Why I do not hire a House Cleaning Service

Here in Southern California we have more than our nationally proportional share of very wealthy families. We also have a large population of undocumented workers who will clean homes for a very low price, which forces the amount that cleaning services can charge down as well.

As a result it is very common, in some areas even the norm, to hire a housekeeper or cleaning service to come in and clean for you. They do either weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly cleaning.

I confess, that there are two occasions that I have resorted to a cleaning service.

The first time was over a year ago when I broke the cuboid bone in my foot and severely sprained my foot and ankle. My poor husband was trying to do everything and work full time, and I could barely hobble from chair to chair. It was bad. We had the deacons from church and friends delivering us food, and we cruised right through my freezer stash. Mr. Pear is very talented in house cleaning, but could not do it all, and family was not nearby to help. So we had a service come in twice, with two weeks in between the visits, then I took over again.

The second time was when we were racing to get our house on the market, and just need a good top to bottom cleaning done pronto because we had been busy with other things, had been sick, and had been stressed to the max (Mr. Pear's job was ending, and in God's perfect timing, he signed a contract with his new company in the last week of his old job, so the race was on to get our house sold!) To make the weekend listings we had one day to do all the paperwork, clean house, and do the mountain of things necessary to prepare a house for sale, finish one job and accept another. If we had family nearby, and friends who did not work full time, we could have asked for help and done this ourselves, but that was not an option in our situation.

Now I could make all kinds of ideological answers for why I do not hire a house keeper, including arguments like being a stay at home wife and mom makes it seem silly to have someone in each week, and the squandering of family resources. (A friend of ours with two little ones aged 2 and 3 months is listing their home, and are in the same boat as us - no family nearby to help, and we are moving so we cannot help in the time she needs, so she quoted a cleaning company to come once a week - $80 a week!)

All those would be valid and reasonable arguments.

But the real reason is that if I am going to pay someone big bucks to clean my house, and in a one income family it is big bucks, I should not have to tidy before they come - yet I always felt the compulsion too, and I should not have to double check before they leave to make sure everything was done, which on 2 of 3 occasions major things were missed! And most importantly, I should NOT have to clean behind them after they leave, and yet I was!

At the end of the day, the truth of the matter is that no one can clean a house as well as those who live in it! We know where the dust accumulates, we know the problem areas to check, and we know how to clean those tough spots! We know what it takes to make our homes as clean as we want them to be.

So I would like to encourage anyone out there who is lamenting the chore of cleaning house, and is considering getting a service in for regular cleaning (obviously there are special circumstances were we just need help and family and friends are not available!): It is just not worth it.

I would encourage you to get a plan together to get caught up, get a plan together to maintain your home, and stick to it. I know of two excellent books to help get you started:

Sink Reflections: Overwhelmed? Disorganized? Living in Chaos? The FlyLady's Simple FLYing Lessons Will Show You How to Get Your Home and Your Life in Order--and It All Starts with Shining Your Sink!

More Hours in My Day: Proven Ways to Organize Your Home, Your Family, and Yourself

On days when I am the most discouraged and tired, and the cleaning cannot possibly be put off, I remind myself that my family is worth it, that my work honors the Lord, and that no one can do it as well as I can.

Then I ask the Lord to strengthen my hands, to not let me grow weary of doing good, to help me, and I launch in, even if it is just in 10 minute increments of alternating work and rest, until the jobs are done.