I'm Suppose To Do What?

Recently, I have been making a long list of all the things I need to do around the house, thanks to SAHMmy says and her GOYB Challenge, and happened to think back to the cleaning lady I once hired. I am very particular about the way I clean house, but wanted "a week off". My birthday is in April and when my husband asked me what I wanted for the occasion I told him what I really wanted was to have someone come in and do all the "spring cleaning" things around the house that I HATE to do.

First he hired a man to clean the windows--I'm talking inside, outside, tracks, screens--the whole nine yards. He showed up cleaned all the windows, even the ones in the two story rooms and was gone in less than 4 hours! I will NEVER clean my own windows again because he did it so fast. The last time I cleaned them it took me 3 days with the kids helping me and Bubba, a crawling infant at the time, dumped my bucket of water and vinegar all over the carpet--TWICE! Needless to say I was as tickled as I could possibly be when he was finished.

Next, he hired a cleaning lady which he searched for over the course of two weeks. I wanted someone to come clean the refrigerator, ovens, cabinet fronts, trim work, blinds and doors in addition to the basic cleaning services. He found someone who was going to do all this--so he thought.

Instead, this is what happened:

In order for her to clean the ovens, we had to turn the self cleaning cycle on the night before and spray the racks with oven cleaner. Now our thought was, "we're already doing this much, we might as well do the whole job."

She didn't clean the ovens.

She did, however, clean the inside of the refrigerator and freezer. This took her almost an hour and a half. Once she was finished, I had to go rearrange everything and put it back together the way it's suppose to be.

I told you, I'm particular.

She cleaned the cabinet fronts, countertops, table and chairs, floor, etc. and did a really nice job. All this must have made her tired because it went downhill from there.

She never cleaned any of the trim work or doors, and she barely dusted my blinds.
Now this is the best part. When she cleaned the master bathroom she spent 20 minutes cleaning the soaker tub--I never use it! Come on, with 3 kids who has time to take a bath?! But, she never touched the shower, which both my husband and I use everyday. Can anyone explain this to me?? All of our mirrors were streaked and she didn't move anything on the counters when she cleaned them. She must have used sawdust to clean the floors because there was a dusty powder left on them when she was finished.

Now you might be asking why I wasn't going through the rooms once she had cleaned them and here's why. I had the boys outside playing to keep the house clean. Looking back now it's pretty funny because had they been in the house they would've taken out a few toys to play with and this lady probably would've done a better job, knowing I was watching.

Obviously, I will never hire someone to clean my house again. I ended up cleaning most of the house two days after she had been here anyway. There is a sense of pride and acclomplishment though, when you've spent all day cleaning and finally sit back and see every surface of the house sparkling back at you. So now all that said I guess I better get off my butt, step away from the computer and get cracking. This house doesn't clean itself ya know!