Why I’ll Never Have A Cleaner

When I owned a house, I never had a cleaner. Mainly because a) I couldn’t afford one and b) I didn’t want a stranger in my house someone seeing how bad I was at cleaning. As I loathingly cleaned up after myself and my dogs, I often wondered what it would be like to have someone else do it for me.

Having completed several housesits around the world I now know the truth about cleaners. Namely that some of them are evil soul-suckers who hate freelancers or people who work from home. My experiences with some of these people has meant that I’ll never want to have a cleaner of my own. Here’s why.

Evil Cleaner Number One: Munich, Germany

We were housesitting newbies and this was our first ever encounter with a cleaner. It was also the cleaner’s first encounter with someone who didn’t live in the house. She was Romanian and spoke very little German and no English, which meant that she didn’t like us right off the bat because she couldn’t communicate with us (read: tell us how annoying we were). As the house was in the middle of nowhere, we couldn’t leave while she was there, meaning that we constantly felt as though we were in her way. She would slam the vacuum cleaner around and unplug our computers as we were working on them and generally make us feel very uncomfortable. Every time we moved to a different room, she would follow us in there and start cleaning just to make a point.

Evil Cleaner Number Two: Amsterdam, Netherlands

Our second housesit and again, another foreign cleaner who didn’t like us as soon as she met us. This one also had a loathing fear of dogs, meaning that she refused to enter the house or clean unless the dogs were crated. Pretty sure she would have had us stay in a crate while she was there too, if she could. We once had to spend the morning hiding from her in the bedroom while she cleaned. She never even knew we were in the house. She would spend the entire time chatting on the phone to her friends and generally just “tidy” things instead of properly cleaning. She would also arrive at different times every week, so we could never plan when to be out of the house.

Evil Cleaner Number Three: Zihuatanejo, Mexico

Over in Mexico, the land of friendly people, we assumed we would have no problem with cleaners. Wrong. The lady at our housesit in Zihuatanejo seemed to dislike that we couldn’t speak much Spanish and used to try and clean up around us as we were working or eating our breakfast (ok, maybe she didn’t like the fact that we’re lazy and hadn’t finished breakfast by the time she arrived). The only time she talked to us was when she caught a scorpion in the living room and came to show it to us. I appreciated the gesture but please, get that spiny, potentially lethal thing away from me.

Kinda Evil Cleaner Number Four: Amsterdam, Netherlands

Back in Amsterdam, this time a different house. The cleaners here were actually quite nice although they looked like they had just stepped out of high school (which is probably what the previous cleaners had thought about us). The problem was that they would clean for HOURS. The guy even remade beds and tidied away the dog toys, to the point where I actually felt guilty. Guilt is yet another reason why I don’t like being around while the cleaner is there, despite having usually cleaned the house top-to-toe myself before they get there so that we don’t “look bad”.

Evil Cleaner Number Five: Brussels, Belgium

This wasn’t a housesit but an apartment we were renting. However, the girl that owned it had a cleaner that came once a week who she wanted us to keep on, as the apartment was very new and contained a lot of white furniture which needed regular cleaning. We were happy to oblige, but were told in no uncertain terms that we MUST be out of the house when the cleaner was there. What exactly was this cleaner up to that she wouldn’t work if that stipulation wasn’t upheld? Begrudgingly we would tredge out to a bar with wifi to get some work done (and maybe drink some beer, so it wasn’t too bad after all) and come back a few hours later. Apart from the week she just didn’t turn up. We had gone out and spent money just to leave the house free for her and she never even turned up, so we ended up cleaning the place ourselves anyway. Annoying.

Despite all of these evil and short-tempered cleaners, we have actually come across a couple who have been nice and very accepting of the fact that we don’t vacate the house during the day like their employers do. But I’ve had just too many experiences with crazies to know that I wouldn’t want one in my house. I’d rather vacuum all the dust under the furniture, like normal people do.