Maid service

In today's installment of "Stuff We Like," I would like to present professional in-home maid service. Earlier this week, as part of preparing the house to be shown to potential buyers, the Geekette and I had Merry Maids come in and to a top-to-bottom cleaning of the house. The week before, a representative had come out to evaluate the house and figure out what they would be charging based on the number of rooms, the square footage, etc. We gave her a key which they then left on the counter after they were done cleaning. When I got home from work Tuesday evening, it was like walking into a new house. Now mind, the Geekette and I do a reasonable job of keeping the place clean. But we don't clean everything in a single day so seeing the entire place sparkling was a joy. Some observations:

• They made the bed. (I was going to do this before I left for the day but I spaced it.)


• They have some kind of uber-vacuum that does a better job than even our Dyson, which is certainly no slouch.


• They washed a mug that I had left on the counter.


• They thoroughly cleaned the appliances. They even cleaned the place in the washer where you put bleach and fabric softener.


• They cleaned the rubber strip on the bottom of the shower door.


• They refolded and rehung the towels in the kitchen and bathrooms.


• They cleaned the baseboards on the walls.


• They cleaned out all the dust and cat fur from the tangle of cables under the computer desks.


• Every surface was dusted. Dusting is the chore I dislike the most.

We'll probably have them come out and clean the place again before we move, or after we have all our stuff out. We have decided that we are going to have a professional maid service come and clean the new place at least once a month. We'll make it happen even if we have to eat ramen for dinner every night. The way they price it, you pay a certain amount for a weekly cleaning, and it's more if you go every two weeks or once a month. The tradeoff is that less frequent cleanings mean a lower monthly cost in the long term, but you don't have the house cleaned as often. I'm thinking once a month is probably good. That way we'll still need to do spot cleaning and we won't get lazy.