Cleaning Ladies

Does anyone in this forum use a cleaning lady? I used to have one but when she suddenly quit on me two years ago I didnt bother to replace her and have since cleaned my apartment myself. Yes it takes 3-4 hours a week but I find it therapeutic to do all that cleaning and tidying up.

Anyway yesterday I had gone to visit a friend who just bought a new apartment. Its a beautiful two bedroom space which features innovative and stylish design features. Before moving into the place my friend decided to have it painted and the floors sanded and stained a lighter shade. The work was just finished last week and she had asked a common friends cleaners to come in and do the clean up. The cleaners said they would come in and check the place and then charge her $70-80 for the job as they charge the common friend $60 for a two bedroom in Brooklyn. My friend explained to them that the place was dusty and she would be willing to pay more if need be. I was over at her place when the cleaners came in yesterday at first they marveled at the apartment and then they started to haggle about price saying it was a lot of work etc..

My friend increased her offer to $125 for the two of them that would have been $62.50 a piece for a three hour job at the rate of $20 an hour which is quite fair but they wanted more i.e. $80-100 a piece. Luckily for my friend a cleaning lady who had cleaned her apartment prior to the painting and floor work had just called her asking for more work and she knew she could fall back on her if need be. So she asked the haggling cleaners to leave as that was her final offer, before leaving one of the cleaners came up to us and said he would love to do the work but he was helpless as his partner was the boss.

This afternoon, my friend called me to tell me that her old cleaner had done the cleaning this morning. It had taken her the estimated three hours to do the work and my friend had given her $125 even though the cleaning lady had been happy to accept $100. I was a bit amazed at this story. The recession is still on and there are so many people out of work yet there are folk who are willing to forgo a job which pays decent money unless there terms are met. I dont think my friend was looking to exploit the cleaners at $200 what they were asking she could have got a professional cleaning company to come in and do the job. Here she was paying cash and even then she had to deal with attitude. Quite surprising to say the least.