Would you love to have a cleaner come to your home and do those chores that you have zero love for? Or perhaps finding the time is your greatest issue. There simply are not enough hours in the day to do it all and be it all. Would you love to leave the house and come back two hours later to the beautiful vision of a clean bathroom and fresh bedsheets all round? It might just be more accessible than you think. Thousands of family homes around Ireland are using the service of a cleaner once a week or fortnight and we can really see why. 

A pregnant friend of mine spoke about her parents offering to buy the new baby a “good” gift when he or she was born. They wanted to buy something practical. Something that would really help my friend out financially. In the end, it wasn’t a travel system or a cot-bed she went for. She chose a cleaner. Every single week for six weeks a cleaner came to her house for an hour and a half. It gave her more time with the baby and less time to feel guilty about the house falling down around her. What an amazing gift. 

The way you choose to use a cleaner is completely up to you. Some families use it for general tidying and keeping the house in order. Others are quite happy to keep things tidy but hire a cleaner to do the deep cleaning. There are certain cleaning jobs that they simply cannot find time for or seem to never do properly themselves. In a strange way, many people claim that having a cleaner forces them to be tidier in general. When the cleaner is coming to the house must be somewhat in order so he or she can do what they need to do. 

I do not have a cleaner right now but for me, it would create more harmony in the household for sure. I really like the idea of doing less and nagging less. I like the idea of being able to spend more time having fun with my children and husband. A cleaner would definitely free up that time for me. For this reason, it is something I would seriously consider. There are many tasks around the house that I actually do not mind doing but because the list is endless I tend to do a lot of things badly. I spread myself thinly and do as much as I can to keep the house running. I would love to have more time to cook new recipes and organize my child’s toys. 

The price of a cleaner can vary but the standard fee is somewhere between €12 and €15 per hour. Many cleaners will come for a minimum of two hours. If the amount of money is what scares you then perhaps (like me) you might consider what you would spend €25 per week on. In our family, it would be an extra takeaway for example. I would definitely be willing to trade that in for all that getting a cleaner would bring to my life. It’s the debate I have been having with myself for a long time now. 

To get the most out of the experience it is recommended that you give the cleaner as much direction as possible. Instead of expecting a two hour “once over” of the entire house decide on a couple of specific jobs that need doing. 

Getting a cleaner will give me more time to do the things that bring me joy. It will give me a second to catch my breath and the buzz of coming home to a clean house that had nothing to do with me. I think I’ve made my decision, have you?