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| I don't speak French. Minor detail. |
I am thinking of getting a cleaner.
I've spent a great deal of time thinking about this cleaner, years in fact.
Mainly on Saturday mornings which is my time to race around and get the house perfect so that I can enjoy the rest of the weekend not thinking about cleaning the house.
Every Saturday morning the rest of the house prepares for me to start giving orders. I begin by telling them to pick things up, put things away, get their school bags onto the hooks and tennis racquets in the cupboard.
One room is delegated Mr H, I beg, plead and cross my fingers that he will actually clean it rather than sit in the room playing candy crush while he uses a tissue to wipe a bench and then declare the room 'DONE".
I have the washing machine spinning, the vacuum whizzing and the dishwasher loaded and at the end of it all I feel awful.
I feel like a nagging fish wife, screaming at everyone to just do their bit. I have hoped this habit would change, I have had hope that the rest of the household would start noticing maybe a shelf in the fridge with beetroot all over it might need a wipe, or that pulling out a table every now and then to vacuum behind it is useful.
Even the youngest members of the family know how to hide when Mum is in 'crazy cleaning mode'.
I can see only one way to break this habit. Paying a cleaner.
Perhaps that might be the way to break some habits around here.
I implore you to get a cleaner, even just once a fortnight to make sure toilets, showers, floor has a decent scrub, house dusted etc. I have one that comes every second Monday for 3 hours, there's 2 of them and they do it in 1.5 hours and I pay $75 so that's $25 an hour. Worth every cent because I'm so busy with work that I used to get stressed to a point about housework and it used to drag me down. Seriously it's one less thing I have to worry about. And as you know with 3 kids under 6 I still clean, sweep, spot wipe every day or so but I know every fortnight the house gets a thorough go over. I hope you can work it into the budget somewhere, you will NOT regret it, and neither will your family (who will love having a less cranky mum on Saturdays) x
ReplyDeleteI really like your style of habit breaking haha xx
ReplyDeleteI'd LOVE a cleaner. Have been thinking about it a lot too. Let me know how you go, XX
ReplyDeleteThe only thing about getting a cleaner is you still go into psycho-mum-mode once a week or fortnight -the morning of his/her visit! I couldn't go back now, though. Ours comes only in term time, and even then not every week, but I just love that feeling that greets you at the door when she's been. Calm and clean. Heavenly!
ReplyDeleteMmm, it's the tidying beforehand that I struggle with, and that will remain whether I'm the cleaner or I get someone to do the cleaning. We put music on and I give each girl a job, "You're on books," "You're on soft toys" and together we get it all done and enjoy it for half an hour while it stays like that.
ReplyDeleteWe have a cleaner who comes once a fortnight. I don't know what they do but the place always looks as shiny as a pin, my heart feels happy and my conscience is clear. The $60 we splash out and the mad tidying we do beforehand is a small price to pay, we think. In fact, if we didn't have to tidy once a fortnight, we'd probably be buried under our own mess, like a bad episode of hoarders. There is nothing like walking into a clean house knowing you didn't have to clean it yourself! It's a bit like cooking, food always tastes more delicious when someone else cooks it, and cleaning is the same, it somehow sparkles more when someone else labours over your lair!
ReplyDeleteI am just one step closer to being a habit breaker!
DeleteI've been thinking about one for years too. Years I tell you, absolute years. Guess I might do it one day... maybe.
ReplyDeleteClearly a way to break a habit Clairey. We had a cleaner when both of us were working, not something we can justify right now. Like the others we were always cleaning up before the cleaner came.
ReplyDeleteI currently have a cleaner - for whom I feel much love. But we're going to be a single income family in a couple of months, and one of the sacrifices I have to make is giving up the cleaner (t'other is the ironing fairy). Sir Reginald will be taking on duties domestic while I continue working.
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