Ah, another topic that can offer differing perspectives between men and women. We, of course, understand exactly why we take certain actions before the cleaning lady or cleaning team arrives. “If they’re coming to clean, then why are you cleaning first?”, can be a common question from spouse/significant other, however. To begin with, it all depends on whether it’s the first time a cleaning lady/team has come. After all, if it is, you want to show what your standards are and the best way to do so is to have the place essentially like you want it. Besides, having a cleaning lady/team is because you need someone to take away the burden of the heavy cleaning or the annoying stuff, not because you want someone to think that you’re a total slob.
In follow-up cleaning though, most cleaning ladies/teams have a set pattern and have a certain number of houses lined up per day. Therefore (and every woman knows this) if they have two hours allocated for your house and they have to spend half an hour de-cluttering to get to the important stuff – they’ll skip something else that they think you won’t notice in order to keep on schedule.
Next in the process is deciding how often you need someone – once a week, once every two weeks, once a month. If you require someone in to clean more than once a week – you might want to look at the patterns in your household, but that’s not the point of the post. When I was working fulltime, plus coming home in the afternoon to either run the kid to karate class or take an afternoon walk, and working on my writing, it was definitely once a week. As my schedule modified, I backed off to once every two weeks and for a long period, I gave up on cleaning ladies/teams and just decided to do it myself. Which brings me to the last part. There are times when you honestly can’t find the right person/team and it is less irritating to do it yourself. Again, most men don’t understand that all clenaing ladies/teams are not the same and what should be a help can instead become a source of aggravation. How about it out there – who has stories to tell? (And yes, I know – shudder – those cleaning ladies/teams can definitely have stories to tell)
