To want a cleaner that will pick my clothes up off the floor?

[Zamphina]

Dp and I work very long hours during the week. We’re out of the house 9-10 minimum. We eat dinner in the office. When we get home we’re exhausted and just want to sleep. So often the kitchen has our breakfast stuff. We’ve left clothes on the floor. There might be sunday’s dishes on the table. The laundry has been left out drying.

We earn an OK salary and have a tiny flat to save money, so a cleaner coming 2-3 times a week for two hours a time won’t be an issue.

But obviously I’m slightly embarrassed for someone to see my home in such a mess. Are there any cleaners who will sort all of this? Pick up the clothes, put them on to wash, load the dishwasher, and clean the bathroom etc?

If you’re eating your dinner at the office maybe you need to re-jig your work rate. What job is making you work 9am-10pm?
What kind of life is that otherwise - you’ll burn out!

Check out an Emily Norris Evening Clean video to give you some ideas for structure once you get home.

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Even if you have a bedroom ‘chairdrobe’ for putting your clean clothes on, it’s better than the floor.
But yes - advertise for a housekeeper not just a cleaner.

I had a housekeeper but that was something that came with my DH’s job and I definitely did not leave clothes on the floor for her to pick up! We would put dirty washing in our laundry bins and put washes on. If she was there, she would remove wet washing and hang/tumble and iron if necessary. She would clean the house and vacuum and empty the dishwasher and she would change the beds.

I’m a single parent.

I used to work FT and study a degree in the evenings, on top of caring solely for a young child.

I have never left loads of clothes all over the floor, neither has my child.

It literally takes 2 seconds to put them in the laundry basket.

Put one inside or just outside of your room.

If you leave them on the floor the night before just scoop them up and put them in on the morning.

Leaving clothes all over the floor for someone else to clean up is vile and lazy.
I would be very embarrassed.

I always get second hand embarrassment whenever I read threads about an OP’s DH’s leaving his dirty clothes on the floor

What jobs do you and your DP do?

Many of us worked long hours before becoming SAHP and managed to be tidy.

We know the reality yet found a way to be tidy without having the money for a cleaner.

I adopted the thought process, “might as well do it now so I don’t have to do it later” and when waiting for xyz, doing chores during that time. Waiting til later only causes things to accumulate and managing and using your time wisely helps tremendously. When I’m making a meal and waiting for things to cook, I do other chores instead of just sitting down watching tv or being on my phone. Cooking dry pasta takes 9-11 minutes, kettle for boiling water about 4 min. In those 15 minutes I’ve:

Emptied the dish rack
Cleared the dishwasher
Put dishes in the dishwasher
Hand washed those that couldn’t go in
Cut up my vegetables
Grated cheese
Hand washed the utensils used and cutting board
Either put on a load, drying or emptied the washer/dryer.

Growing up, social areas of the house had to have been tidied before we all went to bed and it is something I do now for the most part because it makes things easier. My parents have never been SAHP and worked long hours. They did not have a cleaner and even if they could have afforded one, my mother wouldn’t have allowed it.

Being ‘young graduates’ does not mean you can’t be hygienic and organised.
Just because you’re recently out of uni does not mean you need to live like slobby students! My DD is in her 3rd year and keeps their halls flat spotless, including having a rota for kitchen cleaning and bins etc.

You need to prioritise your home as well as your work life. If you’re grads, someone above you is taking the complete piss and you’re letting them. There’s nothing wrong with having boundaries in your job!

Finally - adopt a ‘one-touch’ rule. So when something needs moving or putting away, do it then - pick it up and don’t put it down just in another pile randomly. Put it in its home. Everything in your home needs a home - declutter and don’t bring tons of new shit into your home. You’ll live a much more peaceful life.

The OP didn't ask you for any career advice.

IfOn i know - I thought I’d mention it anyway.

I have had full time help (in Asia) to a cleaner once a week to no help (here). Even with the full time help (effectively full housekeeper) I would not expect them to pick dirty clothing off the floor (I am sure they would have though if asked). Seems disrespectful to me. It is the difference between asking someone to empty your bins or expecting them to pick the litter where you cast it on the floor and then empty the bins.

In your office at work I am sure you wouldn't leave dirty plates and cups on the floor/your desk for the cleaners to find and pick up? That would certainly not be tolerated in our offices.

I can't think how you would have the conversation - 'We tend to just discard our dirty washing on the floor, so can you pick up everything on the floor and wash it'. It is not a conversation I could have.

I sympathise, working long hours is exhausting but I think there are some minimum standards that everyone should try to adhere to.

You really want to employ a cleaner who is going to tell their friends and family that they work for a lazy couple of slobs who live in chaos? Wouldn't that make you feel terrible about yourself? If you are trying to save money by living in a tiny flat, why waste it on a cleaner when you can do it yourself? Use laundry baskets, set two days when you will wash clothes, buy a dishwasher, take an hour every Saturday morning where you clean a couple of rooms and your partner the others. I really don't see how it's so difficult, without children especially.

Sorry to say but this is just utterly lazy to not be able to find literally the 10seconds it would take to scoop up clothes from a floor and dump it in a basket.

You need to look at where you're undressing and leaving clothes on the floor and put a basket there so you throw it straight into it.

If you're undressing in the bathroom why leave it on the floor? Put a basket there its literally one second to throw it inside.

I don't understand, even if you undressed when you got in and the clothes are by the bed how when you wake up you can't just scoop it up on the way to the bathroom and throw it in a basket.

There is just no excuse

But hey you're earning so much I am sure if you paid really well you will find someone

They’ll be someone who would be happy to for sure!
loading a washing machine etc is easier than cleaning! Sounds more like a housekeeper you need but i would just call a couple of local cleaning companies and state what you need and why and they’ll say wether it’s something their cleaners will do.

I don’t think there’s any need to be embarrassed about a cleaner seeing clothes on the floor but I am a bit confused why you’re unable to just put them in the laundry basket? Clean stuff you could leave out for them to put away for you if you want to but think it might be a bit much to expect them to seperate your knickers form your trousers to see what needs washing type thing! 😂

Lazy mare

milkywinterdisorder
But the difference is that if you leave something lying around and you know you'll do it later then that's not the mentality that I'm objecting to.That's no different to me tossing clothes on the floor because I'm being lazy and accepting I need to sort it later.

This is a TAAT where the OP of the original thread wasn't leaving things around for them to do later. They were leaving clothes on the floor to build up rather than using a laundry hamper, and they had the outlook that they could just pay someone to pick it all up. People were falling over themselves to argue that this wasn't lazy behaviour because the poster worked long hours.

In reality it's just basic laziness. Most of us are lazy at times, but on that thread some people were blinded by long hours and money that suddenly otherwise lazy behaviour wasn't lazy at all.

Edit fail
That's NO different to me tossing clothes on the floor because I'm being lazy and accepting I need to sort it later

Ignore me this is the actual thread not the TAAT about the same topic

OP is not lazy - she and her partner are busting their butts working hard, working long long hours. Clothes in the laundry bin would make sense, but when I’m working 16 hours a day everything goes to pot. And that’s fair enough. No judgement here.

So do I have to make sure I load the dishwasher before work, before my cleaner comes, just because it's lazy not to have rinsed and put it in the dishwasher?

People are turning the debate into leaving dirty undies on the floor, which is a bit gross, but taking clothes off and leaving them on a chair in your room, which a cleaner subsequently puts in the laundry or folds, is part of why most people hire a cleaner,

No wonder it is so hard to hire a decent cleaner, when so many in this thread seem to think many elements of basic tidying are "demeaning" and above what a cleaner should be asked to do!

Plenty of MN posters are married to men who leave their clothes on the floor - and don’t work 14 hour days! It’s hardly a catastrophic character failing!

Plenty of MN posters are married to men who leave their clothes on the floor - and don’t work 14 hour days! It’s hardly a catastrophic character failing!
Who says it's a catastrophic character failing?
It's lazy though. Most of us are lazy at times.

If the men pick their shit up after themselves then they're being lazy but don't have an entitled attitude. If they drop their shit around the house with the expectation that they're too busy and important to do basic tasks and someone else (usually their wife) will pick up after them then they have an attitude problem in my opinion.

I'm not sure about 'better person' as that's contextual but I think morally it is correct to clean up your own mess - you made it why should others be your scivvy. I don't and won't employ a cleaner for this reason even though DH is keen. I think our DC should learn this lesson as well. Particularly as one is a 16 year old DS and he feels the same as me.

I am one of the few people who voted YANBU because we have a great cleaner who picks up the DCs Lego/tidies the sofa/does the dishes. We made sure she was OK with this.
We don't work such long hours but we have two DC and one has SEN so often things don't get done.
But the "closing shift" idea (probably similar to the Evening Clean) has helped me a lot - the things that get done before going to bed. For us, it's put the dishwasher on (even if not full), dirty washing in basket (that's not that hard!), hang up any towels the DCs haven't done, make sure landing/hallway are clear (may mean putting things in side rooms/on top of things) for those stumbling to the loo in the middle of the night.

Why does the term floordrobe exist if it’s not a thing that people do…
I can’t believe this thread. People should be ashamed of themselves. It’s not a competition, people finding things hard for whatever reason shouldn’t be told ‘well I did it/do it/could so it so why can’t you’
rhere is a thread currently about the worst pain you’ve ever experienced, I read it and nearly all of the posts are childbirth. For me childbirth is a breeze, I enjoy it…but it’s not about me and my experience it’s about what other people are experiencing and feeling. My worst pain wasn’t childbirth, that doesn’t mean someone else’s can’t be childbirth. This is the same, you find it easy, good on you, don’t pick on people who don’t find it easy and don’t make out like she’s the only one who is finding it hard!!! Literally there is books/magazines/podcasts/blogs/apps/tv shows out there SOLELY to help with this kind of issue. It’s a huge industry. BECAUSE OP IS NOT THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD WHO STRUGGLES TO KEEP HER HOUSE IN ORDER.
stop bigging yourselves up and leave her alone. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

I didn't know floordrobe was a word! Must be less hard on DD who definitely has one going.

I'm not saying your life is easy, I'm saying it's different. And it doesn't help the OP by saying 'well I can do x,y,z'. None of us know how difficult each other's life is, or what coping skills we bring into it. Some people had to learn the hard way but that doesn't mean we have to be so hard on those who didn't.