To want a cleaner when I work 20 hrs per week?

[zozzle]

These hours include one evening a week. Sometimes I work another evening a week on top of these hours. 2 kids at primary school aged 4 and 8. In my head I feel that I should get all the cleaning done in my 2 days off so that the house is all lovely ready for the weekend, but that doesn't seem to happen - sometimes I might do a bit for work, do washing, catch up with family on the phone, do admin, prepare dinner, meet a friend for coffee sort out doctor/hosp appts etc and before I know it its 3pm and time to collect kids. I must admit by Thurs I'm tired so maybe not as efficient as I could be!

So whats the verdict? - "of course you need one" or "sort out your time management woman!"

Most people could cut their own hair, paint their own nails, decorate their own houses, wash their own cars, wax their own bikini lines, drive themselves on a night out, stay in and look after their own children, clean their own windows etc etc.

But many people will pay for a hairdresser/manicure/decorator/car wash/bikini wax/taxi/babysitter/window cleaner etc etc.

Sometimes it is because it would take you a lot longer and you would not do as good a job anyway, sometimes it is because you just don't want to do it.

If you want something and you can afford it, do it.

YANBU. YABU to ask on here though. Would you ask if you were being unresonable to go to the hairdressers despite owning a scissors? Don't know why there is all this fuss around having a cleaner.

I cant see how a cleaner will help if a husband leaves his pants on the floor and the butter knife and crumbs on the kitchen worktops.

Surely you are not going to expect a cleaner to pick up a weeks worth of your husbands crusty pants and leavea pile of crumbs and butter knifes on the side until the cleaner is next due.

Have a cleaner if it will make your life easier but also get your husband to clean up after himself.

YANBU - if you can afford it do it. It will make your life easier and you DH's life easier so everyone wins :)

cantspel it would take the pressure of me doing ABSOLUTELY BLOODY EVERYTHING. of course it'd be tidy before the cleaner came- I'm not an idiot.

Thanks other poster (can't remember your name)- I'll ask around!

Sorry op but I think you just a tad lazy when I was a single parent and working full time my house was still spotless

Wake up put a wash on

Put slow cooker on

Tend to cats and empty dish washer

Get ds ready for school giver the bathroom a mop so dry when get home

Work

Do food shop on line on phone on route to work

Finish work pick up ds
Get him to Hoover
And clean his room

Sort cats out

Turn off slow cooker eat
Sort shopping out
Ds bed
Mop rest of house

Plates in dishwasher
Make a shepards pie for fridge for dinner next day

Deep cleans and ironing happen on a Sunday

You get the drif

So if your working 20 hours your not useing your time wisely or watching to much telly

Do you want a medal?

If you can afford then fine but I can totally see why your oh is pissed when you have the time to do it but just can't be arsed

PS OP: I thought whilst on maternity leave I'd have a spotless house but the reality is that's very difficult with two such young children (managed much better when it was just the one) but I do get out and about every day which means I dont have time to do much.

Crucially- the lack of "me time" is how I ended up with PND- I'm convinced. So I'm just echoing pretty much everyone else on this thread and saying "go for it!"

FanjoForTheMammaries no just pointing out many single parents who work full time don't have cleaners and do their house work and that if she is only working 20 she should be able to do it and I can see why oh is not happy

Yeah, she could do it, but she probably has better things to do with her time.

MrBojangles, if that's what you wanted to do, or what you had to do because the money wasn't available to pay for help, that's entirely your decision. And it's just snarky and nasty to say that if the OP is working 20 hours and doesn't want to do the cleaning herself then she's not using her time wisely or is watching too much telly. You wouldn't like it if I suggested that with the timetable in your earlier post you can't have been spending nearly enough time reading or thinking so you must have been really boring to know.

I was thinking of increasing my hours at work just so I could get a cleaner. A win/win situation for the economy, surely?

I'm a bit late to join this thread, but I work 20 hours, and have a cleaner. When I went back to work after maternity leave, it was one thing I promised myself. I work 20 hours spread across 5 days during school hours.

I had a period of a year without a cleaner, and it nearly drove DH mad. The reality is that I do loads of housework day to day, but the cleaner does the big stuff that used to eat into the weekend. I'd far rather be watching DS play football, or taking him to tennis matches, than scrubbing the bathroom.

I used to do it myself. I work 24 hrs per week over 4 days, but once I have picked up both kids, and got home, it time for toddler's tea, then her bedtime, then cooking main tea. The day I am home with her, we do like to do stuff together, occasionally go to friends etc. I ran the hoover round ok, and did the bathrooms when they really needed it.

I umm and ahhed over getting a cleaner, thought I couldn't justify the cost, but then thought sod it, lets just do it. DH wasn't keen, but then he does nothing around the house, so I disregarded his opinion.

The first day I came in from work after she had been, I was greeted by the smell of polish The house gleamed. Well, actually half the house did! Initially she did half the house one week, the other half the next, until she got on top of it, now it is most stuff every week. She comes for three hours, and does the bathrooms, etc, and even stuff like washing down the doors and skirtings, which I never had the time to.

After the third or so time I realised - basically, I like my house to be cleaner than I can manage myself. I used to get down seeing all the things that needed cleaning and not having the time or the energy to do them. Now, if I am ahead of myself on any day, I can spend an hour playing with DD before bedtime, without thinking I should be cleaning this or that.

So if you can happily manage to clean your house to a standard you are satisfied with, fine but don't be a martyr about it, but if not, and you can afford it, get a cleaner! There is no shame in doing so!

This is the 2nd thread about this in a week. God dammit just do it women, you want one, I take it you can afford one. Go for it.

I pretend to be the cleaner, arrive back from school work for 3 hours solid and then pay my self.

Do you give yourself cash in hand, nutty and wear a pinny?

Housework doesn't take long if you do it often. If u leave it all for a week of corse it's going to take awhile.

I personally don't see why people pay someone to clean up the mess they made because they can't be arsed but spend so much time on the Internet.

Yet each to their own and if you want one then get one. You don't have to justify yourself to anyone :)

Being on the internet is way more fun than cleaning. what's the problem with outsourcing to get more downtime?

By "people" you mean "women", don't you, *my2centsis"? I don't suppose you go around being judgy of men whose partners do the housework.

Exactly. I can count on one hand (thumbs only) the number of single guys I know who don't have a cleaner and no-one gives them any shit about it.

Actually I didn't mean women at Down, If two adults share a house both adults should do the cleaning.

I do the housework during the week, dp does dishes at night and helps with the kids bed time etc and both do housework etc in the weekends.

Like I said if the op wants a cleaner then she should get a cleaner just because I wouldn't have one doesnt in no way mean she shouldn't! Each to their own