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

[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?