Do you remember the show Murphy Brown and her endless parade of crazy secretaries? That's how I feel when it comes to finding someone decent to clean our house. It took us forever to finally hire someone, but we did finally hire a woman about six months ago. The first time she cleaned, she did a great job. The second time she cleaned, she did a little less. The last few months with her were a nightmare. She wouldn't clean anything higher than her shoulders, which meant no shelves or light fixtures got dusted. She also didn't do baseboards. She only did things between about shoulder level and knee level, and she didn't even do that stuff very well. When she mopped and waxed, she actually waxed dirt and dog hair into the corners of our hardwood floors (which meant she must have just mopped without ever really sweeping very well). You, surely, are thinking the same thing we thought...."Yech!" The final blow was when she wouldn't move things on our kitchen counters to clean behind them...or dust anything sitting on tables. I mean ANYthing sitting on tables. We had dust bunnies the size of small cats, and cobwebs hanging from our chandeliers. It was BAD. We'd have to come home to clean after she finished cleaning...and WE were paying HER!!So, Michael and I decided that I would talk to her. I asked her to pleeeeease move things on the counters and to pleeeeease not wax dirt into the hardwood floors. And you know what her response was?!?! SHE QUIT! We didn't get the pleasure of firing her. We simply asked her to do her job....and she actually quit! It amazes me that some people want to be paid for nothing. What a shame.
My grandfather taught me early in my life to take pride in the work I do, no matter what work it was...something as simple as making up my bed or cleaning a window, because the quality of my work made a difference in one way or another. It's a shame that more people don't feel that way.
So, now, we're looking for another cleaning person, and we've had no luck. The people we've talked to, quite honestly, have scared us. And now, because of the last person we hired, we're a little gun-shy. We've been doing the housecleaning ourselves the last few weeks, and I have to say the house is the cleanest it's been in six months!! But we're tired. We want the help. If we were actually lucky enough to talk to someone that didn't frighten us, we'd hired him or her in a minute!! Surely, someone out there can give us some advice in hiring cleaning people. We're not especially picky, although we do want someone to do the job we're paying them to do. Any suggestions would be SO appreciated!!!
The blog is short today...I'm off to do some housework...(sigh).
1 comment:
It took Scott years to finally find someone to properly clean his office building. He went through several PROFESSIONAL companies. I've never hired a house cleaner myself (though I would dearly love one), and I don't expect we would ever be able to pay someone the amount they would want to come up our driveway. I hear you about quality of work. They do enough to get the job, then think they can stop. Unfortunately, I have no advice. A friend of ours went through a number of people before she finally found someone. Good luck. You might try putting the blog post on some B&B blogging site, or help site. Other B&B owners might be able to help.
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