A Day in the Life of a House Cleaner

A typical day started at 8 a.m. with a brief and casual conversation with colleagues before the actual meeting. I had seven lovely co-workers and two bosses, who as well was the owners of the company.

We were usually separated into three groups to take care of the entire schedule filled with around three apartments per team. Our company have moved to bigger customers over time so the houses were huge.

Around 9 a.m., the entire staff including our bosses were moving to the given locations. The company vehicles and equipments were as well upgraded over years so we used top-notch cleaning tools. Great tools enabled us to work safely and ergonomically which decreased chances to get injured. That was an important thing to be taken into account because there were only 10 people in the entire company.

We had working routines for different kinds of houses, depending on the structure and interior design. The most typical house had several cubicly designed bedrooms, an open kitchen and a big entry. With houses like this, we started from bedrooms and then gradually moved to dirtier places and out of the house at the end. A two-hundred-square-meter house usually took us an hour to clean.

The first coffee break occurred around 10.30 a.m. and lunch around 12.30 p.m.

And the rest of the day went pretty much similarly.

I would like to share some facts from my own experience:

• Surprisingly, cleaning jobs required a lot of knowledge in order to have successful results, especially when apartments and furnitures worth millions of euros/dollars
• There were pets in over 99 per cent of families, but usually pets were not present
• Families left friendly notes and sometimes snacks to cleaners
• There were non-tippers and great tippers, but usually no one in between
• There were more female cleaners in the industry and that's the reason why male cleaners were in demand because of the need in moving heavy furnitures
• The pay was decent and in some companies even better than people working behind counters or mall securities

In sum - I enjoyed my job but mostly because of my colleagues, bosses and well-developed equipments. Our company vehicles consisted brand new Volvo V70s. Working schedules were made pretty convenient, at least for me because I wasn't obligated to work on weekends. Pay was decent and customers were nice.

My advice for a more convenient working environment - Look for a small company because big companies couldn't provide such extravagance but then again, big companies are able to provide flexible schedules. Nevertheless, I still prefer small companies because nearly everything is negotiable.

Once again, thanks for reading. Have a pleasant day!