Why I got a house cleaner

Introduction

Growing up Asian, my mom never ran the dishwasher. She would hand wash everything and still does to this day. I’m not sure if it’s because she thinks she can do it cleaner or because she doesn’t want to waste money on water and electricity. I feel this should be a Fresh Off the Boat storyline in a future episode. Anyhow, I grew up hating cleaning. I hated doing the dishes and luckily never had to clean the bathroom until I moved out for college. Fast forward about 5 years, when my mom decided to come visit me one day, she of course cleaned my apartment at the time, like a typical Asian mom. When she was done cleaning, she told me, “Why don’t you pay for a house cleaner?” As you can imagine, I was shocked she would propose such a thing. My predicament at the time was – Do I hate cleaning more or do I hate paying money for something I can do myself more?” So for years, I waged this internal battle and time and time again, my frugality won.

Quick aside here – I am by no means a messy person. I’m neat, not messy. My  kitchen may be dirty because I haven’t mopped it in years but you won’t find piles of dishes. My clothes are not piled up on the floor but the carpet hasn’t been vacuumed in months. You get the picture.  I just didn’t want you to think my house looks like one of those “Hoarders” episodes.  And no, that’s not my sink in the picture!

Finally got a housekeeper

Back to my story.   Fast forward another 10 years give or take, and my future wife (girlfriend) at the time moved in to live with me.  I thought I was messy, but she was even messier than me.  We eventually found out one day it was because her mom would clean up after her growing up (at least my mom made me clean up after myself.)  Well, I wasn’t her mom and so I wasn’t going to clean up after her.  So now you can clearly see the dilemna – neither one of us liked to clean.  So, one day, over dinner with friends, I’m not sure how the conversation came up, but my friend recommended his house cleaner that he uses for $25/hr.  I figured, “Okay, let me try her out.”  Also at this time, we lived in an 800 sq feet apartment, so very small.  So I called up this young gal and she came over to clean my apartment while I was working.  Four hours and $100 later, the apartment smelled great and things were clean.  I was hooked!

Everything is relative

So I used this gal for over a year.  She also took care of my dog when we went out of town.  Everything was going great.  Every day when I got home on the days she cleaned, the kitchen was clean, the toilets were clean, the shower was clean, the stove was cleaned, floors mopped, and it smelled clean!  However, one day, I had to ask myself, “Why does it take this gal 4 hours to clean an 800 sq feet condo?”  If I rolled up my sleeves, it’d take me 2 hours AT MOST.  So I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why it took her 4 hours.  My guess is that she played with my dog for 2 hours.

Anyway, I was talking to a coworker one day about this, and he recommended his housekeeper to me.  I didn’t quite want to make the switch yet because let me tell you, trying to fire your housekeeper is not easy.  So I stalled and it just so happened we moved into a new place.  I used that to my advantage – I told my old housekeeper that I would clean the new house myself, but in actuality, I called up the new housekeeper.  The thing about the new housekeeper is that she charges by the job and not per hour.  This was great because now I wouldn’t be paying her to play with my dog!  The downside of this pricing model is that because she’s not time-based, she could do a sloppier job.  Luckily that hasn’t been an issue; I think she cleans as well as the first gal.   I then convinced my friend to fire the first housekeeper and go with my new one.  He too thought it would be hard to do that, and it took him over a year to finally decide to switch over.

But things are even more relative

Of course things were going great with my current housekeeper…. that is until one day, I was talking to my new neighbor about their housekeeper.  They lived in the same size house as us, and their housekeeper charged 33% less than my housekeeper.  Dough!  Then to add insult to injury, I had recommended 4 other friends to my housekeeper, and you’d think I’d get some kind of discount, right?  NOPE.  And the newest friend I referred to got a cheaper rate (and they have roughly the same size house) than I did too!

Anyway, that’s where I’m at right now.  A part of me wants to switch, but a part of me wants to negotiate a lower rate with my current housekeeper.  Remember, this housekeeper has the key to my house and has been doing a great job for the past 2 years.  Friends have told me, “It’s probably just better to cut ties because if you do get the lower rate, what if she doesn’t clean it as good as she used to?  There’s going to be resentment.”  So I need to figure out how I want to proceed here.

Conclusion

The moral to this story is this – if you value your free time more than $25/hr (which you should if you can MS at $80/hr), then outsource your house cleaning!  Read Matt’s post here about outsourcing.  Read my old post about valuing your time too.  I JUST had a conversation with my friend’s sister this weekend.  She’s a pharmacist who spent 2-3 hours cleaning her house on Saturday.  Why spend 3 hours of your precious Saturday afternoon cleaning your house if you hate cleaning?  GO HIRE A TRUST WORTHY HOUSE KEEPER and you’ll wonder why you never had one before (kinda like never going back to flying international coach.)