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?

How is it more disrespectful for someone to clean your toilet than pick up your clothes?!

I'm new to this thread but I don't see the issue. Most cleaners just charge by the hour, contact a few and explain what you want doing and I'm sure you'll find plenty that want the work.
I think a lot of cleaners would choose you as an option rather than cleaning in houses where people are WFH or have lots of kids or pets etc.

@Ilovebudgies

Because I don't leave shit in my toilet.

But a toilet still is dirty because people have shat and pissed in it and when you're dusting you're cleaning someone's dead skin cells, and cleaning grime from their oven etc.
I don't see why any of that is better than picking up someone's clothes off the floor.

@Ilovebudgies

Because one doesn't deliberately shed dead skin cells to make dust. It's part of life.
But leaving your clothes lying around for others to pick up is a deliberate act.
It astounds me that you can't see the difference.

My cleaner has done it once before when I had a horrid week long period and forgot she was coming. She literally took all my heavily blood stained clothes off the floor, emptied my bin (full of pads) and scrubbed blood off the toilet and floor. She said she’d seen worse & said she’d had two cappuccinos from my coffee machine in compensation 😁

Jesus Wept, were you bedridden?

FML, that is not compensation.

Did you ever work as a cleaner?

I can't believe what I've read here. It's really unhealthy to live in a property with blood stained anything lying around a living space for days. Clothing also only cleans well if done straight away. You forgot the cleaner - ok. But why were you living in a cesspit? In hospital the day after my caesarean I had a difficult bathroom mess and cleaned as much as I could by myself before getting a nurse. It's about having a bit of self respect. I'd be so humiliated that I don't think I could ever look at the cleaner again. Certainly £100 bonus at a minimum, not 2 coffees. Why can't she drink coffee normally anyway? We make our cleaner a coffee when we're having one, because she's a human.

We were in a similar position at your age.

We used to have to set aside 'slum clearance. time.

I have had a recent recitation that there is a difference between tidying/cleaning and decluttering. You can outsource the clearing (and we now do) but the tidying has to be done by you.

Own less stuff. Pile the dishes and do them to night before the cleaner comes. But a washing basket and use it. Also make your bed before you leave for work.

Adulting will get easier I promise.

You can just advertise for a home help and make it clear tidying is part of the role. I have a neurological condition, I actually find tidying makes me feel ill very fast.

My cleaner says my house is her favourite job because she feels like she's actually making a difference to someone rather than just decoratively cleaning an already clean house. She's been coming for over a decade now so I imagine she meant what she said!

I don't know why we're making out the job of a cleaner /housekeeper is so degrading. To me my cleaner /housekeeper is the number one person who makes a difference to my life, who's made it possible for me to cope with my illness and who has made it possible for me to use my residual energy after working to enjoy my children- making it possible to have a good life and career as a single mum with a serious medical condition. And in exchange I paid her above the going rate and have always been happy for her to move her hours to work around her children and other jobs.

I see nothing wrong with op outsourcing the housekeeping so she can relax and rest in the little free time she has. She's creating a job for someone else.

1000% this - anyone thinking a housekeeper is a degrading position says more about them and how they treat people than about the person with the role.

we have a very busy household + I am by nature a bit chaotic.

our housekeeper is a hugely valued hardworking part of our life team. My children make her birthday cards + a cake like anyone else we spend lots of time with. we pay her ticket back to see family in Italy twice a year (which is a standard perk for lots of people working overseas)

Her own children are grown up and she has life experience that isn’t necessarily tailored to an office job. She’d get paid much less working in a supermarket. Also we love her and my life will fall apart when she retires.

when I worked as an au pair for a couple of years I was equally well treated - as a team member not a ‘servant’

I should tell her to go and get a job as a cleaner at the local hotels or petrol station instead? It would be less degrading?

sorry some of y’all have been treated badly by people, or expect to treat people badly…

there is zero shame in any job where you feel respected + well treated. The onus is on the employer to create a job offer or working environment that facilitates that.

I think some of these people have no idea how hard it can be to work at your job if it’s a stressful one. My husband doesn’t have time to contribute domestically (I’m okay with that) and quite frankly I don’t want to - I don’t want to spend what little spare time I have doing more cleaning. I’ve already done enough in my day looking after kids and grafting WFH/SAHM.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m providing a job for someone and our lady (who sits somewhere between cleaner, housekeeper and childcare) is absolutely fine with picking clothes up. For convenience I do leave the stuff in piles of dirty laundry that’s to be washed or part worn stuff I don’t want washed. I don’t leave my underwear about but she’ll tidy up, do the washing, put clothes back in cupboards etc. Everything. Even if my husband leaves a skidder in the loo…

I’m grateful for it. I spend £15ph for this, instead of paying someone maybe £25-40ph for other parts of my job if I had to get someone else to do that.

As some have said there are two types of cleaner - one is this housekeeping style who “resets the house” for a couple of hours each day and one who won’t tidy but does clean. You want the first type. And WHY NOT? You work hard, YOU get to choose how to spend your money. Just find the right person and treat them well. If you Google you will find people who drop in every morning to do this and it’s not as abnormal as people are making it sound.

@Hooplahooping Nobody is saying being a housekeeper is degrading. The point is that dumping your dirty clothes in a laundry basket would take literally zero more effort than dumping them on the floor.

It's hard to see how leaving a pile of dirty underwear on your bedroom floor creates a workplace where you feel "respected and well treated".

i would always put my underwear in the dirty laundry bin, and anything obviously soiled.

but the pile of clothes on the bench the end of my bed that I’ve tried on and rejected, and haven’t got round to putting away? She’ll sort that out

ditto the socks my children have taken off by the back door (when I’ve yelled shoes on or socks OFF before they walk soggy grass back through the house for millionth time) or the sweater that’s been used as a ‘cloak’ and discarded on the landing.

these are fair game. I think the OP was asking for tidying + sorting help vs actual personal care… maybe I’m wrong!

Right, so you don’t dump your clothes on the floor.

True nor tolerate it from the rest of my household unless unintentional. Imma pipe down!

@Hooplahooping I didn’t think you sounded like a slob😁

I still cannot get over this. Op leaving her dirty clothes on the floor is one thing but this is something else. Beyond grim to be living in squalor like that and then letting someone else clean it up...... and her "bonus" for cleaning the massacre was 2 coffees out of your "special" coffee machine?

I'm sure there would be cleaners out there that do it. I'm disabled at home. My floor is a floordrobe of different piles of clean and dirty. I fill the sink b4 emptying the dishwasher and refilling it. Generally taking the clean stuff out to use. I don't care what it looks like I don't want visitors