Hire a Housekeeper or Do It Myself

I enjoy having a clean home, really I do, but the truth of the matter is: it is rarely ever  never completely clean.  Yes, counter-tops are wiped own, the dishes are clean and put away, the floor may be swept (twice a month if I’m lucky), and the bed may be made (twice a week), but that is about the extent of our “clean” home. 

I was sitting at home thinking about all I had to get done on Memorial Day weekend to make the house half-way clean.  Sweep the floors, clean the bathroom, put away clean laundry, etc.  And then it dawned on me, I don’t think we have cleaned the baseboards since we moved in February 2007!  This may be because we (by “we,” I mean Todd) have redone the main living areas of our home which included new flooring, painting, new baseboards and trim, new doors and closets, and the like over the years, but still, we have yet to do a deep cleaning of our home.

I found a company with a coupon online that would come in and do a deep cleaning of our home (6-8 hour service) at a discounted rate for Mother’s Day.  I talked to Todd about it and told him I wanted to hire someone to come and clean our house thoroughly twice a year and then maintain it every 2-3 weeks.  I was ready to give the woman a call and set up an appointment…until I saw what was on her list of services.

This is the actual list of services from the company.

When I read through each item on the list, I put a time on how long it would take to complete these tasks on my own.

• Wipe down the outside of the microwave: 1 minute
• Clean inside of microwave: 5 minutes
• Wipe ceiling fan in master bedroom: 5 minutes

After I went through the entire list…I realized that I can do this!  The list didn’t seem as overwhelming when I put a time to complete each item on the list.  It will not be completed in one day, but if I do one section a day, I can easily deep clean our home within a week to two weeks at the most.  I spend too much time online as it is, if I just cut my time online and replace it with cleaning 30 minutes an evening or in the mornings before work, we will have the clean house I always wish we had. 

I am taking this list, printing it up, and will go through each and every line item on the list of services on my own and see how long everything takes to complete.  Hopefully, within the next month, I can report to my fellow readers that I have completed the list in its entirety as well as kept up with maintaining the cleanliness of our home.  Who knows, maybe we can even invite some people over and not have to clean like mad-men the entire morning before they arrive!  How nice and relaxing would it be to already have a clean home and not have to worry about anything but enjoying time with company!