There’s a general consensus, amongst bourgeois women that I know, that paying for a housecleaner is a relationship saver. Let me add a caveat there: amongst bourgeois women who also work full-time. Without a housecleaner, house cleaning usually goes something like this: both people are working full time, so no one’s doing it during the week. At some point, usually about once a month, someone (almost always the woman) gets fed up with it and decides they should clean. Someone (usually the man) is resentful that he/both of you are spending their ever-dwindling leisure time cleaning. So they come up with a plan: one partner will do the kitchen once a week, the other will do the bathroom once a week. Great. But someone doesn’t really do it without being reminded, which means that the other someone is constantly reminding them and feeling like a giant nag. Cue: the housecleaner conversation.
Having a cleaning service come in is ABSOLUTELY a relationship saver. Sadly, I have OCD that both makes me want things clean, and makes me not trust a stranger to clean them. But that also makes it hard for me to clean because I might get stuck doing ritualized cleaning and/or washing my hands 50 times in a row. Luckily, my husband is a very nice and understanding man. So while I do much of daily cleaning, like Lysol wiping the kitchen at night and putting dishes away and whatnot, he cleans the bathrooms and floors once a week while the baby and I leave the house. He also handles all the laundry. To make his life easier, I bought a fancy washer/dryer, a cordless vacuum cleaner, a steam mop, and stocked each bathroom with all the cleaning supplies he might need under the sink. Even after all those expenses, it was cheaper than bringing in a weekly cleaning service. I do still bring someone in to deep clean the showers, etc., every couple of months, but this rotation seems to work for us. I'm very aware that throwing money at these problems is NOT something everyone can afford (I can barely afford them, and in previous stages of life I absolutely could not afford them). But if you DO have the disposable income, and you don't have debilitating OCD that makes "trusting" cleaners hard for you, then I absolutely think yes, bring in a cleaning service! Life is short.
If anyone in DC is looking for a co-op house cleaning service, I highly recommend https://www.dulcehogarcleaning.com/
It’s a co-op of BIPOC primarily women. You can have the same person regularly.
Having a cleaning service come in is ABSOLUTELY a relationship saver. Sadly, I have OCD that both makes me want things clean, and makes me not trust a stranger to clean them. But that also makes it hard for me to clean because I might get stuck doing ritualized cleaning and/or washing my hands 50 times in a row. Luckily, my husband is a very nice and understanding man. So while I do much of daily cleaning, like Lysol wiping the kitchen at night and putting dishes away and whatnot, he cleans the bathrooms and floors once a week while the baby and I leave the house. He also handles all the laundry. To make his life easier, I bought a fancy washer/dryer, a cordless vacuum cleaner, a steam mop, and stocked each bathroom with all the cleaning supplies he might need under the sink. Even after all those expenses, it was cheaper than bringing in a weekly cleaning service. I do still bring someone in to deep clean the showers, etc., every couple of months, but this rotation seems to work for us. I'm very aware that throwing money at these problems is NOT something everyone can afford (I can barely afford them, and in previous stages of life I absolutely could not afford them). But if you DO have the disposable income, and you don't have debilitating OCD that makes "trusting" cleaners hard for you, then I absolutely think yes, bring in a cleaning service! Life is short.