Far From It We Were Reared: House Cleaners and The Celtic Tiger

Himself wrote a blog post over the weekend that he titled “We Have Five Cleaning Ladies In Our Flat Now.”

It's not what you think: the cleaning “ladies” are actually mini catfish of unknown gender who wouldn't know a feather duster if it smacked them in the kisser (and yes, in addition to keeping fish he is now blogging about them, too. Two new hobbies for the price of one!) They're doing a nice job of keeping the fishtank algae free, but as far as hoovering the actual flat and maybe doing the occasional bit of light ironing goes, well, they leave a lot to be desired.

We've long threatened to outsource our non-fishy domestic cleaning to a third party on a part-time basis. However, in six years of living together, my mam and dad “checking that the house was ok” (i.e. breaking and entering to cut the grass, do some laundry and ironing and give the place a quick tidy up) while we were on a longer than usual holiday was the closest we ever got.

Even when Things Were Good and there was no recession on the radio and it seemed that everyone I knew both In Real Life and online employed a cleaner who came in a couple of times a week, I could never fully get on board with the idea.

My objections were usually along the lines of

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  • this isn't Downton Abbey and there are only two of us, for God's sake; do we really need another person to pick up after us?
  • far from cleaners we were reared
  • I don't want someone else touching my stuff
  • isn't it a bit dangerous to give a randomer the keys to the gaff?
  • I'd have to do a pre-cleaner clean and tidy before they arrived so that the place wasn't all up in a heap and they wouldn't think that we were mingers, which would kind of defeat the purpose of getting them in
  • I work from home, so I'd have to evacuate the house before they came around because I'd be morto to be sitting tapping at my laptop while someone cleans around me
  • I work from home, so I should be able to do a bit of housework in the time I'm saving by not having to commute (also: housework is an excellent procrastination tool)

Lately, I've noticed that far fewer people are looking for recommendations for a cleaner. I've a sneaking suspicion that it's a sign of the times and that the use of home help was probably one of the first things to be chopped from household expenditure when the Celtic Tiger rolled over and conked out and the big squeeze set in.

It's not fun, but unlike producing oil to go in the tank or making gas to keep the cooker going, cleaning is kind of something that you can do yourself as long as you're physically able to save some scarce and precious Eurobux. I'm grateful that we never had anyone coming in to clean for us because at least I don't miss them now. However necessary the cutback, I imagine that it'd be harder to go from having someone else doing the domestic chores you hate to DIYing (or, eh, ignoring) them again.

What do you reckon?

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