Now that the holidays are over, I can get back to my regular schedule and relax, maybe clean my own house. Or so I thought. My little train wrecks have other plans for me. They are feverishly taking stock of their lives, or lack thereof, and have determined that I am the key to the…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
In addition to cleaning the Bird Lady’s house and decking her halls with ungodly amounts of Christmas decorations, I also take care of her small back yard and flower beds in the front. This is not a job responsibility I look forward to, mostly because she refuses to buy the right equipment, like yard equipment.…
Spring cleaning time has come which means a very busy season for me. All of my clients want the spring cleaning treatment, although some of them have very different ideas of what that actually means. For the few sane ones I clean for, we do the usual deep-cleaning routine—wiping inside the cabinets, decluttering, washing curtains…
I have ten clients on my roaster at the moment. It’s a good number for me as I work by, and for, myself. Everyone keeps telling me to hire some people and grow my business into some cleaning empire, scrubbing the world of filth and coffee stains, but I’m happy where I am. And my…
I hate the word maid. I’ve never considered myself one, with the word evoking images of black and white clad servants taking coats at the door or serving tea to rich, blue-hairs barking orders at them. So I just call myself a cleaning lady. I come into your house once a week or every two…