The housecleaners have been here twice, once before we moved in and once after. Their next visit is approaching, and I am so filled with dread, and the dread has been building for days. I said to Paul that probably I should get used to ALWAYS feeling these days of building dread before every housecleaning visit, and he said sympathetically, “Yes, now that they’ve been here so many times, I’d say that’s a safe conclusion.”
Here is something that helps, a little: making two lists, one for things I want to do the night before, and one for things I want to do the morning of. I am trying not to go overboard with these lists, but there are some things I like to get out of the way so the cleaners don’t have to deal with them (e.g., taking some stuff we usually keep on the counter and tucking it into a cupboard), and there are some other things I like to do so that the cleaners don’t spend time doing them (e.g., I have everyone make their beds). Plus, I make the kids get everything out from under the beds/couch.
Here is something that does not help, and I wish I could stop: assuming the cleaners are thinking bad things about us. There is literally nothing I can do about what they may or may not be thinking, and also I can’t read minds, and also it’s not as if bad thoughts were physical things that emerge and do damage. I have got to stop looking at our house/lives through an “Imagined Negative Thoughts of a Housecleaner” cam. It serves no good purpose.
Here is another thing that helps, a little: remembering when I did cleaning work as part of my in-home eldercare job, and how I did NOT have the kinds of negative thoughts I keep worrying about our housecleaners having. I felt GLAD when I arrived at a house and there were obvious things that needed cleaning! It was SATISFYING to do the dishes, make the bed, wipe the counters, give the kitchen a quick lemony mopping. I was NOT thinking bad things about the people who lived in the house! When I folded the throw blanket, I was thinking “There, that looks nice and tidy, and it shows I have cleaned in here!” and not “This throw blanket should always be FOLDED, and it better STILL be folded the next time I’m here!” or “This person should have folded their OWN throw blanket rather than leaving it for me!” Not at all! Not at all!
Here is another thing that does not help, and I wish I could stop: thinking how different it is to clean for people who are not able to do it themselves, vs. people who are absolutely able to do it themselves but don’t feel like it. I don’t think I would have had the same glad/satisfied attitude if I’d been cleaning a large messy house for people who didn’t feel like cleaning it themselves—though maybe I would have. My mom had a job cleaning houses when she was a teenager, and she describes a similar glad/satisfied feeling. She says the worst house was the one that was spotlessly clean and shining already when she got there. She says that when she made the beds, it was because it was a quick task with a big visual impact, NOT because she was thinking “These people should have made their beds.”
Here is another thing that helps, a little: remembering that “so that they’ll do the housecleaning” is only ONE of the reasons we wanted to hire housecleaners; the OTHER reason was “so we’ll be motivated to keep the clutter at bay.” The dread is what motivates me to keep up with the clutter. It’s too bad it has to be dread rather than excitement, but we all have our own temperaments to contend with.
And also: do I feel better if I imagine the alternative? Like, if I pretend that every other week there was a day when it was up to ME to go around thoroughly cleaning every floor and bathroom, do I feel GOOD about that? happy, excited, eager to do some scrubbing? No. So would I prefer to dread doing the cleaning (and then also have to do the cleaning), or would I prefer to dread the day someone else comes to do it? Easy answer.
I just read this story this morning and found it so interesting. It speaks exactly to your house cleaner dilemma
https://hbr.org/cover-story/2019/01/time-for-happiness
I really like thinking about things like this!
That was a great read, thanks!
In my brief time as a housecleaner in college, I was only ever thinking about myself. I was thinking about how I needed the money and wanted to do a nice job so they would want me to come back.
I think I would have thought badly of them if the had ever left me any really nasty things to clean up (use your imagination). I feel like those are above and beyond normal housekeeping and are things an adult must manage in order not to be worthy of shame.
Celeste nailed it. I was also a house cleaner in college and I just wanted it to be sparkly when I left so they’d hire me again soon. The cluttered/visual messy houses were the best because you could make a huge difference quickly (make the beds! pick up the toys! it took maybe 15 minutes but the house already looked so much cleaner without me really cleaning!). And I liked tacking the bigger things like soap scum on a shower door because, again, it was so noticeable!
Do you leave the house while you’re there. I think that’s the only way I could deal with it ;)
I was thinking the same thing. My elderly dad has had a housekeeping service for a long time, and he always plans a list of errands to run when they arrive. Getting out of the way, I suppose.
This is such a great description of the feelings I have surrounding cleaning people in my home. One thing that is pushing me towards having them is my sense of anger and frustration at wanting a clean house and being the person who needs to ASK everyone else to help me clean it. I don’t want to be angry and frustrated with my family.
Another is something I read in The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. The main character doesn’t want to hire a maid, because she enjoys having her house just the way she likes it and cleaning it herself, but she’s earning good money and it would be considered selfish if she DIDN’T hire a maid to do the cleaning when she can afford to. Hiring someone to do it gives back to the community.
That really spoke to me in terms of removing guilt around it. And so I’m hiring a cleaning woman this year.
YES. One of my friends took a job in Shanghai, and tried to go without a housekeeper. It’s just not done. You make a good wage, and you are expected to help the local economy in this way. I want her housekeeper! In addition to the housework, she also takes care of letting in anyone who needs to make a delivery or do a repair, and she fetches medicine and hot soup during times of illness. All of this is considered part of her job. Does that not sound amazing?
Yes! My sister lived in the United Arab Emirates and it was the same- it was really looked down upon when the people who could afford a domestic, live-in maid chose not to employ one. So she eventually hired a live-in maid and she said it was wonderful and she still misses her!! She even traveled a couple of times and left her kiddos with her!
It’s the same in Singapore – my SIL & BIL lived there for a few years.
We also have a house cleaner who comes a couple times a month. The night before she comes, I am always frantically “tidying” and my husband is grumbling because he thinks that’s ridiculous and I think it’s NECESSARY because the housecleaner’s job is to CLEAN, not to move all of my makeup and hair styling accessories off the top of my vanity into a drawer. Anyway. That has never gotten better, the frantic feeling and the grumbling. (Although it definitely helps keep the clutter at bay. At least for that one night.)
Overall, I think time is the biggest smoother of the housecleaner-related discomfort. I have gotten to the point where sometimes I do what I do every morning and vacuum under the chair where my daughter eats breakfast to get rid of the inevitable crumbs and sometimes I shrug and think, my housecleaner will understand why there is half a pancake and a handful of rice krispies on the floor.
And I also think to myself that maybe a messier houser makes her feel more NEEDED. Kind of like your mom’s example. This is her job; presumably she does it because she prefers this work to other kinds of work (borne out, in this case, I think, by her having been with us for two years now), and presumably she wants to do a good job (borne out by the good job she does). (It’s a lot of presuming, I know, but in this case it helps me.)
And I ALSO also think that getting to know the person helps, too. I don’t know if you have that possibility with your housecleaners — are they always the same people? Our housecleaner is the same woman every time and so we chat a little when she arrives or when she’s waiting for her ride, and that (I hope) helps her see me as more of a normal, frazzled, kind of clueless but overall nice person and not (just) a gross messy hair shedder. When I appreciate her work — like when she organized the hall closet — I try to be effusive about how helpful she is, which I think helps too; I like to imagine it helps her understand that her work is really useful and makes a difference.
Anyway, this is a long winding means of saying I think it will get better with time.
Something my house cleaner told me, was to leave the clutter. She would actually come in and kind of tidy it and organize it in a way that appeared less cluttered, and was easy for me to maintain because I wanted to be a star student. Also, it let her know what to expect each week, and she always just kept my clutter, a tidier pile of clutter :)
See, that’s one of the things that bugs me about some housecleaners — I don’t want you to make things look cleaner; I want things to BE cleaner. Shoving random crap into piles doesn’t help me. I can do that, and anyway, the piles are going to go back to their sprawling ways soon after the cleaners leave. But a well-mopped floor is a joy that lasts.
Sorry for another comment, but one thing that has NOT got less awkward with time (at least not much less so) is being in the house while the housecleaner cleans. I don’t want to WATCH OVER her. But I also feel so weird going about my business as usual while she is working so hard!
So far, I try to keep to one floor while she’s cleaning the other… and then maybe check in with her occasionally? But I feel ridiculous the whole time. It’s much better if I have somewhere to be.
We don’t have a housecleaner, but I have similar feeling about the pest control company rep judging the messiness of the house while he does his inspection.
Instead of making the beds, you should have everyone strip their beds and lay out clean sheets for the cleaning lady to put on and make the bed. That’s what we did when I was a kid and in continue to do now as an adult. Maybe time will help, we had a cleaning lady my entire childhood, and I got one myself when I finished school and was on my own, and I never felt bad or dreaded it, because it just seemed like a normal part of my life as long as I could remember and not a big deal.
yes! My my mom preferred this. She loved leaving each bed with clean sheets (with the exception of the lady who liked to iron her sheets first, except that lady had two pairs of sheets, so one would be ironed and ready to go on, and the other would be washed and folded while my mom cleaned, and left for the lady to iron)
We do this too. Then we have a really fresh bed waiting for us.
YESSSSS this is one of my favorite things about our house cleaners. I don’t know why I find changing sheets so onerous, but I do, and it THRILLS ME to have someone else do it and I just get to come home to crisp clean new sheets. LOVE IT. (although, uh, our housecleaner ALSO strips our beds for us too. She is marvelous.)
I know, right???
This is my favorite thing (well, besides clean bathrooms, someone else mopping the floor, etc.). The beds are so fresh! Plus, my cleaners come on Friday so it means that the Friday night they come, not only am I done with the work week, but my bed is amazing. It’s a treat every time.
I have the entire family do a basic pick-up on Thursday night before the cleaners come (every other week), but then usually spend up to an hour Friday morning doing more detailed tidying. It’s always stuff I have let slide during the past 2 weeks and should have picked up anyway, so it’s not too stressful, and then put out sheets for all the beds. I usually start some laundry too because I know I will have to wash all the sheets and towels. I like having Friday be a big laundry day because my husband is around on Saturday to fold and put everything away with me. I do have some guilt over it, but it’s mostly around the fact that I’m not making my kids clean more – like, they will probably be terrible roommates/spouses when they leave home. I think cleaning this house by myself would break me, though. I work full time, my husband travels fairly frequently, my kids are in sports so I do a lot of evening driving…our house would be very dirty or I would be very angry if I didn’t have cleaners.
I am there when they clean, but in my office, which they vacuum and dust first, so I stay out of there way mostly. I’m often on the phone when they leave, so the owner texts me and I pay via Venmo. Love it.
This is exactly how my brain works.
I wish I could have you think things out for me like this all the time!
To chime in from the (former) housekeeper perspective, I cleaned with a very snipe-y, judgy coworker – but she never judged the messiness of a house. I think she kind of liked a messy house, for the reasons people have been saying (it was satisfying to clean it). She judged the house itself, sort of like a real estate agent might. (And I was judge-y about the number of books people owned, or didn’t own. I was VERY judge-y, actually.)
But! I think it has been so culturally ingrained in us to FEEL judged by personal messiness! Is that helpful, or the opposite? Like, if I feel myself panicking before someone comes over and I start imagining all of the snarky, disapproving things they could think about the state of my house, does it help me to sternly remind myself that that’s not really likely to be THEIR thoughts, that instead I am channeling some critical and probably patriarchal cultural voice and I should shut that voice down right now?
I don’t know. I want to think so.
I just wanted to add that I remember someone online saying that the cleaning frenzy before guests arrive isn’t fair to your guests because they will then feel badly about their own homes. (was that you or the Yarn Harlot?)
So I’ve stopped putting away the clutter in the living room, and just made sure the bathroom, kitchen, and dining room (if we’re eating) are fit for human use. If we’re not eating, I leave the dining room clutter alone, too.
I actually just stopped this. I used to frantically clean before company. Then recently I’ve been going to a friends house with my husband and kids, and their house is always kind of messy, and there is dust, and dirt. I found myself thinking, “well they both work and have three boys so this is normal.” However before they came to my house, even though my husband and I both work, and I work two jobs, and have two boys, I felt like I needed to polish it all.
The first time they came over the wife commented about how clean it was, and how she was embarrassed of their house. The next time I went there the husband said, “well you’ve seen our mess now, I guess it’s probably pretty messy after your house.”
So the next time they came over, I picked up the dirty underwear and that was it. No one said anything and I could tell they were about 100 times more relaxed on that visit.
Oh I feel your thought process here. When I had my 5th baby, my mom treated me to a cleaning service for a few weeks or months (I was also babysitting for my toddler niece at the time). It made me crazy to run around and clean up for the cleaning people. Whether it was necessary or not, I had no idea how they could clean anything with all of the clutter laying around. With 5 little kids plus a tot niece, the clutter was excessive. I was exhausted and no matter how wonderful the gift felt I simply could not enjoy it. The last straw was when they came to clean the day before the baptism. It was always a different crew. This crew put something on the kitchen floor that made the floor crazy slippery, plus the were piles of crumbs left tucked under the cabinets that a just normal sweep up would have cleared. I cancelled the gift after that and dealt with the mess until I could get around to it.
I do agree with the other readers that the cleaners are probably happy to clean up. I have a friend who cleans the dishes in my sink when she comes over because SHE LOVES IT. I think she is nuts, but some people enjoy having a mess to clean up.
Here are a few things to help
1. My mom has a house cleaner now. Shes capable of cleanining but she always says “I’ve put in my time, after this many years of taking care of your dad, I don’t NEED to do this anymore.” I think you’ve raised a lot of kids, and spent plenty of time cleaning, and now you’ve earned the right to be one of the people who can clean, but who no longer has to.
Also for years growing up my mom cleaned houses. I used to go with her, and she loved the organizing and tidying. When I was on bed rest I had a cleaning lady who was the same. After a while they see my house as their project. They enjoy coming in and putting things in their right spot. My mom never came in and said “these people are so gross,” she just got to work and then admired her handywork when it was done.
Here are things that did kind of bother her, if one of the boys blatantly and grossly missed the toilet and left it for her to find. When one of the older boys would return and leave plates of dirty food rotting and molding in their room. If their pet had accidents and they left it for my mom to find. She was never bothered by sheets stained from a period, or usual messes. Regular dishes in the sink, etc. She was fine with it. This was a family that definitely could have cleaned their house, but she never resented that. She never thought “this lazy lady could do it herself,” she always thought, “I’m so happy this lady can afford to pay me, and I hope she never wants to do it herself.”
The lady of the house had things she preferred to do. She liked to iron her sheets just so. Mom would start the sheets, wash, dry and fold them, and then leave them in the laundry room on the ironing board. My mom preferred to make their beds, because she liked to leave them all hotel style with the corners tucked just so.
The lady who took care of me always tidied the stuff I left on my counter, I never put it away just to take it back out. Norma would move my counter items, clean the counter, then clean my counter items and put them back. That way the mess on my counter was always clean too. I remember once I lost something and I lamented to Norma about losing it, and she said “silly shannon it’s on the second shelf in the boys play room, I think I know your house better than you.” Sure enough there it was, and she took pride in knowing, and being able to help me.
She also got comfortable enough to do random things for me. Sometimes she would move all of the shoes in my closet and vacuum the dust bunnies below them (hard wood). Some times she would open the fridge and clean all of the shelves. Sometimes she would clean all of the shelves in our medicine cabinets.
From my experience most house cleaners enjoy their job, like the job security and like seeing the finished product. I work in an office now, but for years I catered. I always said the best part of catering was a finished product. You always had something to present at the end, it was always so pretty, and everyone ooohed and ahhed over it. In an office one stack of papers shuffles to another pile, and is replaced by a new stack, and it’s a never ending pile of papers. I think house cleaning is similar to catering, at the end, the cleaner gets to see a real finished product. Something pretty, and tidy, and they know the home owner is going to come home and be pleased, and filled with joy at the result. So, I think you should take comfort in knowing, you are giving them a secure job, with a concrete finished result they can be proud of.
THIS
“She was never bothered by sheets stained from a period, or usual messes.”
So reassuring!
Yeah that actually never bothered her because she suffered years of heavy periods and was just used to it. She actually was more excited when she could get out every stain and leave the sheets as if it never happened.
I remember the ONE other thing that grossed her out and left her annoyed, when the oldest came home and left a condom on the floor.
Her favorite, and maybe my favorite from that house, is the time that same kid got super grounded. The mom took away his Super Nintendo and sent it home with me for 14 days to play. That way he was grounded, and she knew if she hid it in the house he would find it. He would try to bribe my mom to bring it back before the time was up, but she never gave in.
I like to think of it as a microeconomy: yes, I could clean my own home, but instead I am able to provide an opportunity for someone else to make money by doing what they choose to do for a living which is cleaning other people’s homes. In my experience, when I have had to eliminate the cleaning service from my budget or when a particular cleaner hasn’t worked out, they were disappointed to no longer have that opportunity — I did not in any way have the impression that they thought, “Finally, that lazy woman will clean her own dang home!”
Adding my voice to the chorus as well about the cleaners not judging you.
We have a house cleaner, a mother of four whose mother and grandmother did the same kind of work, and I really enjoying bumping into her now that I’ve gotten to know her. But I still sort of dread the tidying part each week, the lack of privacy. But on the balance, it’s so worth it to me. It’s gotten significantly better over the years (we’ve had cleaners for 9 years by now). I had to teach my husband and kid how to tidy for the cleaner, and now we do it together and I get less upset by it.
I see it as a dignified job, a choice for my cleaner, and that makes me feel less ashamed of hiring out the work.
Oh! And I have forgotten things a few times…like, deeply embarrassing things…and she has never acted weird or judgy or even avoided those areas. You know how the Queer Eye guys always poke around their makeover’s house and laugh at his dirty sheets and whatnot? They’re not shocked by anything, and neither is the cleaner. It’s like going to the OB/GYN and feeling bad for having a vagina! The professionals are desensitized and compassionate.
Another thing I’ve done with imagining what the other person is thinking is to just ask them. I think I asked my trainer once, something like, “I must be really out of shape,” or “you must think it’s boring to train me because I can’t do much,” and he said, “I like working with you because you really push yourself.”
I’ve also just said to my cleaner, “Is this like the worst house ever?” and she said, “Oh, people leave much bigger messes than this.” That really helped!
I picked up this technique (JUST ASK) from David Burns, a CBT psychologist. https://feelinggood.com/tag/perfectionism/
We had a house cleaner for several years after my 5 th child was born. I was simultaneously stressed in the same ways you are, then euphoric at how wonderful the house looked when she was done! She did however mention a few times that my house was “so dirty” in an effort to negotiate a higher payment, I think. Uhgg. With several of the kids now in private school we’ve opted to save $ so I clean it myself. I choose one thing to do per day over a five day period (dusting, vacuuming, etc) and that seems to be working ok for me. I do miss the cleaner, though in many ways. My mom has a cleaner and stays home while she cleans , reads a book or does work on the computer. I cringe at that! I always left the house.
I relate to all of this. What I do like is that once every two weeks I can insist the children (and husband) tidy up their rooms/things and I get to lay the blame elsewhere. Plus they seem to feel a much greater responsibility to get it done for her than for me. Like, it’s not me asking really. It’s this inevitable outside force. And no one argues. It is worth all the other anxious hassle.
We started having a cleaner every other week about a year or so ago. I was hesitant for a long time partly because of the same worry you mention about the difference between being people who “need” the help and people who COULD do it themselves, but just don’t. I felt like we were the latter (I’m a SAHM, shouldn’t I be cleaning the house? But I wasn’t. Not really. Because 5 kids and grad school and a tendency to leave clutter and (frankly) I don’t like doing it, so it was always only the bare minimums getting done.).
Here’s the thing. The cleaners don’t actually KNOW that you COULD do it and choose not to. For all they know, you are really a very busy person who simply doesn’t have the time to keep the house clean and has chosen to value your time more than the cost of paying them. (That calculation is also how I convinced my husband to hire a lawn service after years of him getting bronchitis every time he mowed the lawn because he is mildly allergic to grass. Hiring a lawn service cost less than paying for his doctor’s appointments and medication, even leaving out the Pain & Suffering surcharge.)
Now, the night before the cleaner comes is “pick up the clutter” time and I remind the kids that the clean dishwasher must be emptied so that dirty breakfast dishes can be put in it because I don’t want the cleaners spending time washing your cereal bowl and I stay out of the house when they come and then, I get to walk into a house that is clean. And smells clean. And I love it. (My cleaner doesn’t do the kids’ rooms or their shared bathroom — the kids do those in exchange for money that they can use to pay their cell phone bills.)
After I had my kids and returned to work, we hired a bi-weekly cleaner. I would have been happy with just someone to do the bathrooms (I hate cleaning bathrooms) but she does more than that (though not the sheets! jealous of those people!). I do the frantic tidying thing and I hate working from home when she’s here. But I think that, if you’re lucky enough to have enough money to cover the basic requirements of life and still have extra, the best thing that extra money can buy is not more stuff but time. Hiring a cleaner means I have more time with my kids, more time for my hobbies, etc. I try to remember this at those times when I think about how I COULD do it myself. The older I get, the more I’m reminded that life is too short.
Also, when I worry about her judging us (and I generally worry too much about what others think), I try to remember that others think about us far less than we feel like they do. And if she IS judging us? Well so be it as long as I don’t have to clean my house. :) As you said, in the end, it’s worth it.
Thanks, great post. Very relevant for me. I’m a naturally messy person who happens to love a clean house and gets very overwhelmed and stressed by clutter. We have three little boys, two dogs, and our house is always just a pigsty. I hate it. But I refuse to get a house cleaner because of how much i have dreaded the two or three rimes we borrowed my mom’s housecleaner for special occasions. I spend so much time getting ready for her to come, then I have to shuffle the kids out of the house and find somewhere to go for 3-4 hours, and blah. I also apologize profusely for the state of our house, and she was finally like. “I LIKE to clean dirty homes.” Haha.
However, I would love to be able to have a consistently clean home. My incredibly neat and tidy mom had housecleaners when I was growing up, but nobody could ever meet her standards. She finally has like, her 12th person, and has had her for over five years now—I think she’s The One. The catch is that my mom cleans with her the entire time. Lol. So she’ll come on Fridays and they both spend the whole morning cleaning together. 😂
Ooh – I hear every word! I have been mulling/stressing over getting a cleaner for the last few years and we desperately need one. Maybe you could weigh in with the problem though: I live in a VERY small town. I can get a cleaner (there are a few here) but they will be someone that I will bump into socially sometimes. Not in the sense of being my next door neighbour but in the sense of the PTA secretary or a friend’s mother who I see at parties. It is just AWKWARD. I mean these people make a living so they must have regular clients and they have homes that need to be cleaned same as mine but… what if my house is THE WORST house they have seen and they are HORRIFIED and maybe mention to someone else that I know what a TERRIBLE person I am!!! Just typing this makes me feel ill and I need to have a drink of water. Ugh. Meanwhile, we argue and bicker and I do everything and nag constantly and my hubby says to ‘just get a cleaner already’. Does all of the wonderful (true) advice above apply in this situation too?
PS my house is not actually the worst house ever – it is just normal. Maybe normal with a touch of four kids + mum who is busy + I never liked housework anyway and it is all on top of me. Basically if that ‘sparks joy’ woman from netflix knocked on the door I would hide behind the sofa and pretend not to be home.
It took me some years to find a brilliant cleaner and to get used to having her around, but it was worth the effort! It does get better once you find somebody you trust and enjoy. And I think it’s worth considering the person’s personality in the decision. My cleaner is a late-20s/early 30s, bookish, quirky, artsy, mother of four. There is always some audiobook going on her headphones, from Pynchon to Piketty. She has such an interesting life. And she is a good cleaner. She is a messy house shame antidote.
I think we’ve hired three or four cleaners or cleaning teams before her, and she outshines them all. If you feel worse after you’ve talked to the cleaner, let them go and keep looking!
This was so timely, I have a gal coming on Saturday to assess our house. I broke my foot a week before Christmas and haven’t done any real cleaning. I still have Christmas everywhere and it’s time for it to go. I just said to my husband yesterday should we clean up before she comes?? His answer was NO! I’m excited and anxious to have her here and everyones comments have helped a lot.
We stopped having a housecleaner for 8 years because I could not handle the night-before-they came argument about moving clutter every single time. The clutter grew, the house never felt truly clean, and finally we re-hired them. I can feel guilty but I am lucky to have known this woman a long time and she is very nice. She needed more houses to clean and I was able to feel really good about the fact that we are paying her. Paying others for services is a way of sharing your good fortune!
Have you ever read “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” series? There is a character in one of the books who is a doctor and not thought well of because he keeps such a messy garden and he SHOULD be using his money to pay someone to keep it nice. He was seen as selfish for not having help. Also, if you have not read these books, I think you would like them.
Adding to the chorus of reassuring comments:
1. It is interesting that we (I am assuming) don’t feel this judgement/shame in other areas of life! I get regular oil changes on my vehicles; I don’t assume that the mechanic assumes I am LAZY and HORRIBLE for not wanting (or learning) to do this work myself. I assume (if anything) that they appreciate my business. Same with: buying coffee, going out for lunch, hiring tradespeople to do tasks around the house when needed, buying subscriptions to those we-will-deliver-locally-grown-produce-to-your-doorstep services, hiring babysitters, etc. etc.!
2. My husband is a cleaner, actually! SOMEONE’S MESSY HOUSE gives our family extra income! And we love how flexible the job is – both in that he can work around my work schedule and our childcare needs AND that he can pick up more/less work as desired.
And maybe this will add further reassurance: he was offered a job to clean for a woman with bad allergies – her house was ALREADY clean and clutter free and organized, but (because of the allergies) needed someone to clean ON TOP OF the clean. And he declined! It felt weird, and that it wouldn’t be satisfying AT ALL! :)
I can’t read the comments so this might be said already:
For me, the fact that you’re nervous about the housecleaners is a GOOD thing. It means you’re being thoughtful and respectful of what they think and do. Meaning: you’re not leaving a mess because “Oh, the cleaners will get it.”
I would assume that they would see five children, big old house and think “Well, OF COURSE, she needs us!”
:)
I cleaned houses for about 6 years through my 20s. I loved a messy house and one with actual dirt to clean. The worst houses were already both tidy AND clean, so you knew you’d be judged on your ability to make entire glass shower screens completely streak free; and to not forget dusting places like the architraves and the top of the fridge.
The weird thing though is that I don’t have a cleaner now, although we could afford it. I just don’t want other people in my stuff or my house, for reasons I can’t even articulate. And I am very bad at cleaning my own house, or even at teaching my kids to do it. I just muddle through a bit at a time. So there’s clearly no rhyme or reason to it all.
My mother was a housecleaner for several years when I was a child. Primarily, she was grateful for each job and happy to have work that allowed for a certain degree of independence/solitude (perfect for an introvert). She also still finds cleaning very soothing.
I often came along with her to jobs, and the only thing I ever recall her being judgmental about were people who lived in HUGE houses and kept nearly all the rooms totally unused/pristine except one (usually a finished basement) that was crammed with kids’/teenagers’ stuff and very messy. She found that pretty sad, and also much harder to clean. It was definitely a pattern she noticed with the mega-rich. (We lived in an extremely wealthy area at the time…a certain current president has a house there. Blech!)
This has nothing to do with house cleaners really, but I thought you might find it interesting. I went to a lecture by Beaury Redefined, a nonprofit run by two women with PhD’s whose research focuses on women and body image. According to their research, by and large men don’t do the thing where they imagine how they/their life look to others. They just haven’t been conditioned to think their worth fluctuates based on others’ perseption of them. And why have women been? Because if marketers can make us feel inadequate, they can sell us products to “fix” the issue, and women usually do the shopping so they target us. Isn’t that infuriating?!? So maybe when you start to think the cleaners might be judging you, think down with patriarchy instead and go about your day because it doesn’t matter what other people think anyway.
This! My husband and I actually have very similar intrinsic cleanliness/neatness standards but I get caught up in the work/stress of meeting the prevailing social standards of cleanliness (i.e., higher than my own) which I personally do not value but am using my labour to meet because I know that my social standing is affected by the state of our home and his is not, i.e., gendered expectations / double standards.
I didn’t read all the replies so someone might have covered this already, but I’ve had a cleaning service for many years and when I first started, I felt exactly like you do. I’d clean up before they got there. But one day I forgot or didn’t have time and the house was just as clean when they finished as usual. It didn’t make any difference. As for the house cleaners’ feelings, I read something that helps. I read a book that took place in a poor community in Botswana, and it was that community’s viewpoint that if you could afford a maid, or a cook, but chose not to employ one, opting instead to clean your own house or cook your own food, then you were being socially irresponsible by denying job to a struggling person. Also, when I first employed my cleaning service, I didn’t have any children, but since then I’ve had a daughter. My cleaning ladies always make her bed with elaborate arrangements of her pillows and stuffed animals. They don’t HAVE to do that, so I assume they’re having a little fun
When I get cleaners I always get them in just to do the floors and bathrooms, which are things I don’t like doing and are a pain. Then I do have that clutter-busting motivation to make sure the floors are ready to be cleaned, but don’t feel like the cleaners are having to do the stuff I ought to be doing.
On the other hand, they are working as cleaners, so I suppose they come expecting to clean!