc), I would ruthlessly cut whatever is not a priority. In your case, I guess your priorities are: 1. doing a good enough (didn't say great!) job to keep the money coming, 2. caring for your people (but only because you say so - I think you're far from the average person with the amount of care and support you're providing), and only then, at distant third, doing the bare basics of the household stuff - keeping people more or less fed (doesn't have to be gourmet or home-cooked meals), urgent repairs for the house if needed (eg. leaky roof, burst pipe, and similar), bills and taxes.
I know that not having a nice, clean place can be another source of stress, but worrying about the place not being clean is stress you're piling on all by yourself. Try to let this go. Try to let go of everything but the bare necessities.
Right now you're looking for a solution that is simply not practical - you have identified the problems yourself. It either takes too much of your time and effort or costs too much or isn't up to your standards. It takes so much effort to even find someone to do the work, and then you have to explain how to do it, and then you have to pay them too! Even if you found the perfect someone to take over the household, would they really get the house clean up to your standards, when you don't like what the cleaning service is doing? Would they be able to keep track of all of your work appointments when you get incoming urgent requests from your boss? Would they be able to both run a household effectively AND take care of everyone's healthcare needs?
I would encourage you to try to improve your current situation instead of daydreaming about deus ex machina stepping in and making order out of chaos. Can you keep all your appointments in the calendar? Can you review everything in the calendar the day before, so you know what's coming up tomorrow? Can you pay bills immediately? Can you tell people on Slack to ping you directly if they need you and mute everything but the private messages? Can you set up filters in email to forward emails from boss to IFTTT and do something to give you a different alert if it's coming from your boss?
And if things get overlooked or a bill doesn't get paid here and there, give yourself some grace. You're 1 person doing the work of at least 3. You're helping 6 other people have a better life, when a lot of people are barely taking care of themselves. There is a silver lining, and your situation will change eventually - kids grow up, people change. Your household will change. I know you're dreaming of a total overhaul, but try to do something a little better today, just a small thing that won't take all of your energy, then another small thing tomorrow or the day after or the day after that... and you may be surprised at the results. Sending you big hugs.
posted by gakiko at 1:44 PM on June 23, 2023 [4 favorites]
Does the teen qualify for any benefits?
Can your kids help with small tasks?
Personally, I’d make a list of tasks and ask your co-housed relations to select some that they will be personally responsible for. Doesn’t have to be perfect, but has to be at least attempted. Surely they can sweep, dust, pull weeds, empty wastebaskets.
Your work is more important than family feelings because without your paycheck, no one could eat.
posted by Ideefixe at 3:23 PM on June 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
Can your kids help with small tasks?
Personally, I’d make a list of tasks and ask your co-housed relations to select some that they will be personally responsible for. Doesn’t have to be perfect, but has to be at least attempted. Surely they can sweep, dust, pull weeds, empty wastebaskets.
Your work is more important than family feelings because without your paycheck, no one could eat.
posted by Ideefixe at 3:23 PM on June 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
I don't really have any answers but I just want to say I understand the question. I especially totally get how frustrating is it to hear "can't any of these other people in the house do something to help?" Getting other people to help is MORE WORK. And HARDER WORK.
I don't have any experience with hiring someone to make order out of chaos, though I do have lots of experience with digging out of bottomless holes of household chores.
The number of times you mention how bad you are at organization and remembering scheduled appointments makes me wonder if you might get closer to the help you need from an ADHD coach. I'm not saying you have ADHD (or the time it would take to get diagnosed and treated for it) but these kind of issues are what those people help other people strategize around and I would guess they are good at identifying problems and systems to help those problems.
I don't know anything about ADHD coaches except that they exist, but maybe give it a google?
So much love to you and hope for a light at the end of this tunnel.
posted by Jenny'sCricket at 4:51 PM on June 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
I don't have any experience with hiring someone to make order out of chaos, though I do have lots of experience with digging out of bottomless holes of household chores.
The number of times you mention how bad you are at organization and remembering scheduled appointments makes me wonder if you might get closer to the help you need from an ADHD coach. I'm not saying you have ADHD (or the time it would take to get diagnosed and treated for it) but these kind of issues are what those people help other people strategize around and I would guess they are good at identifying problems and systems to help those problems.
I don't know anything about ADHD coaches except that they exist, but maybe give it a google?
So much love to you and hope for a light at the end of this tunnel.
posted by Jenny'sCricket at 4:51 PM on June 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
Ok, sincere apologies for a possibly glib response. I do understand, I take care of two people myself, I’m frustrated on your behalf (and maybe a little on mine).
Your idea is to loan someone a piece of your land in exchange for household and medical management, of a large home and six people with a range of struggles, and top it up with a small income.
I’m with gakiko… you estimate it would involve ten hours of cleaning weekly. Multiple appointments for everyone. Meals for everyone. That is 1-2 full time jobs. Whoever did this for you would likely need additional income to survive, themselves. They’d either need to be independently wealthy (if so, why would they do this?) or have a partner who has income of some kind. Now you have more people with more needs, demands and possibly claims, on your property.
You’re right to be concerned about who would do this work. Maybe someone who’d be easy to exploit… maybe, also, someone with an angle. I would think that the legalities of this might prove difficult, would you want someone making a claim on your land (squatter’s rights?)? Maybe you wouldn’t mind that… maybe you want to actually parcel it out and sell it? And use the cash to pay for help? I think combining the two in the way you envision would lead to muddy waters quickly. (Like maybe they’d have squatter’s rights?)
Agreeing with gakiko again, you’d be letting strangers into your home, entrusting them with really personal stuff. If they take a heavy hand in the medical part of things that can really be tricky. Even cleaning, you’re saying you want it done in a comfortable way, and that takes sensitivity and communication (and trust).
With respect and understanding, I don’t see this idea working out. BUT maybe I’m being cynical and mareli’s offer of reaching out to some groups is worth a shot…
The reality of caregiving is it eats time and money, and it burns people out. Nature of the beast. Can’t really outsource it all unfortunately. Most of us take a hit somewhere.
I’m sorry to say it because it’s probably the last thing you want to do, but I think realistically, maybe it’s time to take some time off work and deal with the hard issues. Someone’s going to implode otherwise. Your stress levels are off the charts. You’re sleeping in a closet. This is not ok. You can’t help anyone at all if you end up sick from this yourself.
I’m suggesting planning some stress leave, or however it’s easier to get time off (in the US I think there is FMLA?), maybe 2-4 weeks to get things done and actually rest for a bit. And you’ve got to do the hard thing, if you’re a people pleaser. You’ve got to be the bad cop and use your stress leave to get those adults out. (Call a social worker tomorrow to help them access programs and housing if that is what they need.)
(Really sorry, I relate to your question big time.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 7:22 PM on June 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
Your idea is to loan someone a piece of your land in exchange for household and medical management, of a large home and six people with a range of struggles, and top it up with a small income.
I’m with gakiko… you estimate it would involve ten hours of cleaning weekly. Multiple appointments for everyone. Meals for everyone. That is 1-2 full time jobs. Whoever did this for you would likely need additional income to survive, themselves. They’d either need to be independently wealthy (if so, why would they do this?) or have a partner who has income of some kind. Now you have more people with more needs, demands and possibly claims, on your property.
You’re right to be concerned about who would do this work. Maybe someone who’d be easy to exploit… maybe, also, someone with an angle. I would think that the legalities of this might prove difficult, would you want someone making a claim on your land (squatter’s rights?)? Maybe you wouldn’t mind that… maybe you want to actually parcel it out and sell it? And use the cash to pay for help? I think combining the two in the way you envision would lead to muddy waters quickly. (Like maybe they’d have squatter’s rights?)
Agreeing with gakiko again, you’d be letting strangers into your home, entrusting them with really personal stuff. If they take a heavy hand in the medical part of things that can really be tricky. Even cleaning, you’re saying you want it done in a comfortable way, and that takes sensitivity and communication (and trust).
With respect and understanding, I don’t see this idea working out. BUT maybe I’m being cynical and mareli’s offer of reaching out to some groups is worth a shot…
The reality of caregiving is it eats time and money, and it burns people out. Nature of the beast. Can’t really outsource it all unfortunately. Most of us take a hit somewhere.
I’m sorry to say it because it’s probably the last thing you want to do, but I think realistically, maybe it’s time to take some time off work and deal with the hard issues. Someone’s going to implode otherwise. Your stress levels are off the charts. You’re sleeping in a closet. This is not ok. You can’t help anyone at all if you end up sick from this yourself.
I’m suggesting planning some stress leave, or however it’s easier to get time off (in the US I think there is FMLA?), maybe 2-4 weeks to get things done and actually rest for a bit. And you’ve got to do the hard thing, if you’re a people pleaser. You’ve got to be the bad cop and use your stress leave to get those adults out. (Call a social worker tomorrow to help them access programs and housing if that is what they need.)
(Really sorry, I relate to your question big time.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 7:22 PM on June 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
I didn't read all the other answers but one thing that worked for a family member who struggling to stay on top of things while living on their own was that I found a person who advertised as supporting elderly people stay in their home. I hired her as a house cleaner but she truly enjoyed trying to bring better order to the home as well as keeping it clean (dishes, laundry and tidying up as well as actual cleaning).
This person would not solve all your problems but taking one huge piece of mess out of your hands might free up enough energy to figure out how to tackle (or who to hire to tackle) some of the other parts.
TLDR: Look to someone with experience helping the elderly and disabled stay in their homes. They might be able to solve a huge chunk of your problem - cleaning, organizing, errands, tidying up etc.
posted by metahawk at 7:37 PM on June 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
This person would not solve all your problems but taking one huge piece of mess out of your hands might free up enough energy to figure out how to tackle (or who to hire to tackle) some of the other parts.
TLDR: Look to someone with experience helping the elderly and disabled stay in their homes. They might be able to solve a huge chunk of your problem - cleaning, organizing, errands, tidying up etc.
posted by metahawk at 7:37 PM on June 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
I have a 9-people household and I’m the major wage earner and general wrangler. I am very very fortunate to have a regular daily housekeeper - we can cope without her but it’s a big help. That’s due to special laws and economics in my country though that make domestic wages comparatively low.
We use a WhatsApp group to keep everyone on schedule and ask for help - like @name, can you get laundry hung up, I’m getting groceries reply with what you need etc. Having a group chat means people pitch in and are aware of what everyone’s doing.
I online shop like 99% of everything because I am time starved. Telehealth for any doctor appointments possible and pharmacy deliveries. Zoom for school meetings etc when possible. Basically I pay for time back.
I also keep my Saturday mornings non booked and I laze around a lot with no responsibilities.
Cut down on anything extra curricular unless other family members can do the wrangling. One kid has a bff and their family are awesome and willing to wrangle my kid in along on activities most weeks when I’m too stretched.
The teen will benefit from additional activities and structure that they independently take part in. Find one activity to do with them daily where you can also chat - washing dishes together, making breakfast, dog walk - as you and them time - and for the rest let them do their things alone. If they’re able to babysit your kids in the sense of you’re working and they can be on their phone while your kids watch tv and half heartedly do homework - great.
You said rehabilitate the teen - that’s where I’d put money in because you are a foster parent not a counsellor. Get that kid a therapist as fast as possible, and maybe pay for some kind of courses/group that is meant for teens in trouble. Take yourself off the responsibility of rehabilitating a teen - your job is a safe home, not an impossible task.
Get the other family out asap. If that takes money with a down payment in rent, fine. They’re adults and yes they’re family, but they’re not kids.
And pay for therapy to figure out how you ended up there, once you have breathing room, and why your husband is not doing more. I did 95% of everything while working and my ex complained about the level of what I was delivering, while not taking over anything extra. It’s actually easier to be a single parent than have a deadweight partner.
Write a long list of all the things you’d pay someone to do. Look at it and divide it by the number of people in the house. Assign it out reasonably - young kids can set the table or feed pets. Another adult can meal plan and do the weekly linen laundry. Some of the tasks can be solved by money - laundry services, a robot vacuum, pet walkers.
Brace yourself for incompetence the first month and people trying to guilt you into taking back tasks. Refuse flat out. Do your own stuff and keep going. Super hard but worth it.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 8:00 PM on June 23, 2023 [4 favorites]
We use a WhatsApp group to keep everyone on schedule and ask for help - like @name, can you get laundry hung up, I’m getting groceries reply with what you need etc. Having a group chat means people pitch in and are aware of what everyone’s doing.
I online shop like 99% of everything because I am time starved. Telehealth for any doctor appointments possible and pharmacy deliveries. Zoom for school meetings etc when possible. Basically I pay for time back.
I also keep my Saturday mornings non booked and I laze around a lot with no responsibilities.
Cut down on anything extra curricular unless other family members can do the wrangling. One kid has a bff and their family are awesome and willing to wrangle my kid in along on activities most weeks when I’m too stretched.
The teen will benefit from additional activities and structure that they independently take part in. Find one activity to do with them daily where you can also chat - washing dishes together, making breakfast, dog walk - as you and them time - and for the rest let them do their things alone. If they’re able to babysit your kids in the sense of you’re working and they can be on their phone while your kids watch tv and half heartedly do homework - great.
You said rehabilitate the teen - that’s where I’d put money in because you are a foster parent not a counsellor. Get that kid a therapist as fast as possible, and maybe pay for some kind of courses/group that is meant for teens in trouble. Take yourself off the responsibility of rehabilitating a teen - your job is a safe home, not an impossible task.
Get the other family out asap. If that takes money with a down payment in rent, fine. They’re adults and yes they’re family, but they’re not kids.
And pay for therapy to figure out how you ended up there, once you have breathing room, and why your husband is not doing more. I did 95% of everything while working and my ex complained about the level of what I was delivering, while not taking over anything extra. It’s actually easier to be a single parent than have a deadweight partner.
Write a long list of all the things you’d pay someone to do. Look at it and divide it by the number of people in the house. Assign it out reasonably - young kids can set the table or feed pets. Another adult can meal plan and do the weekly linen laundry. Some of the tasks can be solved by money - laundry services, a robot vacuum, pet walkers.
Brace yourself for incompetence the first month and people trying to guilt you into taking back tasks. Refuse flat out. Do your own stuff and keep going. Super hard but worth it.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 8:00 PM on June 23, 2023 [4 favorites]
Do you have an employee assistance program (EAP) through work?
You might want to consider taking (FMLA) leave from your job. (If you don't schedule maintenance, maintenance will schedule you).
Is the foster teen officially in kinship care (or can get into the foster care system if this is a more 'informal' arrangement)? If so, there would be resources for said teen. In addition, the teenager's school might have some resources if you ask. Alternatively would any of your family members be eligible for support for senior citizens? I'm under no delusion that social services in America is perfect, but licensing and background checks surely helps some (and are two fewer things you would need to worry about).
To answer your question more directly though, one option* might be to rent out a spot on your land to someone (or someones) living in a Tiny House on Wheels (THOW). My understanding that (much of?) Vermont has an affordable housing crisis and housing shortage. In exchange for nominal rent, perhaps some household assistance could be arranged. Specifically, maybe there would be interest in such an arragement (if it's not a conflict of interest) for a social worker or teacher type person (and if so, there are probably channels to get the word out that are more targeted than say Craigslist).
*Dependent on legality of course.
posted by oceano at 11:37 PM on June 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
You might want to consider taking (FMLA) leave from your job. (If you don't schedule maintenance, maintenance will schedule you).
Is the foster teen officially in kinship care (or can get into the foster care system if this is a more 'informal' arrangement)? If so, there would be resources for said teen. In addition, the teenager's school might have some resources if you ask. Alternatively would any of your family members be eligible for support for senior citizens? I'm under no delusion that social services in America is perfect, but licensing and background checks surely helps some (and are two fewer things you would need to worry about).
To answer your question more directly though, one option* might be to rent out a spot on your land to someone (or someones) living in a Tiny House on Wheels (THOW). My understanding that (much of?) Vermont has an affordable housing crisis and housing shortage. In exchange for nominal rent, perhaps some household assistance could be arranged. Specifically, maybe there would be interest in such an arragement (if it's not a conflict of interest) for a social worker or teacher type person (and if so, there are probably channels to get the word out that are more targeted than say Craigslist).
*Dependent on legality of course.
posted by oceano at 11:37 PM on June 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks again for all the responses, I appreciate it all as it is good to get an outside opinion of the solution, even if it is not what I asked for directly.
Elderly Caregivers and Professional Organizers
- I will look into it!
- Big thanks to those who wrote in success stories of family members or suchlike that were able to find something like what I am looking for, it gives me hope!
- I am afraid that an organizer will charge a bunch of money and leave me with a todo list, not a clean house. This is why the success stories about people who found someone to do the actual work are so inspiring. I could make a 70% good todo list myself for free. This was my experience with the last organizer I hired, they picked a section of house that looked tractable, and guided me through cleaning it, and then I did, and then I had a clean room corner for a couple months. That was nice, but... I should have been working at the job that pays me. And it's not clean anymore. And it cost me like twice as much as people who actually do cleaning (but I had to do the cleaning). Maybe I could do this but assign one of the other family to do the cleaning part, but it is risky!
Camper Parking for Mercenary Helpers
- I love this idea, and I will be messaging you about it. I am working on getting a gravel pad built that should allow for exactly this and it is the kind of low-stakes / high-impact idea I was looking for. Both of us would have the right incentives, I think.
Get Family to Step Up
- Family trauma and poverty is a bitch. There is a rich history of chore charts, guilt, and shame that even bringing up the idea of organized cleaning sessions or "if everyone could step up a little bit" puts a pall over the household for days. It sucks. If one or two of the other family members were not here, I think this could work, but having them all here makes this impossible. Step 1 is getting them out of the house, and I just need to make enough room in my life to help them do that because they are barely able to speak to someone on the phone without falling apart. I don't really want to go into this because it sucks. But any "get family to do more work" responses will go into the giant stack of common sense ideas I have already tried and been burned by.
Housecleaning is $100/wk
- I am going to dig into this again, because my first attempt at finding someone to clean regularly felt bad. It felt like that first $80 session was a drop in the bucket, and by the next week the progress was more or less erased. So I mentally multiplied the number by the amount to cover most of the house that I cared about and came up with about $400. This was a few years ago though, and I didn't have as much income and that $80 hurt a lot more. And I might be wrong. I will try again.
You need to change, not the world
- I don't really want to change who I am. I have changed a lot in the last three years to step up to handle the current level of chaos, and I have gone as far as I am willing to go. I know that if I was a different person, I could probably handle this. I could be more ruthless about cutting things out or holding other people accountable for reasonable adult behavior. That person is a different person and that is my last option. I like being the kind of husband and father that I am right now. I like being a weird chaos-surfing un-regimented saying-yes-to-random-adventures person. I don't know how much they (or I) will like this other guy. If I need to become someone else to survive, then so be it, but I want to see if I can make this work with the person I am now.
Some other thoughts
- I am diagnosed with adult ADHD, I take medication, it saved me from alcoholism. I might look into ADHD coaches, thanks.
- The sleeping closet is not a big deal, I should have called that out. I kind of like sleeping in a closet, actually. It's nice. My ideal house would have productive room space and sleeping cubbies or fold-out beds. I think even once we get the family refugee situation handled, I will still sleep in a closet (or something like a closet).
- helping family refugees is a multi-step process and for two of them we are on the last step after 2 years (getting banking sorted and finding new housing). We have helped connect with resources, but it is a lot of work, they are not able to do things by themselves usually. I am happy to see the end of this particular tunnel way off in the distance.
- The foster teen is a whole other issue, they were on the edge of suicide. They have mental and physical healthcare for the first time in their life, and a non-hostile home environment, but they will not likely graduate high school and we need to find other options. We have connected with available support systems, and have... I am just going to stop here. The teen is a whole post all by itself, just... it's too much to go into. They are not at risk of dying, they have LOTS of challenges, and let's leave it at that.
- Using work FMLA is possible, but it is very risky. Poor performance is safer than FMLA.
My New Tasks
- Contact The Wrong Kind Of Cheese for advice on finding an organizer and whether or not their service are a good fit for my needs.
- Contact chaiminda about mercenary camper helpers (I can't do this now, but I probably can by the end of summer, and maybe I can focus on prep this year, and all-in next year).
- Research what is available on care.com, craigslist, NAPO, FB marketplace, all the work posting sites, etc for: Organization Coaches or Professional Organizers, Elderly In-Home Care, Housekeeping/Housecleaning/Maid, and run a trial. The budget for this is... $500. That is a wild guess, but I think I could know if one of those options will work after that? Maybe this will take me... 3 hours (1-2 hours of research, 1-2 hours of making calls/emails and scheduling - I am probably underestimating the time)
- make sure to involve the spouse in the final decisions
Ok, kids are awake, my free time is over. :)
Thanks again for all of the responses.
posted by pol at 7:54 AM on June 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
Elderly Caregivers and Professional Organizers
- I will look into it!
- Big thanks to those who wrote in success stories of family members or suchlike that were able to find something like what I am looking for, it gives me hope!
- I am afraid that an organizer will charge a bunch of money and leave me with a todo list, not a clean house. This is why the success stories about people who found someone to do the actual work are so inspiring. I could make a 70% good todo list myself for free. This was my experience with the last organizer I hired, they picked a section of house that looked tractable, and guided me through cleaning it, and then I did, and then I had a clean room corner for a couple months. That was nice, but... I should have been working at the job that pays me. And it's not clean anymore. And it cost me like twice as much as people who actually do cleaning (but I had to do the cleaning). Maybe I could do this but assign one of the other family to do the cleaning part, but it is risky!
Camper Parking for Mercenary Helpers
- I love this idea, and I will be messaging you about it. I am working on getting a gravel pad built that should allow for exactly this and it is the kind of low-stakes / high-impact idea I was looking for. Both of us would have the right incentives, I think.
Get Family to Step Up
- Family trauma and poverty is a bitch. There is a rich history of chore charts, guilt, and shame that even bringing up the idea of organized cleaning sessions or "if everyone could step up a little bit" puts a pall over the household for days. It sucks. If one or two of the other family members were not here, I think this could work, but having them all here makes this impossible. Step 1 is getting them out of the house, and I just need to make enough room in my life to help them do that because they are barely able to speak to someone on the phone without falling apart. I don't really want to go into this because it sucks. But any "get family to do more work" responses will go into the giant stack of common sense ideas I have already tried and been burned by.
Housecleaning is $100/wk
- I am going to dig into this again, because my first attempt at finding someone to clean regularly felt bad. It felt like that first $80 session was a drop in the bucket, and by the next week the progress was more or less erased. So I mentally multiplied the number by the amount to cover most of the house that I cared about and came up with about $400. This was a few years ago though, and I didn't have as much income and that $80 hurt a lot more. And I might be wrong. I will try again.
You need to change, not the world
- I don't really want to change who I am. I have changed a lot in the last three years to step up to handle the current level of chaos, and I have gone as far as I am willing to go. I know that if I was a different person, I could probably handle this. I could be more ruthless about cutting things out or holding other people accountable for reasonable adult behavior. That person is a different person and that is my last option. I like being the kind of husband and father that I am right now. I like being a weird chaos-surfing un-regimented saying-yes-to-random-adventures person. I don't know how much they (or I) will like this other guy. If I need to become someone else to survive, then so be it, but I want to see if I can make this work with the person I am now.
Some other thoughts
- I am diagnosed with adult ADHD, I take medication, it saved me from alcoholism. I might look into ADHD coaches, thanks.
- The sleeping closet is not a big deal, I should have called that out. I kind of like sleeping in a closet, actually. It's nice. My ideal house would have productive room space and sleeping cubbies or fold-out beds. I think even once we get the family refugee situation handled, I will still sleep in a closet (or something like a closet).
- helping family refugees is a multi-step process and for two of them we are on the last step after 2 years (getting banking sorted and finding new housing). We have helped connect with resources, but it is a lot of work, they are not able to do things by themselves usually. I am happy to see the end of this particular tunnel way off in the distance.
- The foster teen is a whole other issue, they were on the edge of suicide. They have mental and physical healthcare for the first time in their life, and a non-hostile home environment, but they will not likely graduate high school and we need to find other options. We have connected with available support systems, and have... I am just going to stop here. The teen is a whole post all by itself, just... it's too much to go into. They are not at risk of dying, they have LOTS of challenges, and let's leave it at that.
- Using work FMLA is possible, but it is very risky. Poor performance is safer than FMLA.
My New Tasks
- Contact The Wrong Kind Of Cheese for advice on finding an organizer and whether or not their service are a good fit for my needs.
- Contact chaiminda about mercenary camper helpers (I can't do this now, but I probably can by the end of summer, and maybe I can focus on prep this year, and all-in next year).
- Research what is available on care.com, craigslist, NAPO, FB marketplace, all the work posting sites, etc for: Organization Coaches or Professional Organizers, Elderly In-Home Care, Housekeeping/Housecleaning/Maid, and run a trial. The budget for this is... $500. That is a wild guess, but I think I could know if one of those options will work after that? Maybe this will take me... 3 hours (1-2 hours of research, 1-2 hours of making calls/emails and scheduling - I am probably underestimating the time)
- make sure to involve the spouse in the final decisions
Ok, kids are awake, my free time is over. :)
Thanks again for all of the responses.
posted by pol at 7:54 AM on June 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
Just on the housecleaning front, for an example of the expense: I live in Albuquerque and paid $340 a montn to come in every two weeks for about 2.5 hours at a time. It would probably cost less if we hired a private individual.
posted by NotLost at 12:59 PM on June 24, 2023
posted by NotLost at 12:59 PM on June 24, 2023
Another idea -- maybe you could hire someone to help you research local options. Maybe a virtual assistant or local college student. A student might even advertise themselves on NextDoor or somesuch. Or even try Mefi Jobs.
Good luck!
posted by NotLost at 1:01 PM on June 24, 2023
Good luck!
posted by NotLost at 1:01 PM on June 24, 2023
this is absolutely not aimed at you, but at other people reading this question in future - I just ordered Fair Play Cards, which is a deck of cards with a whole heap of household jobs, including mental load jobs, for a couple/family to use to sort out who does what in a clear fun way. I was thinking about your question, and will be passing this to my kids to use.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 12:32 AM on June 25, 2023
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 12:32 AM on June 25, 2023
My New Tasks
OK, this list is super sharp and focused, although it is still kind of a lot.
My recommendation? Don't ask us, ask a _rich person_. Whoever manages you, or someone else who you know who is super successful but isn't falling apart (and doesn't have a stay-at-home spouse handling it all). In fact, talk to several of them.
1) Networking opportunity! Lovely conversation! Tea (even Zoom tea) with a cool person is actually a _break_ from stress.
2) They might have a _real_ referral for you. Like some kind of Americanized, less-expensive professional butler or something.
posted by amtho at 8:08 AM on June 25, 2023
OK, this list is super sharp and focused, although it is still kind of a lot.
My recommendation? Don't ask us, ask a _rich person_. Whoever manages you, or someone else who you know who is super successful but isn't falling apart (and doesn't have a stay-at-home spouse handling it all). In fact, talk to several of them.
1) Networking opportunity! Lovely conversation! Tea (even Zoom tea) with a cool person is actually a _break_ from stress.
2) They might have a _real_ referral for you. Like some kind of Americanized, less-expensive professional butler or something.
posted by amtho at 8:08 AM on June 25, 2023
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by raccoon409 at 9:54 AM on June 23, 2023 [2 favorites]