To get a cleaner behind DPs back?

[Figglesticks]

DP and I can be quite messy. both of us work long hours and by the time we get in we just never feel up to cleaning up.
The other problem I have is when I do spend time cleaning up (as I did the other evening) I come home from work to find what I have done has been left in a shit state again.
I'm guilty too of course but I feel like it's gone way too far. The house is terrible. We have a five year old and small pets and I'm starting to think I'm not cut out for this adulthood malarkey.
I mentioned to DP that it would be easier if we just got a cleaner in for two hours a week to take the pressure off us. Even an hour.
DP won't have it and insists we should do it ourselves instead of paying for it. We should! But we don't. And I am fed up with living in such a craphole.
Would IBU to just pay for the cleaner myself once and see how it goes? I have finally bagged myself a day off this week (after two months of not having any off) so I figured I'm going to take the plunge, tidy what I can and get a cleaner in for an hour or two to finish it off.
Should I? Or would I be asking for an argument?
I don't want my first day off in what feels like forever to be tidying but I feel like this would be a good compromise.

Generally, cleaners clean, not tidy up your mess.... So the stuff needs to be away for them to do their job

^^ This. What is the problem? Untidyness or dirtyness or both?

You say your hard work is undone straight away? But cleaners do things like clean bathrooms, vacuum, dust, mop floors - these things don't get dirty in a day usually.

A cleaner will not put things left lying around away. Do you need to do some decluttering and get some proper storage and concentrate more on putting things away? I'd try that first or else you will find yourself doing all the tidying up so the cleaner can clean.

So you clear up Monday night, you both go out to work (I assume) on Tuesday and your 5 year old goes to school, yet when you come home from work on Tuesday to find what I have done has been left in a shit state again ?

So unless your guinea pigs are having rave parties during the day, how actually is it getting messy /dirty?

Both DP and I have a natural tendency to be messy. Stuff gets left around then gets other stuff added to it.
Last year I went totally Marie Kondo on the house and my own habits.
I now put things away because I know where they live.
I haven't tried to change DP but becuase I am tidier and don't create mess, there aren't little collections of stuff lying about encouraging him to "just leave that there" so he is tidier without noticing.
His side of the bedroom and wardrobe still irks but I let him alone as long as it doesn't spill out to the rest of the house

Do it! we got one for 2 hours a week. it makes us stay on top of the tidying.. as she can't clean properly if it's not tidy.

it has taken the pressure off and I can enjoy the odd hour on my own with the remote control and a coffee without feeling guilty that I'm not cleaning.

Best thing ever.

I became a LP and now have a cleaner for 2 hrs every week.

My brother told me it would be the best money I ever spent and they were right

I consider it to be paying for my mental health

I could kiss my cleaner

Do it (but tell him though)

Off topic slightly, but to those who do employ cleaners, what do you get them to do? I have someone in to do the more occasional jobs - clean windows, inside and out, and our ovens, and the carpets/upholstery. The rest of the work I do pretty much myself (husband does most of the ironing though) now that I'm not working. When we both working F/T we used to share tasks pretty evenly, although I did more cooking and food shopping (like it more than he does, better at it). Never could get our heads round spending around £30 a week or £1500 a year on a cleaner. Also, I always felt that things like kitchen surfaces, hobs, floors and sinks, bathrooms sinks and showers, bogs, beds, washing up and clothing would all need to be done pretty much daily, so what would really change if we did pay someone to clean for us? Cleaner floors and skirting boards, less dust, more polished surfaces in our case. Which would be nice, but possibly not as nice as £1500 worth of travel. In our case.

How often does your cleaner come in, and what difference do you find it makes?

Oh, and OP - if you want to employ a cleaner, just tell your husband, I'm doing this, I think it will make our lives more comfortable. You can always reverse the decision if it doesn't work out!

If you don't tell him he will assume it's kept clean enough with no one putting in effort.

We have a cleaner once a week but one of the benefits is that we all have to clear up our stuff the day before, it stops the crap from building up. It's great we come home to an organized clean house one day a week. If you don't tell him you will be rushing around doing all the picking up but keeping it secret. Again he wont see the effort involved in ,living in a pleasant house.

Also, I always felt that things like kitchen surfaces, hobs, floors and sinks, bathrooms sinks and showers, bogs, beds, washing up and clothing would all need to be done pretty much daily

Most of those aren't daily jobs for us. I agree with kitchen sides, washing up (although we've got a dishwasher so there's hardly any) and a quick squirt of bleach in the loos, plus a wipe of the sinks if they look dirty. Do you really change your bed linen every day? What are you cooking that your hobs need daily cleaning?

Having a cleaner meant the house never got that bad so even when I was cleaning myself it was a lot quicker and easier.

She used to hoover and dust everywhere, properly clean the kitchen and bathroom, polish mirrors, empty all the bins, sometimes clean windows or so ironing. It always amazed me what she got done in a couple of hours.

Could you book a one of deep clean? Would it be easier to keep nice if you had a decent start made?

One off!

Get a cleaner! Not only will your house be cleaner you're giving someone a job.

When my BF and I get married and move into our new place we're definitely getting a cleaner.

As another poster said, your partner doesn't get to veto your wishes. Sod that for a game of soldiers.

I'm not talking about scrubbing surfaces, Purple, I mean a wipe over to get rid of any fat/spills on the hob and a bit of a polish with vinegar. I cook normal stuff, not vats of curry/deep frying, but I still can't do it without trace. Sweep up the crumbs that have inevitably been dropped on the kitchen floor. I mean making beds, not changing them daily. Loading and unloading dishwasher. Clothes into washing machine, out of washing machine, into tumbledrier, out of tumbledrier, sorted and put away or into ironing basket (ironing gets done in one go once a week). I hate toothpaste/soap on mirrors and taps, so I probably give them a quick polish once a day while getting ready. Squeegee shower stall, and polish if it needs it (hard water area), squirt a bit of bleachy stuff to stop the mould. Bleach down the bog and wipe around. This feels to me like general picking up after oneself rather than serious cleaning. I do more of the serious stuff (to me, that's proper dusting, skirting boards, picture rails, banisters, shutters, light fittings, cleaning the floors thoroughly, polishing furniture thoroughly,washing paintwork if needed, - you get the picture) now I'm not working, but these other things are just daily routine. But I don't have young children any more and our commute, when we were both working FT, was not as horrible as many. Also, I quite like cleaning and I absolutely love orderly, clean houses!

Cromwell as I said further up, my cleaner does a proper clean every fortnight. My husband is in a wheelchair so very limited as to what he can do and I work full time so in between working, caring for him and trying to maintain a social life I don't have much time left. We pay £29 a fortnight for two hours cleaning and it's worth every penny.

I change the beds, do the washing, ironing, tidying up, dishes go in the dishwasher, bleach goes down the toilets, kitchen surfaces get wiped daily but the cleaners come in and dust and polish everywhere, properly clean 2 bathrooms and downstairs toilet, good clean in the kitchen, wash the floors and Hoover everywhere. Husband tends to being bits in with his wheelchair so I've got one of those lush along carpet sweepers that I'll use in between and sweep the kitchen floor to keep on top of it but the cleaners will do it properly with the hoover.

They bring all their own cleaning products so apart from bleach and kitchen wipes, I don't have to buy anything else and I could probably sell my Hoover!

Push along carpet sweeper - it's not a lush!

Get the cleaner, but don't keep it a secret. If you do, then your DP will be encouraged in his delusion that cleaning magically happens.

He needs to see it as a thing, he needs to know that it takes time and it's either his and your time, or someone else's time that you (both) pay for.

"DP won't have it and insists we should do it ourselves instead of paying for it."
But he doesn't do it himself, does he?

Get a cleaner. Make absolutely no secret of it.

Do you know why he doesn't want a cleaner. My partner was initially resistant and one of his concerns was the risk that they would damage his computer. Now his computer is in an upstairs room full of junk so I just asked the cleaner not to clean that room. Problem solved.

On a previous thread like this one, a cleaner said she wouldn't agree to a secret arrangement because it could leave her vulnerable if the DH came home while she was there alone - depending on what she was doing at the time he might think he'd found a burglar. I suppose if you're there too it's not so bad, but still, if there is that much to be done, you shoudl both be tackling it. Not just you!

Tell him you're not prepared to live like this any more, that you are miserable when there is a really easy solution which you can afford because you both do stupid long hours at work. Tell him you want a cleaner for six months and if at the end of that time he really feels that life was measurably better without the cleaner, you will cancel the arrangement (and mean it). Ask them if he has any red lines about jobs he doesn't want done (e.g. his stuff tidied or whatever).

Then get a cleaner. For at least 4 hours a week IMO. For a bit a few years ago we had 2 hours a fortnight as we couldn't really afford it, and it was actually worse than not having one as both of us immediately stopped doing anything at all, and oddly enough 2 hours a fortnight is not enough to keep a house with a young child going.

When we had a cleaner (once a fortnight) I found the best thing about it was that we would have to ensure the house was tidy before she came. Once we stopped the cleaner, we stopped tidying up so often and the house got messy again.

You both work?
make a rota of jobs - tell him you are getting a cleaner to do your half and he do the same or do it himself.
Get a cleaner !!!

He can decide that he should do it himself. He doesn't get to decide that you should do it yourself. You have a responsibility to keep the home you share at an acceptable standard of hygiene, compromising if one person is dirtier than the other. But your responsibility doesn't mean you doing the cleaning, it means you making sure your share is done and if you want to pay someone else to do your share then you can. He can do his share however he likes.

Thanks for all your advice, sorry it was a long delay on replying. I've told DP I found a cleaner who could do x amount of hours for x price (very reasonable) on both his and my day off this week. I'm going to spend every evening after work sorting out all the crap and junk and declittering and then when all that is done hopefully the cleaner will come in and make it look all shiny. We don't have time to tidy and clean and it never gets done. This way, he can see what the cleaner can do and. Then tell me if he's happy to get her in each week/every two weeks. I feel like it'll be a kick up the bum for us both to actually tidy before she comes so she can do her job!
Im paying for the cleaner this week. If he doesn't want her to come every week I'll just tell him I'll pay for her biweekly to help me with my share of cleaning.
Something has to be done so I'm hoping he'll see how handy it is. He used to have a cleaner when he had a house share and never left his door open for her to clean his room. I always ended up tidying and cleaning it when I visited! To be fair I did catch their cleaner having a rifle through someone else's dresser when I walked past... I don't think he trusts anyone after that.

The problem I think you will find op from my experience, is if your oh says he will clean his share and you can pay a cleaner for your share, is he will also be benefiting from the cleaner house but he wont bother doing his half. 2 hours by a good cleaner is like 3 hours of hard graft by the likes of us. Do you really think hes suddenly going to start doing 3 hours of hard graft when the house is cleaner than it was before??

I always ended up tidying and cleaning it when I visited!

The reason he is reluctant to pay a cleaner, while doing nothing himself, is becoming a tad clearer.

Get one but tell your husband.

Tell him don't ask.