CLEAN FREAKS

For our fifth wedding anniversary (yay!), my husband and I considered a vacation to the Bahamas, maybe a cruise to Alaska. But we're so busy and we've got a lot of little trips all summer that will eat up our vacation time. What we really value is being able to spend time at home together. So, we came up with the perfect anniversary celebration: We would hire a housecleaner! We found the Clean Freaks online through a Salem Business Networking site. They advertised a Spring Cleaning Special for $18 per hour. That sounded perfect! My husband & I don't mind cleaning- but it's always in a hurry & superficial: We mop, we vacuum, we scrub the kitchen & the bathroom. But it's the other stuff that builds up that we never get around to taking care of: The dust on top of the doorframes, the mud on the kitchen cabinets from where the dog goes in & out, the grime in the corners that we miss, the spiderwebs that gather in high spots. After a long, cold, rainy winter our house was pretty dirty. We've got an ancient oil-burning furnace that spews dark dust all over everything. And we've got a huge, crazy furry puppy who carries in mud from the yard and spreads it around. These things build up. They called 1.5 hours after they were supposed to arrive, and said they would be there in another 1.5 hours. Finally, 2 hours later (1:30 in the afternoon), they arrived, and there were 4 people, so they could get it all done in time. My husband let them in, then went back to work. They called 2 hours later & said they were done, but they hadn't had time to do the windows. He went home, watched them finish mopping the wood floors, wrote them a check, and they said they'd come back tomorrow and do a couple of more hours (for which we would pay them more) to finish up the windows. They couldn't stay this afternoon because they were in a hurry. My husband called & told me about the things that struck him: They hadn't put back anything they had moved- the couch, the chairs, all the stuff they picked up to mop & clean the counters. Everything was out of place & piled up (there was a bunch of stuff sitting on the couch, for example). They forgot their cleaning supplies all over. They emptied the garbage can, but left the garbage bag sitting in the kitchen. There was just "stuff" in disarray everywhere. If I had invited guests over after work expecting a clean house, I would have been terribly embarassed. I came home, and we started noticing everything else they hadn't done, such as not mopping the bathroom, not cleaning the outside of the cabinets, not removing spider webs, not dusting the door & window frames. They had done the same hurried & superficial job that I do - mop, vacuum, scrub the kitchen & the bathroom- except that now I'm out $200. It certainly wasn't a "deep clean." We called & told them not to come back tomorrow. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go finish cleaning my house. Yuck.