Cleaning Ladies

Does anyone in this forum use a cleaning lady? I used to have one but when she suddenly quit on me two years ago I didnt bother to replace her and have since cleaned my apartment myself. Yes it takes 3-4 hours a week but I find it therapeutic to do all that cleaning and tidying up.

Anyway yesterday I had gone to visit a friend who just bought a new apartment. Its a beautiful two bedroom space which features innovative and stylish design features. Before moving into the place my friend decided to have it painted and the floors sanded and stained a lighter shade. The work was just finished last week and she had asked a common friends cleaners to come in and do the clean up. The cleaners said they would come in and check the place and then charge her $70-80 for the job as they charge the common friend $60 for a two bedroom in Brooklyn. My friend explained to them that the place was dusty and she would be willing to pay more if need be. I was over at her place when the cleaners came in yesterday at first they marveled at the apartment and then they started to haggle about price saying it was a lot of work etc..

My friend increased her offer to $125 for the two of them that would have been $62.50 a piece for a three hour job at the rate of $20 an hour which is quite fair but they wanted more i.e. $80-100 a piece. Luckily for my friend a cleaning lady who had cleaned her apartment prior to the painting and floor work had just called her asking for more work and she knew she could fall back on her if need be. So she asked the haggling cleaners to leave as that was her final offer, before leaving one of the cleaners came up to us and said he would love to do the work but he was helpless as his partner was the boss.

This afternoon, my friend called me to tell me that her old cleaner had done the cleaning this morning. It had taken her the estimated three hours to do the work and my friend had given her $125 even though the cleaning lady had been happy to accept $100. I was a bit amazed at this story. The recession is still on and there are so many people out of work yet there are folk who are willing to forgo a job which pays decent money unless there terms are met. I dont think my friend was looking to exploit the cleaners at $200 what they were asking she could have got a professional cleaning company to come in and do the job. Here she was paying cash and even then she had to deal with attitude. Quite surprising to say the least.
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8 Comments

Uraniumfish 2yrs+
Maybe they thought they could get the price they asked for even though it was high, since they were already there on site. I think a lot of people can't be/don't want to be firm and would have ended up paying more than they wanted to instead of asking the cleaners to leave.
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JenMac 2yrs+
My friend lives in a rather large 2 bdrm in Chelsea and the building has a cleaning service for 80 bucks for the whole apartment.
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hhusted 2yrs+
@Uptowngirl: I do not use a cleaning lady, although sometimes I wish I did have one.
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uptowngirl 2yrs+
@JenMac wow that's fantastic .. that's why I was surprised at these two cleaners who actually asked whether they would have to clean all the cabinets etc...and were so reluctant to do the job even after my friend had explained to them on the phone that the apartment was dusty after the painting and floor work. They had been made aware of the circumstances so then to behave like this unprofessional to say the least. That's why I don't have a cleaning lady anymore , I just can't deal with their tantrums and fussing.
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NeverSleeps 2yrs+
Ick, they obviously took a look at her apartment and decided she could afford to pay them as much as they wanted. I'm glad she didn't.

My landlord uses a cleaning lady... it's one of the neighbors and I don't think he pays her all that much.
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BroadwayBK 2yrs+
That's a crazy story. You would think people would just take a reasonable offer on a job they were lucky enough to sort of happen across. After all, it is a recession.. but guess not.
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uptowngirl 2yrs+
@BroadwayBK my thoughts exactly!
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MeghanL 2yrs+
This is another apartment cleaning service in New York City that's reasonably priced $60 for 1 bedroom apartment www.ny1cleaningservice.com
Iva the cleaning lady works for her self and charges affordable flat rate fees and is very detailed at cleaning plus she has an amazing personality. She came highly recommended I use her on weekly basis.
I hope this helps.
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