I hate this!!!!! From a chair and having only 1 usable hand, I can not clean, hate a dirty house. First service spoke no English, broke an antique. Next person not very good (but very friendly and would do anything else like cleaning pool tile but she loved going in pool on hot day and took a long time. 3 times brought baby and/or toddler which I ended up watching to get my house cleaned - she charged by hour!!!), 3rd service team allowed Mildew to grow in my new WC friendly large roll-in shower. New Service a local, individually owned (NOT a Franchise) service so I have high hopes. One person coming, not a team. One person responsible!! I have learned through experiences, hope this time it is to my standards.Know once in a while, my wood needs some Lemon oil, especially in dry winter. We'll see. DH and kids not very good about cleaning, but good at making dirt. A little cleaning help from them like pulling teeth and I become the demanding bad guy and I really don't ask for much. Think I spoiled them, should have asked for more for years, too late now I think. 31 years into marriage, kids 18, on brink of college.Good news is I can afford this, bad news is I'd rather do it myself. I really did a good job. I had a good e-mail friend in England, descrbed their house as a "tip". Know you can picture it. AAARRGGHHH. I hate MS.

I hired some local teenage girls. They ROCK! Their momma used to clean for me till she got sick. She asked if I would give her girls a try. I agreed. I was impressed! She said many local HS girls want/need jobs, and will do a good job if you tell them what you need.

Contact the local HS and speak to the guidance counselor. ask if she knows of some reliable, responsible girls who want to work. Make sure to put away your pills, and money before ANY cleaning girls show up.

I went thru a round robin of cleaning girls for awhile. One smelled of doggie so bad, and cigarettes, I asked if she was ok. She said she has 12 doggies! and claimed that she didnt smoke, but her DH did (liar!) Anyone who smelled like that is the smoker! Whatever she sat on in my house stank for days! I had another walk off with a bottle of pills. She had to open my cabinet to find them, but once gone, I cant do much. I asked her to "help me find them" she acted all blase about them, and the "they will turn up" speech was given.

When I first hire on a new girl, I give the same speech. "I can and will have you arrested if I find you are stealing from me!" I expect a good job, in a reasonable time. If I find you are slow, and just eating up time, I will switch you to by the job pay. and the ever popular. "im sorry, I am not rescheduling for next time. I have found your work is not up to my standards. thank you, and have a good day."

I had two girls once that do most of the elderly ladies around town. They STANK! They would swear they mopped the floor, and yet, it and the mop was dry! They would swear they cleaned the tub, and yet, you could feel soap scum on it. They swept into the corners without using a dustpan to pick it up! The old ladies raved about them. I caught one using the same rag to clean the toilet, and then went onto my sink with it, and was headed to my kitchen table. I asked her to stop, and when I explained what happened she denied it! That was their last day. I have bad eyesight, but i am not stupid. a dry mop means you didnt use it!

I hope you find some help that you can count on.

I've said "even though I'm home, I'm not here to supervise." I want the correct things to be used for each job (paper towels, toilet brushes, type of cleaner, lemon oil or furniture spray as needed. Talking about it here reminds me what to tell cleaner. As my neighbor said "No one cleans like you do yourself". I do not supervise but I will be watching. I was that teen girl who cleaned and every one thought me a find, I was a janitor. I've kept house for years. I have to stop being nice, it's mistaken for weakness. (psyching self up).

No teen girls here to do job - they have their own rooms cleaned by others. Couldn't find a babysitter when I moved here! My old neighborhood had girls knocking on door, bringing kids presents, hanging out, little sisters taking over as they themselves grew out of job. Lady/neighbor who cleaned watched my kids for free, got "bored", so cleaned house too. I love my house, but miss my old neighborhood.

I do my own cleaning from my scooter. That's why there are peeps coming and going under my beds and such.

I have not been able to get the guts to hire someone. I just don't want to.

I miss my cleaning service. Not that I had it for long.....maybe 2 months. I just can't afford that expense.

I do my own cleaning now. A little at a time. I miss having a totally clean house all at once but that's just not a reality for me anymore. Plus, I find that if I clean as I go things don't get so dirty. Since it's just me here most of the time anyway it does manage to stay clean longer.

I was thinking yesterday that I might call the service again to see what they'd charge me just to clean my bathroom. It's as big as my spare bedroom...even bigger than my kitchen was at my former house! I love it but it's just so hard to keep the white tile floor clean. And I don't use the spa tub at all.....but it collects dust and hair. It's the perfect bathroom for someone with a handicap except for the cleaning part. Oh well, nobody ever sees it but me...and the cats.

I would think that right now....with unemployment being at an all time high.....people would be doing a better job just to keep what jobs they have. But.....not too many can afford a cleaning service when they're out of work, either.

Good luck....I hope this time it works out for you!

kicker your neighbor is right - no one will ever clean your house as well as you can. That being said when my DH or DD actually do things around the house I have to bite my lip not to criticize. I want them to do more and if I complain, they just won't do it anymore. I want them to do it and do it as well as I would but that ain't gonna happen. I am learning to coax them into helping more, even small things, and saying thank you when they do. I have been sick most of this week and my house looks like a mess. At least I did the laundry (as my daughter goes through the unfolded but clean basket of clothes for something she is out of), washed and changed the sheets and kept the kitchen clean. I have noticed I don't care as much anymore about having a super clean house but if I see it, I have to clean it!! I am dreading the day when I can no longer do the cleaning like I do. Kind of odd, something most people complain about we would love to be able to do like we used to.

Two things come to mind (well, three, counting the cyber-hugs for Kicker)

First, "clean" is relative. I do what I can, Bob does what he can, the rest I say "oh well". I'd like everything to sparkle, but I don't know whom we'd hire to clean even if we could afford it. As long as it isn't unhealthy, we'll cope.

The other thing is, somebody could probably make a pile of money running a training school for housekeeping. People aren't raised knowing how to clean anymore. Hey, I wasn't. We didn't have any furniture or floors that needed special care. I wouldn't begin to know what to use to clean tile (we grew up with lineoleum, before it was called "vinyl")

agreed! NO ONE will clean my house like I clean my house, but I have learned to relax my standards a bit. it was one of the give ups of MS. I used to get such a high from cleaning my own space. it was a meditation practice, and a stress reliever to scrub stuff. now I dont see well enough to know if its really clean.

We have a cleaning lady. After using one service and getting stuff stolen once by someone from that service. We hired a second cleaning service. We went thru about 4 or 5 cleaners from the second place.

The first girl was probably the best cleaner, she was going to school and student teaching, and when she graduated she quit the cleaning service. The next cleaner from that place was obviously not from this country, and I dont think she had a green card. She carried 3 cellphones and was constantly talking on one while the other two rang off the hook.

That made me think she was a drug dealer or something. Glad I hadnt been diagnosed with MS yet, so I didnt have 50 bottles sitting next to my bed then, and my dad always kept my mom's bottle of Oxycodone on him so that my mom didnt eat her pills like candy, otherwise I think that cleaning lady would have been using our house as a resupply station.

That particular cleaner got fired when was apparently having a bad day with whoever it was that called her on her 3 cellphones. She was yelling in Spanish to whoever it was, and getting really angry. She was slamming things down on our counters and I dont think she was doing much cleaning during all the slamming of things. We talked to her boss, and apparently she'd had a bunch of complaints about this girl, so our complaint was the one that sent the boss over the edge and the girl got fired.

Scared the crap out of my mom and I when the fired girl showed up the next morning, saying that she'd clean our house for us cheaper, and I was quite creeped out how she kept her hand in her pocket, holding...something (maybe a screwdriver?) She stepped into our house, and was talking to us, and seemed a bit agitated. My internal warning sirens were going insane. I told her that I'd have to ask my dad since he made all the decisions, and that seemed to satisfy her, she gave us her phone number and left.

I then called the girl's former boss and told her about the visit. If the fired girl was just going around to houses she'd cleaned, actually looking for work and not so mad at people for her getting fired, that's still really rude to the owner of the cleaning company, and not really good business.

We had two more cleaners that started out good, but they started getting distracted and slacking off. (one of them I think was getting ill with something...I think she mentioned Sjogren's Syndrome...so not her fault)

We finally got the owner of that cleaning company to clean our house for us instead of sending us an employee. We've found that having the owner of the company doing the cleaning, you end up with the best cleaner that way. (previous company that cleaned for us, the owners would clean our house occasionally too...those were the best cleanings)

So, we've had the owner of the current cleaning company doing our house for a couple of years. She hasnt been too bad, altho I did have to remind her about the whole dirty towel cleaning the toilet needs to not touch my bathroom sink. (she uses paper towels for that now)

When I did my room remodel, I gave her my old desk cabinet that's made out of particle board. I'm still waiting for her to pick it up, but she's having problems finding someone to help her carry it out of my house. (we've had 6 feet of snow on our patio since the week after I offered it to her, otherwise she could have gotten it out of the house on our dolly herself.) I wish she could find someone to help her move it out, because it's cluttering up our basement. I cant wait for all the snow to melt, because then I'll get the dolly, and my boyfriend and his roommate and then will have them get it up to the front yard for me, so I can call the cleaning lady and tell her to come over and get it while my BF is there to help.