Cleaning & Organizing
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
I finally gave up on cleaning! Advice?
... and called a cleaning lady.
A nice lady (I assume based on nothing) left a business card in our mail box and it was white and clean and not a scary brochure so I called her. She's coming next Tuesday to give me an estimate.
So any recommendations on good questions to ask her next week? I have no experience with this sort of thing, and don't want to come across as too picky, because with cleaning I really am which is why I just did it myself for so long, but I don't want to anymore and H finally said yes. She has references, so I'll absolutely check those out... anything else I should think of?
Re: I finally gave up on cleaning! Advice?
I just hired someone who is coming tomorrow for the first cleaning. Some things to ask about...
What will she clean? What about laundry, windows, and dishes (those were the commonly excluded things I found)? What is her price? Is the first cleaning more expensive (all the places I called charge more for the very first cleaning)? What type of products does she use (specifically if you're interested i natural products)? Does she bring her own supplies or use yours? How will she enter the house (will you give her a key, leave the door open, or be there to let her in)? How long will she be there? What is her procedure if something is broken or damaged?
That's all I can really think of.
First, I'd let her tell her story of what she does before you hammer her with questions.
If she is a professional, she will have a schedule that might include some things that get done every time and some things that get done once a month, just guessing but maybe refrigerator, ceiling fams, blinds, windows. After she tells you all she does, then ask your questions to fill in what she missed.
It's hard for me to have anyone in the house when I am not here. Does any one have nanny cams to watch the maid?
Good luck with your day today.
definitely check references. i used a 'cleaning business' who advertised wonderfully and even had a fancy website. they charged $300 and did a 'decent' job. but for the money i paid i was very, very disappointed. a long time ago we had a cleaning lady who worked alone and charged $60 to clean the house. she was extremely weird and not someone i would normally think of doing a good job. but she did a better job than the cleaning business. i really was expecting something phenomenal from the cleaning business because of the price and prestige. they had 2 girls clean who worked for the company, and it wasn't as great as the single older lady who worked for herself.
anyway, just rambling. hoped it helped! good luck!
I just saw this thread and thought of something to add - I hope it's not too late to help. I just hired a new maid. Given that I was starting over with someone new and in another country I made a big check list for cleaning so we'd be on the same page. It was a good place to start and I think it clarified things that I wanted done and established a plan for her.
Another thing we do is make sure wallets, passports and any sensitive documents are put away. Not that I assume a maid would steal but I wouldn't want to even be in a position to wonder.