Halloween is my favorite holiday. I used to spend weeks decorating. Carving pumpkins, putting little tombstones in the yard, even setting up fake skeletons on the porch with dusters in hand, cleaning all the fake cobwebs. Nowadays I spend most of my time helping my clients decorate. Granted they don’t have the same vision as me. Each one has their own unique way of doing … Continue reading Happy Halloween! Um, I Think You’re Doing It Wrong
There is a precarious dynamic involved in a Cleaning Lady / Client relationship. I provide a service for you, and you pay me. That’s what it’s supposed to be. But when you have clients for as many years as I do, the relationship gets blurred. Not for me, but for many of my clients. Before we begin, it goes without saying to never work for … Continue reading The Cleaning Lady is Not Your Friend
Cleaning houses is hard enough. It’s even harder when you have a house full of people you have to dodge to get the job done. Some of my clients are notorious for having full houses during my scheduled cleaning days. Hey, it’s their house, I get it. But it would be nice to give the cleaning lady a heads up. Last week the bachelor (read … Continue reading The Morning After…
This post will be a little different from the rest of my cleaning and client shenanigans. While I try to stay completely anonymous, I will say I am in one of the states affected by Hurricane Dorian. We got very lucky with only minor damage and a few days without power. The Bahamas, on the other hand, will take months, if not years to fully … Continue reading DOs and DON’Ts of Being a Hurricane Guest in Someone Else’s House
I hate cleaning floors. Out of all my housecleaning duties it is my least favorite, mainly because it takes the most time and most of my clients are completely anal about them. And rightly so, for the most part. If a house is completely clean, but the floors are dirty, the house will still appear messy. Inversely, sweeping and vacuuming the floors is the fastest … Continue reading A Word About Floors
As a cleaning lady, I have to be in every nook and cranny of your house, and by extension, every nook and cranny of your life. That’s why it’s important to find someone who values discretion and confidentiality. But if you don’t want me to find something, put it away. And I’m not talking about under the bed where you hide your poopy pants. I … Continue reading The Cleaning Lady Knows All Your Secrets
As I’ve said before, being a cleaning lady requires a certain set of skills. Being squeamish, impatient, and generally disagreeable won’t get you far in this business. But I’m here to tell you of another skill set you must perfect to succeed. And that is not being bashful, or a prude, to use an old-school term. You see, we as cleaning ladies are invisible, and … Continue reading When Cleaning is Not for the Bashful
This post is not about the monetary costs, or the havoc the job wreaks on your body in the terms of labor or using harsh chemicals daily. What I am talking about here is the emotional cost, the cost of working with people for ten, fifteen years and being involved in there lives, watching their kids grow up, and sometimes watching them die. I have … Continue reading The Cost of Being a Cleaning Lady
Parts 1 and 2 here. The homework assignment I gave to the hoarder seemed to work, as she dove into the house with extra zeal. We went through the boxes again and managed to get a pretty large donation pile. Nothing sparked “joy” for her as much as not dying under a mountain of unopened Amazon boxes. Through the first year we made real progress … Continue reading The Hoarder, The Final Spin
The first day I worked at the Hoarder’s house, I realized things were going to be a little trickier than I thought. I brought a bunch boxes with me to set up “Donate,” “Keep” and “Maybe” boxes. I decided to start in the living room as I figured the clothes would be easy to put a good dent in and maybe the couple could actually … Continue reading The Hoarder, Part 2
