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…
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
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. So come Spring, she hands me her kitchen scissors and … Continue reading Spring Yard Work Time
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 and blinds, and throwing away the expired eighty ounces of … Continue reading What Spring Cleaning Means to My Clients
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 clients are a handful enough. All my clients vary in … Continue reading If People Weren’t Complete Trainwrecks, I’d Be Out of a Cleaning Job
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 weeks and clean (organizational jobs aside). That’s about it. I … Continue reading Why Your Cleaning Lady Is Not Your Babysitter
I had a client a few years ago who was a referral from another long-time client of mine. She didn’t want house cleaning, but help with organizing her paperwork, which was bursting at the seams in all corners of her house. Easy, I thought, as this was the part of the job I love to do. Organizing is an art, cleaning is a skill. So … Continue reading When Organizing Paperwork Gets Downright Ugly
