Hiring a housekeeper can clean up your clutter and calendar
A housekeeping service includes regular cleaning, laundry, errands, and other chores.
Hiring a housekeeper saves time, reduces stress, and keeps your spaces sanitary and clutter-free.
Cons include cost, privacy, and security considerations.
Housekeepers charge $25 to $80 per hour or more, depending on the level of service.
When you lead a fast-paced life, spending money to save time can be a stress-reducing investment. If you’re struggling to keep up with that weekly house cleaning checklist, you might ask yourself if hiring a housekeeper is worth it. This guide covers the pros and cons of paying for this type of service to help you decide if it feels like a low-priority luxury or an essential amenity.
Housekeepers clean and organize your home on a regular basis—sometimes, they even live in. These trained professionals do common chores like laundry, vacuuming, dusting, mopping, and dishwashing daily, biweekly, or weekly to keep clutter and dirt to a minimum in your home.
| Pros of Housekeepers | Cons of Housekeepers |
|---|---|
| Timesaving | Cost |
| Controls clutter | Sacrificing privacy |
| Spaces stay sanitary | Security concerns |
| Ideal for homeowners with limited mobility | Can be difficult to find the right person |
Not sure if a housekeeper is worth it? Here’s a look at some of the pluses of hiring a pro to keep your house clean.
One of the biggest benefits of hiring a housekeeper near you is how much time you can save not having to do the scrubbing, sweeping, and straightening things up yourself. Surveys suggest the average homeowner spends approximately six hours a week cleaning their home. Getting professional help is ideal if you have a busy work life, want to focus on your family, or just hate housework.
If you’re a hoarder who has a habit of quickly gathering a jumble of junk, a housekeeper can help you get through your weekly decluttering checklist. An organized home can reduce stress levels, increase productivity, and make it easier to keep your spaces clean.
If you’re not a fan of chores or are always short on time, you could do a half-hearted job when cleaning. A professional housekeeper has the right tools, supplies, and skills to do a thorough job of sanitizing. It also saves you from making rookie errors using the wrong product for cleaning your hardwood floors or new kitchen surfaces.
Because housekeepers visit your home regularly, they will keep on top of the cleaning tasks to prevent a buildup of hard-to-remove grime. This can help extend the life span and look of the surfaces in your home.
Are you frequently fighting with your partner or the teens in your house over who was supposed to wash the dishes? Hiring a housekeeper reduces this common reason for family friction.
Cleaning is a physical job that can be more challenging for people with limited mobility. Hiring a housekeeper can benefit older people, people with disabilities or chronic conditions, and those recovering from surgery.
Before you decide, it’s worth being aware of the downsides of hiring a housekeeper.
The convenience of hiring a housekeeper does come at a cost. Professional house cleaning costs an average of $25 to $80 per hour. This won’t be affordable for every household, and when it is, you’ll need to balance the benefits of convenience over cost. If a housekeeper visits biweekly, you might need to budget around $400 to $1,200 per month for the privilege.
If you’re a person who values their privacy, hiring a housekeeper might not be worth it. To allow the cleaners to do their job properly, they will need access to most areas of your home—not ideal if you want this to remain a safeguarded family sanctum.
While horror stories of cleaners stealing from their clients are rare, the security risk is real. Fortunately, provided you do background checks and hire a reputable, bonded, and insured housekeeper, you can minimize the possibility of pilfering.
Depending on your level of research and your standards, finding a housekeeper you feel comfortable with can be challenging. Get things wrong, and they might prove unreliable, not do the job properly, or not gel well with you. The key is to do your due diligence, check reviews, study the service agreement, and communicate clearly.
If your budget doesn’t stretch to a regular housekeeper, or you just don’t want a stranger in your home on a regular basis, you could hire a house cleaner to come less frequently and only tackle specific or one-off tasks. Or consider the following options:
Hire a move-out cleaning service to reduce stress while tackling this high-pressure, multi-task project.
Hire a professional organizer to help clear clutter and set up storage solutions around your home.
Hire a window cleaner to tackle those difficult-to-reach, dirty panes.
Deciding if the cost of a housekeeper is worth it depends on your income, lifestyle, and how much you hate household chores. Most homeowners can handle cleaning, so hiring a professional is typically a stress-reducing convenience rather than a necessity. However, you may realize you don’t need the full service a housekeeper provides and decide to go with a less-expensive house cleaner instead.
While the terms are used interchangeably, there’s a subtle difference between a housekeeper versus a house cleaner. Housekeepers do more than just the regular cleaning tasks, including laundry, making beds, cooking, and errands. A house cleaner focuses on keeping surfaces clean and tidy, vacuuming, and taking out the trash.
To find the best house cleaner to keep your place pristine while freeing up your time, ask for word-of-mouth recommendations and check online reviews. Arrange background checks for any housekeeper you’re considering hiring and ensure they have appropriate bonds and insurance. It's also worth interviewing the company or individual cleaner and outlining expectations.
