I’m the type of person who never asks for help. I don’t know why, perhaps I was raised to be independent, or maybe I’m just happy doing things the way I do them. Lately though cleaning our house has been a completely nerve-wracking experience. With a 5-month-old and a 4-year-old at home with me, basically 24/7, I feel like every chance I get to clean is glorious but then I turn around and there’s a mess 3x bigger than the mess I just cleaned up. Sometimes I picture myself embodying Einstein’s definition of insanity (“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”). But as Billy Joel says, “I may be crazy, but (I just might be the) lunatic you’re looking for”. Ok, I changed that last quote a bit.
I’d love to start hosting guests again. While being on modified bed rest for most of my pregnancy, and being outside of our eruv for almost a year, it’s been pretty lonely and I really do miss having guests. But sometimes I also never feel like I will ever have a house fit to host. Let’s be honest though, some of the best places to go to, whether it be for Shabbos lunch or whatever, are the places that are in some sort of chaos. And I never judge the condition of someone’s house, just my own. And I hope I’m not the only non-judgemental person out there. So I don’t know what I am so worried about. This I think maybe a whole other post of its own, which I’ll save for later.
Anyway, my point is, I’ve been wanting to try Amazon House Cleaning services for a while. So I finally just told myself over and over again that I TOTALLY deserve this. And I did it. Here are my thoughts.
Signing up is super simple. You pick 3-time slots/days that will work for you, in order of your preference. The first time I signed up they actually picked my 3rd time slot, and I had to reschedule because I wasn’t thinking about the logistics of having our 4-year-old out of the house while they clean. But rescheduling was also super easy.
One of the reasons I went with Amazon this time, besides wanting to see what it was about, was that it was actually cheaper than the other people in our neighborhood. Plus it’s Amazon, so I figured if they were horrible, Amazon’s amazing customer service would step in and make it all better.
The night before the cleaning, the cleaner texted me and asked if they could come earlier than the time agreed on. Which honestly kind of made me mad because I felt a little weird saying no. And the way they worded it seemed a little rude. But after thinking about it, I figured if they came earlier they could be done earlier which was a plus. So we actually settled on a time in between.
When they showed up, they were super nice. I opened the door to a smiling face and I wanted to cry and hug her. “Thank you for coming to clean my house…*tears of joy*”. But they also didn’t speak a word of English, except “dog”, which I know because when I was trying to mime that our giant dog was in the back room and that he would not kill them if they did not open the door. The guy repeated “dog”, nodded and smiled.
Funny story, thanks to this whole experience, I now know about google translate. So crazy this time we live in. (And my theory is that this is why the text the night before sounded a little heartless.)
Me walking into my clean house. LOL
Anyway… 2 people showed up. They brought their own cleaning supplies. I had signed up for the deep cleaning plus cleaning of the oven, fridge, and inside cupboards. I believe I saw somewhere on Amazon that this should take about 8 hours. They ended up staying 4.5 hours, which with 2 people is actually 9 hours. They worked the whole time (I was home because I had nowhere better to go this day). But there was a lot of stuff that Amazon said would be done but was not done. Which I was not so happy about, but honestly I don’t think I can blame the cleaner. I think maybe they really needed more time. Or maybe I just have really high cleaning expectations. Plus this was a pretty cheap cleaning for Seattle so I did not feel like I could complain. Before they left they actually gave me their business card and told me they could do the same cleaning again for even cheaper than going through Amazon.
All in all, I think next time I need a deep cleaning I would use the cleaner a friend has recommended to me. Because I used them a couple of times for Pesach cleaning and they did an amazing job, exceeding all expectations.
But if I need basic cleaning and need it last minute, I would totally use Amazon again. Amazon cleaners are selected based on previous customer experience, go through a comprehensive background check, and they are required to have any necessary insurance and trade licenses. Plus since it’s through Amazon, a huge company, I trust them and I assume that any issues would be resolved quickly.
Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think!