Tweet

Doing household chores is a tough job especially when one has to take care of the kids, go to work and attend to husband and in-laws. In such a case, hiring a housekeeper (partial or full time) is a sensible decision. But shelling out a good amount to get additional help is not enough, one must keep a check on the chores the maid does around the house in order to ensure that the money is put to a better use. 

Cleaning and Mopping
Cleaning floors, mopping bathrooms, shampooing carpets and scrubbing toilets are the things that are taken care of by the maids. A dirty doorstep often symbolizes dirty insides, henceforth, one should make it clear to the maid to clean thoroughly especially the high traffic areas. Ask her to pay extra heed to specific areas such as under the furniture and corners of the house and shampoo carpets once every month, scrub hard surfaces twice a week to make them shine etc.

Dusting
While cleaning and washing are the crucial chores, one can`t ignore dusting and since it can take forever to sprinkle those tiny particles from the household items, one has to schedule time for that as well. Ask the maid to spruce up the hard to clean objects such as furniture, TV, CD/DVD players, speakers and computers every day and fans, window frames, staircase railings and refrigerators weekly. Since all these tasks are long-drawn-out and time consuming, it is important to allow her to manage her time. On the days of weekly dusting errands, the maid should be asked not to do the daily dusting jobs.

Laundry
As far as laundry is concerned, one can wash clothes on her own and ask the maid to launder bedsheets, pillow cases, towels, curtains, furniture coverings and other things that are hard to clean. One should specify a day in the week for laundry and focus on any of the above mentioned articles one after another. If one focuses on having the maid do regular laundry, it may bring troubles as the maid will feel overburdened. 

Cooking
Despite the fact that one loves to cook, time constraints make it impossible. And if the maid is there to cook for the family, one should keep a few things in consideration like laying out cleanliness and hygienic measures. Gently yet firmly inform the maid how food needs to be cooked – amount of oil and ghee to be used, ingredients to be used and avoided and what not to include in the meals, if a family member has a condition like diabetes, high blood pressure and others. In addition to that, don`t ask her to cook two or three kinds of meals – simply allow to make moderate changes to the same food as per different tastes and requirements of the family members.

Tipping
Tipping is of utmost significance when it comes to keeping the maids happy. Tipping her does not mean giving her money every once in while because that may spoil her. Think of tips as the employee benefits in the corporate world. One should show her gratitude by buying clothes for the maid around the festivals. Give her some money and/or mithai on special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, when the kids passed with good marks and others. These little gestures will retain the maid and motivate her to do a good job further as well.

 

Tags : Women, maids, Laundry, cleaning, mopping, cooking