Good house cleaning people?

[flexagon]

Sometime lurker, first-time poster. I've lived in or near Davis for six years now, and as the lines are drawn, I think I would be a yuppie. :)

My husband is probably going to have a full-time job soon, which would make us full-fledged DINKs with no time to clean. So.... anyone know any local, good, maid type places who pay their workers a fair wage? Or independent maid type people who pay themselves a fair wage? :) I'm somewhat tempted by the MaidPro propaganda and the estimates they gave me when I called them, but they wouldn't tell me how much they pay their maids, and I fear they are evil. In fact, I fear they might be the maid place featured in Nickel and Dimed, in which case I would consider myself quite a jerk for hiring them. (Any confirmation or denial of these fears would be useful too.)

Thanks!

Comments

[heliopsis.livejournal.com]

Paula Sardinha does my cleaning, and I love her. I have no complaints whatsoever. She and her husband Paulo share the work, and they are independent contractors.

You can reach her at phousecleaning@yahoo.com

[an-art-worker.livejournal.com]

I don't mean this to sound the way it will sound....

but do they speak English? I have a Portuguese couple who come in who I have used for a few years. They are very nice but they have almost no English at all. At first it wasn't a problem but it has become a bit awkward at times (early on I wondered what the weird smell was in the place when I came home - turned out that the woman was using oven cleaner as a general cleaning product... yikes! Right - that smell was @$%%# lye! We worked that out...)

I still often would just like to say "and please do this or that" - but it's not easy to cross the language barrier. I did try Google/translate - that was hilarious/useless. I had an acquaintance in Brazil do some translating for me ("Please do not use the oven cleaner...")

What do they charge anyway?

[heliopsis.livejournal.com]

Yes, they speak English. It's not always fully idiomatic, but we communicate just fine. Communication is a significant consideration in any job, and I wouldn't hire someone I didn't think I could explain things to.

[heliopsis.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I pay $65 per cleaning.

[flexagon]

In my experience the per-cleaning fee varies by how often you get it cleaned and how large your place is... do you mind sharing?

[dangerousface.livejournal.com]

Hi.

I clean houses. I work on my own and live in the area, etc etc..

You can reach me at boyinboots at gmail dot com

[ah42.livejournal.com]

While I can understand your hesitation and concerns that they're being paid fairly, I don't think you'd be likely to find companies who would tell you exactly what employees are being paid, and everyone has a different idea of what "fair" is, as well.

[ron_newman]

I think the best solution to this problem is to find a maid who works for herself, whom you pay directly.

[ah42.livejournal.com]

aye.

(or himself, as it may be)

[lissie930.livejournal.com]

I thought the Nickeled and Dimed maids were Merry Maids (http://www.merrymaids.com/)?

[flexagon]

I think she wasn't allowed to name it. And I can't tell from the websites.

[noire.livejournal.com]

I had a *terrible* experience with MaidPro several years ago. They were expensive and I found their cleaning close to inadequate. I fired them after five months, and they tried to charge me a lock out fee (and were nasty about it to boot) when I cancelled a cleaning and we disagreed over whether they came on the LAST Xday of the month or the FOURTH X day.

I am now very happy with Smile Cleaning, Alda Gutierrez
AldaHGutierrez@aol.com

She's Brazilian, speaks excellent English, works hard, and charges surprisingly little.

[flexagon]

I wondered if someone would mention Alda! Trouble is, she used to be one of my tae kwon do teachers. I would like to give her business, but it just seems weird to go from saying "yes ma'am!" to "do you mind cleaning the inside of the microwave too?".

Also, her classes used to drive me nuts because they never started or ended on time. I don't suppose it would matter as much with cleaning... but still...

AA Environmentally Safe Cleaners

[protogeek.livejournal.com]

I've used AA Environmentally Safe Cleaners (http://www.aaclean.com/) off and on for years, and have recommended them to others who have (as far as I know) all had good experiences. I honestly don't know what they pay their workers, but they are very thorough, charge reasonable prices, and use non-toxic cleaning supplies. I believe most of the people that work for them are Portuguese, though I've only ever dealt with the owner (who is Portuguese and speaks perfect English). In general, any feedback we have goes to him and he makes sure it gets to the team that cleans our house.

Re: AA Environmentally Safe Cleaners

[flexagon]

Looks neat, I will definitely follow up on this one. Thanks.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

I once worked for Merry Maids, back in 1988, over the summer before I started college. Granted, that was nearly 20 years ago, but I can tell you how they paid their staff then. Maybe it's the same method now.

The employment ads would say something like "$7-$10 per hour" for wages (at the time, that was pretty damned good pay). All the cleaning staff would arrive at the office in the morning, form teams, and get their cleaning assignments for the day. The price for each cleaning job had been predetermined by management, whether it was a regular job or a one-off. Each member of the team would get a specific percentage of the cut for each job (I want to say it was something like 9% or 10%).

The teams would go out and clean the places and log the hours worked. If we finished at 1:00 p.m., we'd return to the office, drop off the cleaning supplies, and be done for the day. If we finished at 5:00 p.m., that's just the way it went sometimes. Either way, we made the same amount of money, but the hourly pay was variable, based on the number of hours we actually worked. However, we were guaranteed a minimum hourly rate. If we had a bunch of heinous jobs that took us all day to finish and caused the hourly rate to dip below the minimum, the agency would bump our rate up to ensure the minimum rate was made. I was usually out by 3:00 p.m. or so, though.

I have no idea if they still do it this way, or if this is how MaidPro does it.

[flexagon]

Still, thank you for the information! Very interesting.