When a housecleaner I recently hired took six hours to clean just the kitchen and the bathroom, I was surprised that two small rooms required so much time. Also chagrined about how much dirt I must not have noticed.
My condo had not looked so messy to me. I clean weekly — dusting, vacuuming, mopping, and wiping appliances, fixtures, and countertops.
What’s done weekly, however, is so-called regular cleaning. What Jenni, the housecleaner, did was deep cleaning from a list I made. She washed cabinet doors, wiped the refrigerator shelves, and painstakingly scrubbed the stovetop grates, bathtub, tile, grout, and bathroom and kitchen floors.
The condo hadn’t been deep cleaned in a long time. Regular cleaning doesn’t always cut it. Mopping the bathroom floor doesn’t scour the grout. Mopping the kitchen floor doesn’t remove the grime around the stove. Those may require getting down on hands and knees, which the current condition of my knees wouldn’t allow even if I wanted to.
Jenni and I decided that she will return every four months to clean the kitchen, the bathroom, the bottom rail of the balcony door, and inside windows and screens.
By the time Jenni finished this round of cleaning — which included wiping baseboards, light fixtures, framed art, door frames and knobs, and light switches — she had put in 8½ hours and hardly touched the living area and the bedroom. Asking her to come back seemed excessive, so a lot is left that I don’t do routinely: moving furniture to vacuum; taking everything off shelves to dust; shampooing the area rug; and . . . it’s exhausting to go on.
How is it all to get done? I could add one deep-cleaning task to every regular cleaning. Everything on my deep-clean list doesn’t have to be done at once; after all, some things have been neglected for eons. Maybe I can give Jenni more tasks next time if it doesn’t take as long to clean the kitchen and the bathroom four months after she deep cleaned them.
A fastidious housekeeper may deep clean routinely, as my mother did. She moved furniture every time she vacuumed and took everything from shelves every time she dusted. I’m curious to know how the less fastidious see to deep cleaning. If you hate to clean and hire housecleaners, do they do anything and everything? Both my sister Nancy and sister-in-law Jeannine say that their housecleaners do only regular cleaning. Nancy and Jeannine do their own deep cleaning.
“I take my time,” Jeannine commented. “It also helps that I’m not as picky as I used to be.”
“I haven't done a deep clean for over a year,” Nancy said. “Maybe my standards are slipping!”
Their comments got me to wondering whether I’ve unnecessarily raised my standards because Jenni did such a fine job. I’m delighted with how she cleaned, but I wasn’t slovenly before. I wasn’t embarrassed to have people over. I might remember that good enough used to be my standard.
Well, it must feel like a new home! And there is nothing wrong with that. And cleaning is such a generational thing when women's "hobbies" used to include cleaning. I would like to think we are more diverse in our abilities than our ancestors. An earnest thank you to the women who came before and allowed us to be so.
ReplyDeleteThanks for a thoughtful perspective.
ReplyDeleteI hire a wonderful cleaner twice a year for a deep clean. Once in the spring, once before Thanksgiving. A window cleaner comes twice a year, too.
ReplyDeleteMolly, you were ahead of me with that idea. I'd hire a window cleaner, too, if I had enough windows to justify it.
ReplyDelete