Totally OT question

[sandnsea]

Do any of you have a cleaning woman and how much do you pay them?? Somebody is trying to say they get paid $20-$50 hour. I have never heard of such a thing, I'm thinking they get $10-$14 around here, I can see $20 in some parts of the country, maybe. I'm going to ask my sister, she had a cleaning lady for a while when she had cancer. I'm curious about the rest of the country. I can manage some part-time cleaning for $50 hour!!

[Inuca]

1. I do

I live in southern/central IL now, small town, and I pay $10/hour. Until a couple of years ago I lived in NJ and paid double that amount. Hope this helps.

[beachmom]

2. In Virginia Beach, it seems to be $60 - $100 for a 4 BR house

The bigger businesses charge more, but they're more expensive. The more independent cleaners, you can sometimes pay just $60. They don't seem to break it down per hour here.

[sandnsea]

3. 4-5 hours?

I have no idea how long it would take to clean a house all at one time, I never do it that way. I'm talking about independent cleaners, so $60 for 4-5 hours of cleaning seems about right to me. $50 a house if you really had to make some money quick, which was the complaint of another poster. Thanks!

[beachmom]

6. The bigger companies are faster because there is more than

one person doing it. To be honest, I was never pleased with any of the cleaning ladies I had. They would clean the house in maybe 3 hours, and I thought I could have done a better job. I only used them when I was very pregnant, or had a newborn. Now the house is probably dirtier but there's more money in my pocket.

[sandnsea]

8. Well yeah

But the thing is, that's not ONE person charging $50 an hour to clean a house. That's what somebody was trying to say, undocumented workers were undercutting citizens because they charge $50 a hour instead of $50 a house. Comparing two completely different situations to start with.

I've never used a cleaning woman. I was raised by a woman who alphabetized vegetables and insisted our clothes be hung with two fingers between each hanger. :crazy: I don't clean like that, but I imagine I would expect that if I were paying someone. She had a few cleaning women, only really liked one. My sister is meticulous like her and found somebody who she said did a better job than her. It's like all workers I imagine, some are better than others.

[beachmom]

10. Oh, I guess I thought you were wondering for yourself (your house)

I don't have any experience with undocumented workers cleaning my house. They were all Americans. The big companies, like Merry Maid, I've never used because they were too expensive.

[sandnsea]

11. That's what I wanted though

Straight up answers, real world stuff. It's what I thought. All worked out too, so no biggie.

I wish I could afford a cleaning person, but like I also said, my house is never clean enough for a cleaning person to get to the underneath stuff that needs to be cleaned!!

[sandnsea]

13. My phone bill post though..

that's just for me. I really am baffled by all those charges and just want to know if everybody else has all of them too.

[sandnsea]

4. It does

It's about what I expected, although I am surprised anybody would pay $20 an hour anywhere except maybe NYC or SanFran. Seems like a huge chunk out of a paycheck every week. I could see $100 once a month for a good clean though.

[Inuca]

5. Not every week!

I wish I could, but I do not have the $. Every other week. Not only I am quite busy, but i have always hated house work, and never was any good at it (I guess the two go together).

[sandnsea]

7. I'd pay $50 a week!!

I just know most people can't afford much more than that, certainly not $100, not very often anyway. I hate hate hate cleaning house and if you saw my house... lol. I'd pay it, if I had it, and if I could ever get enough crap picked up so the person could actually clean. My husband is one of those who brings crap home and saves everything because he might need it some day. Argh.

It took me months to get my sister to hire a cleaning woman. I don't know why she wouldn't. She is one of those who cleans every Saturday morning. WTF??? I told her she was absolutely nuts, what the hell good was her money if she was spending Saturdays CLEANING. No no no. After her cancer treatment, they found some kind of clots in her lungs. That is when she finally hired the cleaning woman. I don't know if she kept her or not. She said during her cancer treatments that she was just trying to figure out what God wanted her to do with the experience. I told her that maybe God wanted to teach her she didn't have to be superwoman and to let people help her, and oh yeah, hire a damned cleaning woman!! I don't live near her so I couldn't do that for her, but even when I visited, she had a hard time letting anyone even load the dishwasher. That's just nuts.

So no, I don't turn my nose up at women who can afford a cleaning woman and are smart enough to hire one!!

[whometense]

9. It's a really interesting question.

I've been torn over it for years now. When I was young and scuffling I worked cleaning houses for one summer in high school and then one year after college, in exchange for reduced rent. I loathed it. In fact, I pretty much loathe cleaning, but my conscience has paralyzed me over the issue. I can afford to hire someone, but remember how I felt cleaning for other people (a lot of anger towards my employers, who were in general neither consioderate nor very nice). Don't want to incite someone to hate me that same way. But then it is respectable work for someone to do who needs the money...

Dither, dither, dither. Right now I do it and I hate it. But I only do the minimum, and only do it when I can't stand it any more.

[sandnsea]

12. Oh pshaw

If you can afford a cleaning woman, get one. If you're nice to them, they won't hate you, and I know you'd be nice, so go for it!

[beachmom]

14. Just hire a small business owner

That's who I used. She owned her own business, paid taxes, all of that. It was her livelihood. Pretty stupid if she resented it since this was the business she wanted to go into.

[fedupinBushcountry]

15. You would not believe

how many different type of women clean houses.

13 years ago, I wanted some extra cash, but did not want to work nights or weekends, and wanted to be home when my kids got out of school. So I answered an ad that met all those needs, and now 13 years later I do estimates on houses and train.

My boss graduated from college with a teaching degree and started cleaning houses and then started her own business. he now has 60 employees and does about 55-70 houses a day. I could not ask for a greater boss, I only work 4 days a week and am home no later than 2 p.m. I also have to QC to keep the girls on their toes. I also get a month vacation. Oh an d my boss voted for Kerry, in fact when she was making her pitch to vote to all of us, she said make sure you vote and vote for Kerry, sadly many of the employees voted for *, their husbands are in the military and some of them were bamboozled into his fear crap, and I even got the response "my husband told me to vote for Bush", well that one blew my mind, boy did I give that woman an education, I started off with your husband is not in that voting booth with you, and it is your vote not his, then I gave her facts about Bush and Kerry. I was very happy when she told me she voted for Kerry . Also some of the women are officer's wives.

So the way my boss charges is if it is a one time cleaning you are charged $75 for the first hour and a half and 75. for each additional hour. Now if you are cleaned say weekly, bi-weekly or monthly you are charged per room and the size of your house.

When I first started the houses ranged from $42 to $75, now they range from $65-$190. Usually it is a team of 2 and the time to clean depending on the size is 1 hour to 3 hours. Now a first time cleaning can go much longer.The girls get paid a percentage of each house which ranges from 18%-26%, you get paid more if you become a team captain and your percentage increases the longer you are there. Plus whoever drives gets mileage.

One of my friends who is married to a police officer,did it on her own and charged $50.-$75. per house and did 2 houses a day, but that took a toll on her after awhile so she went back to office work which she hates. I would never go and do it alone.

I feel sorry for any illegal immigrant who does this type of work, for I know they are probably working their butts off for very little. Bill Maher mentioned this a few weeks ago, how he will pick up some of these women who are walking to the jerks house up some big hill, and Maher will ask them why their employer won't come get them and the answer they give from the jerk willis that the walk is good for them.

[GRLMGC]

16. My grandma cleans houses

She makes a pretty good amt of money working in Los Angeles. I guess it depends on where you live.