It’s been awhile since we’ve used a cleaning service here at the house. We had a good one a few years back, but they brought us fleas, so we fired them and then spent the next two years (and some) getting rid of the fleas. Life sucks when your cat, who does not go outside (not for lack of trying) is riddled with the tiny bloodsucking fiends.
So the house is maybe not in the cleanest shape it could be. It’s not that I don’t have time, it’s that I can’t be bothered, really. Every now and again I will go insane and clean the joint from top to bottom, but that doesn’t happen often enough to make the other people in the house happy.
We’ve tried a couple of cleaning services here and there, but none of them have been satisfactory. There was one that did a half-assed job, which annoyed me. I can do a half-assed job for free, thanks. Then there was the other one, who did a fine job but for whatever reason couldn’t put us on their regular schedule and so we had to call them every time we wanted them to come. That’s even more annoying than them doing a shitty job! PUT ME ON THE SCHEDULE, DAMMIT.
A lot of this ties into the ADHD thing that we’re all living with. We really do need things to just… happen around here sometimes. Things need to be automatic when they can be, because that frees up mental space and energy to tackle the anomalies of modern life, most of which involve dog barf. I’ve got a lot of my bills set up to be paid automatically, which has saved me an awful lot of aggravation. Jillian is on a schedule of sorts, which makes her life easier. Freddie… well, he’s kind of on his own because he’s a grown-ass adult and I can’t manage his life when I have a kid and three pets to wrangle.
But, you know, life goes on with or without a cleaning service. This year has been bad for the dog hair, however. Piper has decided that it is her purpose in life to cover every surface in the world with her hair. No amount of brushing or using the Furminator has made the tiniest difference in how much hair she sheds. It’s not even gross anymore – it just is. That’s just what our life is like now.
Freddie is a huge fan of Angie’s List. That’s a service you can use to get “trusted” reviews of services and businesses for home-related stuff. He used that to find what is going to be our new cleaning service, and the owner came over yesterday for a walkthrough and estimate.
Now… it’s been a LONG time since I’ve done any kind of major cleaning. I broke my foot a few weeks ago and have been trying to stay off of it as much as possible. So even the half-assed cleaning I would normally do isn’t really getting done. It’s not that bad, honestly, but it’s not… great.
So this lady comes in and looks around a bit and I could tell she was just kind of mildly horrified. You’d think that owning a house-cleaning service would make you immune to some things, but to be honest, there was A LOT of dog hair on the floor yesterday because I hadn’t gotten around to sweeping it yet. She just kept saying things like “oh… wow…” and I was pointing out the trouble spots (literally everywhere) for her while she just nodded her head and made notes.
I think it’s going to work out all right, though. Her company seems legit, they have a lot of good reviews, and best of all – we’re going to be on a regular schedule. I’m getting better at dealing with clutter (the File Pile is no more) and this can only help with that.