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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   2085 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for April 5, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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What does TheMotte think about hiring a home cleaning service? There are a few wrinkles I consider when hiring a monthly or bimonthly cleaning service:

  1. I am very cheap and hate spending any discretionary income on anything, let alone a cleaning service.

  2. I have it in my head that I will buck up and actually clean the bathroom, but I've been living in my apartment a year and hardly ever do. (I've had cleaning services come by so it's not like my bathroom is completely disgusting).

Number 2 conflicts heavily with number 1 and causes me guilt. I feel like cleaning my house (really the bathroom) is something I should do without paying for a service, but I find it to be something I never get around to doing. So I'm pretty much at the point where I'm going to throw in the towel and schedule a monthly cleaning service. It's not cheap, $160 for a one bedroom apartment, but clearly I can't handle this chore myself.

I'm laughing as I write this post because it's so ridiculous, but here I am.

$160 for a one bedroom apartment

This seems almost cartoonishly expensive. You can get it for a lot cheaper by negotiating with a cleaning lady directly.

It is cartoonishly expensive. Bay Area living.

If you make more than $100k, it's your civic, rational, economic, and social duty to do so.

You have skills that are valuable in the economy. Many people do not in the modern world. Cleaning your bathroom out of some misplaced sense of personal duty is inefficient, and depriving people of their livelihood whose highest and best skill is cleaning bathrooms.

All those stoic philosophers we admire who talk about personal responsibility? Had servants who cleaned for them. Yes including the one who was himself a slave, most likely.

People say it's a moral failing not to clean for yourself have it precisely backward.

Highly recommend.

We got a cleaner after having children and can’t look back now. It’s materially increased the amount of free time my wife and I have to spend together while eliminating a range of unpleasant tasks.

Furthermore, we’ve built up a lovely relationship with our cleaners. Our toddler is always excited to see them come through the door and conversations can occasionally provide a fascinating insight into normie-land.

What does TheMotte think about hiring a home cleaning service?

It's not a signifier of high-income for no reason- people actually do like not having to worry about it. Just like cooking, when it's something that requires a lot of time to prep and contaminates the entire kitchen it's often more efficient (and tastier!) to choose an industrial kitchen- but a bit more niche and personal.

I just clean whenever I'm entertaining or when it gets to the point that it annoys me (usually a symptom of an underlying mechanical problem, like the sink or tub failing to drain). If it's not annoying me and I'm not worried about anyone seeing it, then there's no problem and am confused as to why it would be.

High income? Every middle class person I know uses cleaning services. Hell, many working class people I know use them too.

It is cheap and saves you from having to do a tedious activity, why wouldn't you buy this service?

If it helps on point 1., you might be able to get it for cheaper? I don't know about the US, but here in London I'd expect to pay less than half that to clean a one-bed apartment. (Maybe we're all just Europoors?)

Ya in my neck of the woods you can get a non-corporate cleaner to come in for like $30 an hour -- 2-3 hours seems like it would be plenty for a pro to clean a one bedroom?

I don't see any reason to feel guilty or embarrassed. Cleaning sucks. If I was on a middle class income I would absolutely pay someone else to do it.

We just hired a turkish cleaner woman for our 100m² apartment. She also works for family, so there's some level of trust, but it's still a form of capitulation versus our inability to handle this ourselves.

Still, better than living in a mess, I guess.

If you don't mind stuff getting stolen/missing or being misplaced, go ahead. I would just set aside a day and do the cleaning yourself: save money and peace of mind.

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