To clarify, ours is more cleaning lady than "maid" in the traditional sense. She comes in once a week and cleans our main floor rooms. She's here about 90 minutes each time, and she charges $50 a week. When I first gifted the service to Claudia, she was a high school principal and really had no time to clean - and was unsatisfied with the way I did it. The lady who owned the service came in, did a walk through and gave us an estimate of $40 a week. There initially were three or four different women who did it, because it is a high turnover business. The owner finally died of cancer, selling the firm to one of the maids. She is now an independent operator and has done our house now for I guess 10 years. Her rate went up to cover the high gas prices a while back, which I gladly agreed to. We've used the service now for going on 14 years.
I/we still clean our downstairs living area on our own - and admittedly don't do as good a job of it. BTW, I also decided a while back that mowing the yard was more than I cared to do any more. So I have a service do that, too. That's also a once a week thing, and they charge $35 a week. They trim, mow, and collect clippings in 20 minutes with two or three guys.
Either one is a worthy expense in my book.
