How to Clean up Before the Housekeeper Arrives
The old “cleaning for the cleaning lady” image is not entirely dumb: while you should leave the actual cleaning to the person you hired to clean, you also have to clean up – and maybe even do a few spot checks. … If the cleaning lady is visiting your home for the first time, you should prepare some instructions as well. It will make both of you so much happier.
At Lifehacker, we take spring cleaning very seriously. We are far from missing out on an opportunity to refresh, reorganize and streamline our home life. We’re also very excited to hit the reset button with our technology, take a close look at our finances, and get the better of our day-to-day habits that have gotten a little musty. Welcome to Spring Cleaning Week as we clear away the winter cobwebs and set the stage for the sunny days ahead. Let’s clean up, okay?
First, clean up the clutter. If you have hired someone to clean your home, not to organize it , then you should clean up a reasonably well organized home for them. If not, tell them which areas or piles they can ignore. (Or hire a professional organizer .) Feel free to place all the clutter in one room or on the same surface, and then tell the cleaner to just ignore the space. It’s a trade-off: the more thoroughly you want your place to be cleaned, the more you need to prepare (or pay).
Then scrub a little : anything particularly fragile, or at least something you don’t trust your cleaner to handle properly. Anything light, like disposable coffee cups. (This is just respectful.) And whatever you agree to, the cleaning lady is not responsible. I love to wash the dishes myself, so I take care of it until the cleaning lady arrives. The cleaning lady’s visit was a deadline for housework – a feature, not a mistake.
If you’re unsure of where to draw the line between your job and the cleaning lady, make two lists: one of the cleaning tasks you want someone else to do for you, and one of the tasks you would like to do yourself. You can show this to your janitor, ideally while you are still discussing his time and fees.
When your janitor comes to your house for the first time, your best bet is to go around the entire area and discuss the process face-to-face. If not, write your instructions and don’t get angry if it takes multiple visits to get things right. Working in someone’s house, learning what to change and what not is a daunting task, and you won’t know how much you care about certain things until your old GQ problems are gone or your makeup shelf comes out. out of service.
Things will be moved. Dishes may end up in strange places, or towels may be thrown into the wash before you are ready. It all depends on how much you ask for your cleaner and how much you communicate with him. Don’t be afraid to politely ask your janitor to change something. (If you ask them to spend significantly more time on their work, pay them accordingly.)
Your janitor may never know where every little thing is. I have a small figurine of a bird at home, and every time it comes, my cleaning lady carefully corrects it wrong, because she thinks it is a man with a hat. Since I may not meet the cleaning lady in person for months, this inappropriate trick has become a pleasant reminder of her existence. It is also an incredibly well made bed.