What to Know Before Hiring a Housekeeper

When hiring a housekeeper there are essentially two different routes you can take. You can either hire a housekeeper yourself or you can go through a service. Both routes have their advantages as well as their disadvantages, but when it comes down to it, you would be a fool not to go with the service. Unless, of course, you are rich and simply want to pay an illegal immigrant slave wages to clean all your dirty household objects. And I don’t mean dirty in the sense of the grime that your underpaid servant will be paid $2.00 an hour to clean away.

Here is what going through a housekeeping service can do for you and also why you may not want to consider it and look to hire independently. Pick up the Yellow Papers or go on the internet and look for something along the lines of House Cleaning or Cleaning Services. Get in touch with one of these services dedicated to providing housekeepers and inform them exactly to your needs. What kind of different needs are available? Well, do you want a live-in maid, or one that commutes to your home daily? Make sure the service knows exactly what kind of duties the job entails. Will it involve vacuuming, mopping, bathroom work? Do you need the housekeeper to clean carpets, drapes, curtains? What about windows? That old joke about the maid not doing windows is not a joke. It may cost you extra. Be sure to let the service know exactly what the schedule will be. Every day? Twice a week? Will the housekeeper be required to come in early to clean up after parties? You’ll want a housekeeper whose schedule meets yours so don’t muck around on this aspect.

The downside to going with a housekeeping service is that you are not only paying for the housekeeper, but also the administrative costs of the service and, by extension, part of the salaries of all who work there. You can cut down on the cost of hiring a housekeeper by doing it yourself. Chances are you will save money, but there are other aspects of the process that may loom as larger disadvantages. Firstly, hiring independently means that it is up to you to conduct things like background checks and check references. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, if you are paying the housekeeper directly that means they qualify as your employee and that means filing and paying payroll taxes. Once you venture into the arena of hiring an employee, the landscape changes completely. Hiring an independent housekeeper may turn out to be a far bigger headache than the money you save by not going through a service is worth. Not to mention the fact that if you are unsatisfied with the job that is done, who are you going to complain to?

If saving some money is important enough to bypass the headaches involving in hiring an employee, it is worth considering just saying no to housekeeping services. For most people, however, the cost benefits simply do not outweigh the benefits of going with a cleaning service.