27 April 2009

Ich habe eine Putzfrau!

I am a relatively meticulous housekeeper and like to keep things tidy and clean. But since Global Baby's arrival, that has become increasingly difficult to do.

Before GB's arrival I generally spent about 5 hours a week cleaning the house with a thorough cleaning every season.

I just plain don't have that time any more. But I was reluctant to find a house cleaner (Putzfrau). Partially because I felt weird having someone clean up after us. Partially because I wasn't certain how to deal with the logistics of finding one. And partially because I would hate to pay someone a lot of money and have them not clean as well as I do when I have time. 

Not to mention that I dreaded not being able to speak with them as most cleaners in Switzerland have German as a second language and tend not to speak English. Two non-German speakers stumbling over the language? Bad idea.

GLH took the decision out of my hands. He knew how it upset me to not have a very clean house, especially now that GB is crawling, and announced he would arrange it all.

And he did! Or rather, his assistant did.

Frau C starts Monday morning. She's from Germany, so speaks Hoch Deutsch (more language practice for me!) And it was all arranged through an agency, so we don't have to figure out all the various employments laws, liability insurance or anything else I was dreading we would have to figure out. We just pay the agency and they deal with it all.

Yeah!!!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whoo hoo!

Jennifer said...

Yeah, I left the logistics up to my husband too. We went through an organization called Fairness at Work - they take care of all the legals including ensuring the employee can legally work.

Anonymous said...

I'm so jealous! If you ever want to feel good about your house just come to one where both parents work 11 hours per day and are only home together on Sundays. Wait- what am I thinking- I'm at work catching up almost every Sunday.

It's wierd how being at home doesn't help either. When I was home on maternity leave I was convinced that there was something wrong with our house- like we had a ghost messing things up behind my back. I told Tom all I did was wipe butts, noses, counters and floors!

Good job Fred! Claire

Anonymous said...

I am like you - clean meticulously every week, used to have a cleaning lady but haven't in a couple of years because she did not do the same job i did... One word of advice - from the very first day you must be very specific about what you want done and how you want it done, if you wait - it will be more difficult and uncomfortable to change what she is already doing (example - my cleaning lady would mop the living room and kitchen floor without changing the water and after she left I would notice the apt did not smell as good as it should - realized the water was not clean and when I asked her to change it in the middle of the job, she got offended). Good luck and Congratulations on your beautiful son.
Ariele (NY)