We recently hired House Spouse to come in to clean our house on a bi-weekly basis. My wife found them online and liked their detailed website and reasonable pricing. My first contact with them was via email, and because I left it kind of late and then it took a couple of days to get a reply from HS, we weren't able to get them into clean in time before we had house-guests come stay with us for a week, so we ended up doing that cleaning ourselves.
Admittedly, I'm a mediocre house keeper, and until recently the cleaning duties in our home were mine, as I have been working at home for the last few years. We're Canadian. It's complicated. I was essentially a House Husband and therefore all of the cooking, cleaning, errands, odd-jobs, laundry, pool, yard, pets work were on my duty roster. I was so into being a House Husband I even started writing Haiku poetry about it. Here is my very first HouseHusband Haiku which came to me as I sorted dirty clothes in the laundry room:
Laundry Cunning Foe.
I Fight Yet You Multiply.
She Never Wore This.
But I digress.
I know it is possible to clean effectively. I get it as a concept. On the occasion my wife cleans, I witness first-hand the zeal, focus and effort that some people put into cleaning something well. For instance, when I clean a bathroom it takes me about 10-15mins tops. I use Windex for everything including the floor which I foot-mop with an old towel. I call it "Hoteling the room." My wife on the other hand, gets out a bucket and scrub brush and uses specific cleaning agents designed for specific bathroom cleaning tasks the likes of which boggle the mind of a cleansing laggard like myself. Did you know they invented a product just for cleaning grout?! I was all like: "You're supposed to clean grout?" One day after living together for 6 months: Her: "Could you maybe dust more often?" Me: "Uh, sure, cuz I don't dust at all." Her: "But you were so clean when we started dating! Your apartment was spotless!" Me: "Well I'll grant you that it was TIDY, but had you run your hand over the top of the TV you'd've pulled back a fuzzy mitten!"
You get the idea. I'm just not that motivated, and short of getting a Ritalin prescription, I generally find cleaning the house to be lame. I find myself looking for ways to lallygag and cut-corners. One of the ways is to avoid cleaning IN corners. Another is to binge-watch Netflix.
In any case, as I am now working outside the house, I'm no longer having to spend my days at home trying to earn Employee Of The Month status anymore. (I only won that 3 times in as many years, and given the fact I was the only one considered, you can imagine the level of cleaning mediocrity to which I subscribe.
Hence our hiring of (the ironically named ) House Spouse.
The sign-up process over the phone with Jenais was friendly and informative. She, Kim and Nancy arrived ahead of schedule the day of our first deep clean, which is a necessity when beginning service. We all four toured the house and I introduced them to our three beloved and spoiled male cats (known to us as The Dudes). Once we had the particulars arranged and the non-binding service agreement signed, Jenais departed and Kim and Nancy (who will be our regular cleaner) proceeded to clean the Bejeezus out of our house! They found bejeezus in places I had never considered, like on the tops of our living room ceiling fans which are 12 feet off the ground! They were here for about 3 hours and they even managed to clean the glass on two of my sliding doors that I had asked them to do, a service which is usually an add-on. After they were done, they had me inspect their work and were willing to touch up anything I found they had missed. It should be noted that given my weak cleaning ethics, I thought they had used some type of cleaning voodoo the house was so clean in my books! My wife, who is about the toughest person to please in terms of cleanliness was actually impressed when she got home! She did manage to find two small areas that could use a touch up, but I noted them in an email to HS and they will be sure to get them next time. Their work is 100% guaranteed and they will come back if needed to make it right if you aren't happy.
House Spouse is amazing! I look forward to our first regular service visit next week. I'm thankful that FINALLY someone better qualified and better skilled is now doing the brunt of our house cleaning and I can get back to doing other things, like writing epic Yelp reviews.
We take Thee House Spouse as our regular cleaning service. We are both happy to say "I do." read more