There is so much guilt around hiring someone to clean your home. My take: there is still SO MUCH domestic work to do in addition to scrubbing the house clean, so if you can afford it by all means hire it out. Do the things yourself that you can't outsource, but outsource everything you can (ethically of course).
We don't get twisted up about using a dishwasher, hiring Land-O-Lakes to churn our butter, letting others milk the cows (or cashews) for us. We don't have to do all of the things by hand ourselves to be a good person. (KC Davis emphasizes this so brilliantly in her book "How to Keep House While Drowning.")
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.
There is so much guilt around hiring someone to clean your home. My take: there is still SO MUCH domestic work to do in addition to scrubbing the house clean, so if you can afford it by all means hire it out. Do the things yourself that you can't outsource, but outsource everything you can (ethically of course).
We don't get twisted up about using a dishwasher, hiring Land-O-Lakes to churn our butter, letting others milk the cows (or cashews) for us. We don't have to do all of the things by hand ourselves to be a good person. (KC Davis emphasizes this so brilliantly in her book "How to Keep House While Drowning.")
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.
Also, WTF with those murderous mushroom in-laws? That "Ask Polly" was WILD.