I Hired a Professional Cleaner for My Home

My experience, thoughts, and feelings about someone else cleaning my home.

Yes, TikTok inspired me.

And no, it wasn’t an ad.

For those of you who don’t know, I live in Los Angeles, and things are pretty hectic over here with work, creative life, and social life.

I’ve been trying my best for over 5 years to keep my 2-bedroom apartment clean and intact, but I’m not a professional cleaner.

I grew up in a rich household. Yes, a rich one. Sorry if anyone is offended by that, but I was a “nepo baby” in where I come from.

So, not in the US. Don’t worry! Here, I am struggling…

But growing up, we had professional cleaners all the time, and our house was spotless at all times.

When I moved to a rental home during college, that’s when I started to learn how to clean and keep my place clean.

But since my home was extra clean throughout my childhood, I got obsessed with keeping things neat.

Soon, I realized there’s no way to keep things clean if you’re also living in that space. At least, not to my very high standards.

I can’t clean the home every day with my workload… And I couldn’t clean the home all the time with my crazy study load back in college when I was studying engineering.

After moving to Los Angeles, I tried to lower my standards. Here, it gets really dusty, and we talk about this with my friends all the time.

You vacuum your house one day; then it gets dusty again the next day. You clean your balcony one day; it gets spiders and webs everywhere the next day.

At some point, I’m sorry, but you give up… It doesn’t mean you don’t clean, but you say, “fine, I’ll just clean every week or every 2 weeks as much as I can, but I’m not gonna kill myself over it.”

So, that doesn’t mean deep cleaning. The walls and corners start accumulating some dust, too.

Who cleans their walls? Especially in a rental apartment… Anyway.

I saw this TikTok video at the beginning of January, where this girl, younger than me so in her early 20s, was talking about how people judge her for hiring a cleaning service for her home.

She said that it costs her about $150 per session, and this lady comes every 2 weeks for deep cleaning.

That sounded pretty reasonable to me, but I thought about how I already considered hiring a professional cleaner before. I just didn’t know how it would be in the US.

Can I trust them?

Would they steal stuff?

Would they do a good job?

And most importantly, would they shoot me or kidnap me? Because, you know, guns are allowed in the US, and human trafficking is common.

So, as I was thinking about whether to look for a professional cleaner, I might’ve manifested it because the next morning, I found a card at my front door for a professional cleaning lady.

I’d usually ignore these cards immediately. There are a lot of scams and weird businesses leaving cards. But this one was pink and cute, so I took it.

I planned to call her for at least 2 weeks because I couldn’t find the courage to call her, but when I finally did, she sounded like a sweet lady with an accent.

And yes, an accent usually means safe to me. I have an accent myself, and all my close friends do, too. In LA, it’s a code for, “Hey, I’m just trying to get by and make it here.”

But I didn’t just depend on the accent, of course. I asked her to provide me with some references and places where she works as a professional cleaner so I could check in with those people.

You won’t believe it when I say that one of the phone numbers she gave me turned out to be someone I know, living in my building. I know them because we both have dogs, and our dogs play around whenever they come across each other.

He said that this lady had been cleaning his place every 2 weeks for over 7 years and that he was very happy with her. She deep cleans everywhere, makes it spotless, washes the sheets, does his laundry, etc.

After talking to him on the phone, I immediately knew I could trust this person, so I called her over to see how it went.

As I type this, she’s here doing a wonderful job, and my house has never been this clean. Finally, someone is using every single cleaning supply I bought over the years and making everything shine.

I remembered the TikTok video this girl made about hiring a cleaning lady and how people judge her for spending money on someone to clean her home.

But this TikToker went on to explain that everyone spends their money differently, and it’s their choice, based on their priorities.

For her, being clean is important and a priority. Sure, she could do it herself, but why waste time when she can invest $300 a month for a professional cleaner to do a better job than her and keep her house spotless?

Since we are two people living in this apartment, it will be $150 a month on my end. It’s pretty reasonable, and honestly, the professional cleaner I hired is asking for less than she deserves for the amazing work that she’s doing.

I do wish that someday, I can give her tips and surprises when I earn more than my necessary expenses. That’s my goal in life.

Earn more.

Give back more.

Make people happy.

Thank you for reading this piece. ❤

What do you think about getting your house professionally cleaned or hiring people to help you out around the house?

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