PostingClean-up operation

cleaner001_Small.JPGWe're thinking of hiring a cleaner. This could be a bigger decision than we realised.

Leafing through Yellow Pages this morning, I stumbled on one firm offering an unusual range of  services. Under the slogan: "Life Maid Easy offers you the chance to reclaim your life." This is what they offer: cleaning, ironing, window cleaning. So far, so normal.

And... wait for it: Life Style Management.

I've heard about powerful cleaning agents, but this is going too far. And you know the really sad thing? I was almost tempted to call these enterprising people and see what they could offer.

Posted 07 September 2007 12:54

Domestic chaos Home Missing sanity Work at Home Mum

Comments

Reluctant Memsahib said:

Thing is, those people who apparently have life style managers (generally synthetically inflated celebs with glossy skin and designer wardrobe)don't ever give the impression of having loos that need cleaning? Perhaps they have life style managers and bog-standard cleaners as well. Cos they can afford both? Perhaps it was clever marketing ploy: if you can afford a life style manager (albeit one who cleans loo too), you could also look like you own glossy celeb life style. Which isn't something you ever aspired to, I'm sure. Just a break from thrusting lavatory brush down loo and looking sadly at piles of ironing.

Posted 07 September 2007 13:40

DJ Kirkby said:

Stop yourself! They sound like the kind of company where you'd be rushing aorund to tidy up before they arrived to do what you had hired them for!!!! How about hiring someone who has advertised on the window of your local newsagent, local church, library or in the local paper instead.

Posted 07 September 2007 13:44

Joyfulgirl said:

How true DJ Kirkby ... tidying before the cleaners arrive least the state of your presses, shelves and drawers indicate that you need many, many hours of lifestyle coaching! ... thus says a mum whose maternity clothes hung in her wardrobe months after they were needed, loudly reproaching me everytime I opened a press or drawer!

Posted 07 September 2007 14:22

debio said:

My experience of home-helps is that they offer advice on one's lifestyle, even when unsought and certainly unrewarded.



Bit like London cabbies who will give an opinion on anything from the state of the money markets to splitting the atom given the opportunity and a rolling meter!

Posted 07 September 2007 14:27

Omega Mum said:

Which bits of your life can they reclaim? I've got about five years that were completely wasted and several weekends that I'd really like to repeat. Let me know the rates. Thanks.PS today's word (I think) is 'endure'. But could be ordure. Or orduro - possibly a Portuguese phase. PPS What's New Town Mum up to these days?

Posted 07 September 2007 18:50

Mother at Large said:

Reluctant Memsahib, trouble is that Posh is such a poor advert for the glossy celeb lifestyle. And too right, I'm just looking for a helping hand with keeping the place clean. Actually, more specifically, we need a cleaner for the communal stairwell in our block and I've volunteered to get quotes.



DJ, thanks, yes, good point. We need someone with ladders to clean up high in our stairwell. There might be someone in the newsagents who fits the bill.



Joyfulgirl, I put my maternity togs away only when Beanie reached 16 months. And frankly, I could still fill them out even now. :(



Debio, yes, absolutely, and not just advice. Mine often like to share the many disasters that befall them on a regular basis. And as you say, while the meter's rolling. I foolishly lent several of my self-help books to my last cleaner.



Omega Mum, reckon they'd shrivel to a limp dishrag at the sight of Bad Lindy. I'm so sorry about these captchas - we only introduced them to stop spammers. Have you clicked the 'remember me' button? Tests should stop coming up then.



NTM turned out to be so uncannily close to the bone I got worried. I've found out that a neighbour of ours really does have a gun. Lovely man, but what with him being armed and everything, am being a bit cautious for the moment. I'll keep you posted.

Posted 07 September 2007 21:42

Absolutely Bananas said:

Hiring a cleaner will change your life. I SOOO miss mine. (the cleaner AND the life)

Posted 08 September 2007 03:51

Frog in the Field said:

Dear Mother at Large,

the best solution is find someone you like and trust to not read your post and not run off with your husband.

My cleaner-picker-upper is my bank managers' wife and husbands' badminton partner. She is a Mum, completely trustworthy, reliable and great fun. She doesn't mind when I ignore her because I'm busy.

A nice local person you get on with is better than a stranger working for a non-descript company with big marketing budgets.

Posted 08 September 2007 08:07

Elsie Button said:

ha ha. definitely find out what they are all about. how bizarre, if a little scary!

Posted 08 September 2007 20:47

Jo Beaufoix said:

Oooo I'd love a cleaner, but I would probably have to tidy before they came.

My mum used to do this all the time.

It's mad.



Hope you get a non-scary one.

Posted 08 September 2007 23:43

Mother at Large said:

Elsie B, best case that means they water the plants, worst case, well, worst case doesn't bear thinking about. My life won't be my own!



Jo B, your mum is far from alone. One of the great cleaning paradoxes of our times - tidying up BEFORE they arrive. I've done it too, many a time.

Posted 09 September 2007 10:46

Rob Clack said:

We put a card up in Tesco, interviewed the 2 respondents and hired one of them, must be about 10 years ago. She does 3 hours once a week.

We do tidy a bit before she comes.

She breaks things and doesn't usually tell us.

She doesn't do everything by any means, but what she does is the basics - kitchen, bathroom, a bit of dusting and vacuuming on a sort of rotational system.

It means the house is essentially OK. If we wanted it spotless, we could do that ourselves, but that's not her job.

Oh yes, she does the ironing. Bit tick!

Posted 10 September 2007 15:54

Mother at Large said:

Rob Clack, you lucky man. Sounds like you're in clover. And ironing too.

Posted 10 September 2007 16:49

Post a comment

Enter your comment here.

You can use some html tags such as <b> and <i>.

Word verification

Name

Email (will not be made public)

Website (optional)

Remember me