detroitdad
Legendary Member
My wife and I tag team the cooking and cleaning.
Does anyone have a housekeeper?
- Thread starter GadgetGuy
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We've got a lady who comes in once a week to clean. She arrives at about 8.30am and leaves around 5pm. She cleans, dusts, hoovers, cleans the toilets, and mops all the floors with perfumed disinfectant. Costs $20 a day, including lunch. My wife occasionally gets her to cook something very Venezuelan.
Middle and upper-class families here in Venezuela often have a live-in maid, sometimes with a husband included. They do all the menial work and also cook, wash, iron, run errands, do the shopping, the gardening, serve coffee, etc. When we lived in my FIL's house (25 years ago) , that's what we had. I'd come home from work at lunchtime and lunch would be ready. The husband would also take and pick up the kids from school. Many houses (and apartments) in Caracas have a " Maid's room", which is a small room with a bed and shower, where they would live all week long until Saturday lunchtime, when they'd go "home" to their little slum house in the suburbs, and come back on Monday morning. It probably cost ( I can't honestly remember) about $100-$150 a month.
About a year ago, I was asked to give a cooking course at a mansion in the most affluent area of Caracas. The owner had 2 trained chefs, a sommelier, two cleaners, a gardener, a chauffeur, a housekeeper and a maintenance man.
Mind you, the house was about 3,000 mts sq ( almost 10,000 sq ft).
Middle and upper-class families here in Venezuela often have a live-in maid, sometimes with a husband included. They do all the menial work and also cook, wash, iron, run errands, do the shopping, the gardening, serve coffee, etc. When we lived in my FIL's house (25 years ago) , that's what we had. I'd come home from work at lunchtime and lunch would be ready. The husband would also take and pick up the kids from school. Many houses (and apartments) in Caracas have a " Maid's room", which is a small room with a bed and shower, where they would live all week long until Saturday lunchtime, when they'd go "home" to their little slum house in the suburbs, and come back on Monday morning. It probably cost ( I can't honestly remember) about $100-$150 a month.
About a year ago, I was asked to give a cooking course at a mansion in the most affluent area of Caracas. The owner had 2 trained chefs, a sommelier, two cleaners, a gardener, a chauffeur, a housekeeper and a maintenance man.
Mind you, the house was about 3,000 mts sq ( almost 10,000 sq ft).
We have a cleaning service, they come every other week. Our place is relatively small and has only one bathroom so it takes a team of 2 people about 1-1/2 hours to clean.
Honestly it’s been great for us. Neither of us is particularly neat, although I think husband has a much higher tolerance for mess than I do (he also gets clutter blind much more easily). Doing the cleaning was the thing we used to argue about the most, and now we never argue about it at all. It’s great.
It also does force us to tidy up a bit before they come (their job is much easier if things are picked up, so it forces us to do things like clean off flat surfaces, make sure the clean laundry is put away and the dirty laundry is in the hamper, etc.)
Honestly it’s been great for us. Neither of us is particularly neat, although I think husband has a much higher tolerance for mess than I do (he also gets clutter blind much more easily). Doing the cleaning was the thing we used to argue about the most, and now we never argue about it at all. It’s great.
It also does force us to tidy up a bit before they come (their job is much easier if things are picked up, so it forces us to do things like clean off flat surfaces, make sure the clean laundry is put away and the dirty laundry is in the hamper, etc.)
kaneohegirlinaz
Wannabe TV Chef
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We use a cleaning service.
"The Ladies" - a mother/daughter team - come to my nextdoor neighbor's first and then to our house (our homes are only 1500 sq feet).
The following week they do the neighbor 2 doors over and my other Gal Pal acoupla streets up (their homes are about 1900 sq feet).
They clean our homes once a month for an extremely reasonable price of $110/visit (we leave them a $10 tip each time they're here).
They dust all surfaces, vacuum, mop, clean the stove, really all appliances, clean the blinds, all of the bathrooms and fixtures, clean the three panel sliding glass door in the back - basically top to bottom in about 2 hours.
We leave the house for a meal and they're gone by the time get home again.
In fact, our appointment is this coming Sunday about 10-ish, so we're going out to Brunch.
OH!
They now also go over to my Mother's apartment and do her place and my Gal Pal's Mom's place, she lives one floor down from my Mom.
For their one bed/one bath apartments they only charge $45, do all of the above as well as change their bed linens, wash, fold and put them away. I pay for my Mom when they are at our house, along with a $5 tip.
The Senior Living Community that Mom lives in asked them if they'd like to be a permanent employee and clean everyone's apartment, they declined. The Ladies told me that they weren't going to pay them enough for all of the work they'd need to do... don't blame them one bit!
*And I might add that the poll could have an option of YES, I do use a housekeeper
"The Ladies" - a mother/daughter team - come to my nextdoor neighbor's first and then to our house (our homes are only 1500 sq feet).
The following week they do the neighbor 2 doors over and my other Gal Pal acoupla streets up (their homes are about 1900 sq feet).
They clean our homes once a month for an extremely reasonable price of $110/visit (we leave them a $10 tip each time they're here).
They dust all surfaces, vacuum, mop, clean the stove, really all appliances, clean the blinds, all of the bathrooms and fixtures, clean the three panel sliding glass door in the back - basically top to bottom in about 2 hours.
We leave the house for a meal and they're gone by the time get home again.
In fact, our appointment is this coming Sunday about 10-ish, so we're going out to Brunch.
OH!
They now also go over to my Mother's apartment and do her place and my Gal Pal's Mom's place, she lives one floor down from my Mom.
For their one bed/one bath apartments they only charge $45, do all of the above as well as change their bed linens, wash, fold and put them away. I pay for my Mom when they are at our house, along with a $5 tip.
The Senior Living Community that Mom lives in asked them if they'd like to be a permanent employee and clean everyone's apartment, they declined. The Ladies told me that they weren't going to pay them enough for all of the work they'd need to do... don't blame them one bit!
*And I might add that the poll could have an option of YES, I do use a housekeeper
Lullabelle
Midlands, England
My dad lived in an assisted community type place for anyone over 55, one of the ladies there would go round once a week and scrub the place top to bottom and charged dad £10.00. As his health declined he wasn't able to clean for himself and she did a cracking job.
Timenspace
Legendary Member
That is a good additional point.
