My kingdom for a cleaning lady that cleans...

There is a dearth of good cleaning people where I live. Hell, there is a dearth of even mediocre cleaning people where I live. Currently I am afraid to fire the current cleaning lady even though I'm not certain she's been here when she's been here except the check is gone.  I mean, after all, if I fire this one that just means I'll be out one more house key and find out for sure whether the floors get vacuumed or not.

Twenty years ago I cleaned houses and I was fairly good at it depending on the circumstances.  I made a lot of fast money between classes which allowed me to pay the mortgage on my farm, provide good daycare for my son and keep going to school. I got really good at the efficiency thing and generally turned down or eliminated any clients that just wanted domestics.  Housewives (I call them pocket rats today) wanted domestics.  Working women and men wanted their house or apartment clean without having to give it much thought or energy.  Those clients were the best.  They paid on time, asked for nothing more than the usual and if they did want something extra they asked if I had time and dropped more money on the table.  It was a pretty good deal. 

I learned to manage a house.  That means you do the basic list every visit leaving an extra 15 - 30 minutes for long term maintenance like cleaning radiator tops, re-caulking tubs, chasing down cobwebs or scrubbing refrigerator fronts covered with magnets.  I did not clean out closets, clean refrigerators or oven interiors or do laundry.  I did change sheets, scrub the living bejesus out of kitchens and bathrooms and leave the floors and surfaces looking fabulous. I showed up on time, every time, left the door locked behind me and stole nothing. I got out of the business because I was accused of theft and while the accusation went nowhere, it wrecked me.  I didn't want to be in other people's houses anymore. 

About three years ago I broke down and hired a cleaning lady. I didn't have one for a lot of years for various reasons but hit the wall and finally bit the bullet.  We found Lidia advertised on a piece of paper at a pizza place in the city we lived in at the time.  She didn't speak a lot of English but it was enough. She came with her daughter who spoke perfectly good English.  Lidia did a great job on my kitchen while her daughter did a mediocre job on the rest of the house. Looking back on it now I'm really sorry we ever let them go.  I should just have learned to live with the moderately clean bathrooms; at least the surfaces and floors were clean.

Lidia came with us when we moved but we decided the house and commute were just too much for her and wanted to take the opportunity to find a better option. We took our time about it, cleaning the house together on weekends for the first couple of months.  Then we hired Roseann.  Roseann's English wasn't great either but we worked it out. Roseann was great.  The only problem was Roseann didn't come very often.  Mostly she dropped off a woman or two from the Eastern Block who spoke zero English and came back for them after the fact. Some days we just never knew when she would come.  Finally the last straw was when we came home and discovered that the floors had not been vacuumed, anywhere in the house, at all.  And that the kitchen had about a gallon of Mr. Clean spilled into the sink and that was the extent.

We terminated our relationship with Roseann immediately. I cleaned the house in a snit for five weeks and then BD hired Lita.

Lita has minimal English as well and she walks with a limp.  On her second visit she fell on our front walk. She was actually pretty good initially although it's hard to make a fair assessment if you've just been scrubbing the hell out of your house and nothing's had time to build up.

The first thing Lita did was throw out the dried flower arrangement in my bathroom.  I will admit that to anyone but me it might have looked like a dead vase of flowers but it came with the house and was carefully arranged to look like a dead vase of flowers.  I adored it. She threw out the dried, drooping irises and put in water and cuttings.  She did this in the kitchen as well.  Given the fact that I can't keep a plant alive other than by accident I'll admit we were rather charmed. Then she started reorganizing our closets.  That was cool too.  I remember that on Roseann's first visit she fixed my closet doors and I worshiped her.

Then we started to notice that the toilet in the main hallway wasn't getting cleaned.  Then I noticed that wiping was occurring in my bathroom, not cleaning.  Wiping is a trick used mostly by commercial cleaners.  They use what is the equivalent of a wet wipe and wipe down the surfaces.  This does not clean the porcelain and leaves a thin film that dulls to gunk in a matter of hours.  I can alway spot a wiper versus a cleaner. We have black tile and black grout in our shower.  That doesn't mean soap scum and mildew don't occur, it means only somebody like me sees it before it's glaringly obvious.

The glass tables in the living room are disgusting.

The floor in my bedroom (it's hardwood) is littered with dirt and dust balls.  The dust balls sneak out at night and grab your ankles if you're not careful.

The downstairs bathroom has not been touched since I cleaned it in November.

We did leave her a note once.  Normally I won't do this because it trashes the relationship but we took a risk because Lita is the mother of one of BD's peers at work (NOT my idea).  We left a note about the bathroom in the hall.  She called BD at work and said it got cleaned the same way every week.

We know.

It's time to fire Lita.  But then what do we do?  Change the locks and pray?  Give up and live in dirt? Call the next round in and interrogate them until they know just what I'm willing to live with and what I'm not?

And here's the final insult.  I can clean this house in three hours flat if it's been picked up.  Twenty years ago I could have done it in two but I've slowed down a bit. I don't even mind doing it so much except it does eat into precious time and energy I have on weekends. If I can clean it in three hours flat the way I want it then somebody who does this day in and day out can do the same.  We pay an average of $90 to have it cleaned.  That's $30 an hour.  Not bad wages at all. I've noticed that when they clean in pairs they don't necessarily get it done any faster (this is still confusing me but there you go).  But even if there are two and they do it in two that's $45 per man hour which equates to $22.50 each. I'm willing to bet that Roseann paid her Eastern Block ladies no more than 5 - 8 and which is not a living wage in this part of the country but if you work it out and even with commuting between houses one person can bring in between $180 and $270 per day, why is it so hard to find someone to clean the toilets?

I know the answer to that.  I just got past it myself at 23 with a small child and an education in front of me.  And I knew it wasn't forever.

I'll go a couple more rounds.  I can always clean up after she's been here. But really, where are the hungry college students?