Cleaning House

CC taking a picture of me taking a picture of her

I would have never imagined that I would one day be hiring a housekeeper. Primarily because I enjoy cleaning. I do not think that I have obsessive-compulsive tendencies, I simply enjoy a clean, tidy abode. Ever since I was a pre-teen, I would clean and organize our fridge and cupboards, without ever being asked. My room was always spotless, and I even attempted to clean the grout between the kitchen tiles on a few occasions.

This sense of cleanliness was translated when I moved out. Our current home, a condo my husband and I purchased a few years ago, is, or rather was always spotless. Then along came the Brat. On the surface, the house seems tidy, however, I no longer find time for thorough cleaning. I don't remember the last time I emptied out the fridge and cupboards, or re-organized my closet. As the Brat gets older, the problem seems to have amplified itself. She has been feeding herself since she was 8-months old, as evidence by stains on her highchair, as well as the floor, walls and windows opposite her chair. When she is not eating, she runs around the house creating havoc everywhere she goes. She throws her toys, rids the bookcase of all the books she can reach, and enjoys writing on the floors and walls with her crayons.

My husband and I have been talking about hiring a housekeeper for several months. But how to go about this task? How often would we need him or her? Who could we trust? Would we have to pay for transport? Could we also ask them to cook a meal? There were so many unanswered questions, that I never took the next step of actually contacting someone.

Then very recently, a friend of mine mentioned that she wanted to cut down her housekeeper/nanny to 3 days instead of 5, but was worried that they might lose the housekeeper as she optimally wanted full time work. I instantly offered to take her once a week, and my friend easily found someone to take her on for another day per week. I had met this housekeeper during a play-date, and was duly impressed. When are you planning on cutting down?, I asked my friend last week. Next week, was the welcome reply.

I was so excited, and surprisingly nervous that I slept poorly the eve of her first visit to our home. Would she consider our home too dirty to clean? Would she refuse to clean the toilet? Would she quit the same day she started?

As it happens, my worries were unfounded. She arrived a few minutes early this Tuesday morning, and stayed for over 8 hours. I had left mid-day for work, leaving my baby in the care of my sister. When I got home, I was shocked. Never had our home been so clean. The chrome faucets shone like I never thought they could. We could see our image in the once-stained window facing the baby's highchair. One could eat off the floor in the bathroom. Why had I waited so long to hire a housekeeper? My husband mentioned that the housekeeper, upon leaving, said that there was so much to do, that she couldn't finish in one day, and that she would have to continue the following week.

I had a good laugh. So our home was very unclean after all...I had never spent more than three or four hours in a row cleaning our home, and never imagined that eight hours would not suffice. I wondered if she would ever have some extra time to cook a dish that would last a few days. Would our home ever be clean enough for her to spare an hour or so? Surely there are some chores that don't need to be repeated on a weekly basis. Or would I have to take her on an extra day, or perhaps hire a cook?