I put a flyer with tear off numbers at my local grocery stores. I had no idea how much to pay her; she asked for €10 an hour and I needed her for two hours, so we pay her €25.

She is Polish and she had almost no English a year ago but I gave her a list in English of the stuff I needed, in order of priority in case she ran out of time (I hate dishes, I love cleaning toilets, go figure) and she took it away with her dictionary and made sense of it. She’s taken lessons and stuff and had some jobs and her language is really great now.

And yeah, we had to really muck the place out – it was way more *picking up* than cleaning, obviously, but she needed to be able to get to the floor to hoover it… Now I round up the dishes and my husband picks up the clothes before she comes and we’re good.

In my old place, I had to split it – I picked up the living room and kitchen before she came so she could clean them, and worked on the other bits while she was there and we worked that way for a couple of weeks. Its never been as bad as that since.

For some reason, if I’m going to be handing out house cleaner advice, I feel the need to say that my standards are not high. I want someone who will do a better job than I am not doing, which basically means doing it at all. For whatever reason, she has never cleaned the shower and I have no idea why, but I also don’t care. I clean it myself because let me tell you how **totally easy** and un-stressful that is to do when hey, it’s the ONLY thing to do.

Seriously, do it. For 24 hours, it will be Nirvana.

Just the other day I started thinking, ok, so I know I can’t afford it, but maybe it’s time that I just have to do it anyway.

How do you go about hiring someone? And how clean does your house have to be before you can get someone in? My place is a super mess heap. I think I’d have to organise for a year before a cleaner could come in and clean.

And what’s the going hourly rate?

We are both far from our small families, too, and I just think having some backup makes a big difference to me and my ability to cope day to day.