Cleaning services/lady

lildevil968

If you have a cleaning lady, how much do you pay per week/month? What do you have them clean? I realize rates may change by location, but I wanted to get an overall idea of cost. I have a few calls into companies around here, but have yet to receive a call back. Thanks ladies!

Marce921

We have a lady now who charges $15/hr. It takes her 3 hours to clean our house, so we pay her $45 a week. We had someone else before who charged $45 for every week or $60 for every other week. We live in Illinois, FWIW.

ETA: Oh, and our house is 1550 sq ft.

JOEBunny

I pay $65 for a 4 bed 3 bath.  That is how they charge for some reason.  My next door neighbor has a house that is 50% bigger than mine, but with the same number of beds and baths, she pays the same. 

winery

I would recommend, if you're not going this route, finding a cleaning lady through a friend who already uses one.

The services aren't that good from what I understand.  At least in my area.

ShufflerChick

I second finding an independent cleaner from referrals, as I've heard the big companies don't do as good of a job and are more expensive.

We have a woman come every week, and she came recommended by our neighbors who also use her. Rate is $65 per session. We have 2500 sq ft, 4 beds, 3 baths. She spends about 2-3 hours every week. She vacuums, mops, cleans the bathrooms, tubs, sinks, and the kitchen surfaces, makes the beds, dusts tables and surfaces. She offered to do laundry for $10 more but I prefer to do that myself. She does not clean appliances or a few other things, but she does all the basic "everyday" kind of stuff. You can negotiate what they do and how much to pay depending on the tasks. Oh, and I live outside of NYC, which is generally a high cost area, for reference.

emilykristene2006

ShufflerChick:

I second finding an independent cleaner from referrals, as I've heard the big companies don't do as good of a job and are more expensive.

We have a woman come every week, and she came recommended by our neighbors who also use her. Rate is $65 per session. We have 2500 sq ft, 4 beds, 3 baths. She spends about 2-3 hours every week. She vacuums, mops, cleans the bathrooms, tubs, sinks, and the kitchen surfaces, makes the beds, dusts tables and surfaces. She offered to do laundry for $10 more but I prefer to do that myself. She does not clean appliances or a few other things, but she does all the basic "everyday" kind of stuff. You can negotiate what they do and how much to pay depending on the tasks. Oh, and I live outside of NYC, which is generally a high cost area, for reference.

I'm starting to realize that we could afford to do this twice a month if we didn't eat out on the weekends. Hmmmm....

Angela814

We pay $98 for each biweekly cleaning. We have a cleaning service, and there are about 4 people that come each time. They dust, sweep, mop, vacuum, clean kitchen counters and sinks, and clean bathrooms. Our house is about 2100 sq ft and 3 bed/2.5 bath.

The cleaning service is one of the best decisions we've made. Now we can spend our weekends doing fun things together instead of cleaning the whole house. We're also forced to go through all the clutter and keep DD's toys picked up more now.

ETA: The service we use is a small local service, not a large chain.

AngelaSue

I have a cleaning lady who comes 1x a week on Fridays. We pay $30/week, she does bathrooms, floors, dusting, windows, etc. Stuff that needs to be done but I don't always have the time to do. It's nice to not have to worry about cleaning when I get home from work.

erin1102

We use a local family owned company that was referred to us.  They come once every 2 weeks and scrub bathrooms, kitchen, change beds, vacuum, wash floors, etc.  

We pay $100/visit and have a 5,000 Sq. ft house.   

lildevil968

winery:

I would recommend, if you're not going this route, finding a cleaning lady through a friend who already uses one.

The services aren't that good from what I understand.  At least in my area.

Iam actually looking at going through my friends mothers company. She is independant, and I have been to her house before. I swear you could eat off of her floors. I contacted Merry Maids and they wanted $98 a week, and my house is only 1400 sq ft!