I was 21 when I first met Maria, my cleaner and life organiser. I’d just moved to London and having had enough of cleaning rotas in previous flatshares, agreed with my new flatmate that we should split the cost of a weekly spruce of our communal areas, such as the kitchen, living room and bathroom.
Maria was brilliant and her presence meant we never had to bicker over who had left dishes in the sink, or whose turn it was to take the bins out.My bedroom on the other hand was less harmonious. I used to spend Saturdays trying to sort out the mess my room had descended into over the course of the week, but always failed to get on top of it. There were piles of clothes – both clean and half-worn on the bed. My bedside table was covered in mugs. And the floor was nowhere to be seen – under notebooks, packets of baby wipes, and general junk.So one week, I tentatively asked Maria if I she was open to me paying her to tidy my bedroom, and putting the dried washing away. She was keen and, to my surprise, took 30 minutes to do what had taken me hours. I still remember the relief coursing through my system when I saw my bedroom floor no longer the site of an obstacle course, and my bed made. I guess you could say that was the moment I became addicted to her – and she’s been cleaning up after me ever since.
Maria began suggest things she could organise – detangling wires, fundamentals I’d not yet mastered like making sure every object had “a place”. When I came home to a clean bedroom each week during the chaos of my early twenties, I felt like I had a fresh start at life.
That said, I often avoided mentioning I had a cleaner to my friends and family. When I did mention Maria, my dad would tut disapprovingly, which I can understand. My parents came to the UK to flee a civil war, and I was out here hiring an immigrant to Febreze my bedroom. An ex looked like he’d quite like the ground to swallow him up when I mentioned Maria would be over while we worked from home in the living room. Nothing elicits more middle-class guilt than being sat down while your cleaner hoovers around your feet.
I definitely used to feel embarrassed – even though I only bought clothes from a charity shop so I could afford Maria. I felt grubby – both literally and morally during Covid, when Twitter went beserk over #cleanergate – there was outrage not only over people hiring cleaners during Covid, but at the idea of anyone hiring a cleaner in general. Paying other people, particularly women, to scrub your toilet was seen as classist and un-feminist. I didn’t entirely agree – and it didn’t seem like Maria would be better off by me telling her I didn’t need her ever again.
It’s not that I don’t realise it’s a huge privilege to be able to afford a cleaner, but I also no longer feel shame over having a cleaner. As I’ve grown older, I’m more accepting of myself and my imperfections, and the idea that outsourcing things I’m less good at doesn’t make me lazy or incapable.
Maria has changed my life – and probably saved it: “Pravvy” she suggested once, “it’s not a good idea to clean out your water bottle with bleach”. She has found things I thought were lost to a parallel universe. From our WhatsApp message history I can tell you these include but were not restricted to: prescriptions, bra tape, important letters – and many lone socks.
These days, I tidy up after myself automatically far more, and Maria comes over fortnightly rather than weekly. But 10 years on from our first meeting, Maria is now a second mum to me. In a way, she knows me more intimately than anyone – no-one else has spent as much time in my bedroom, or sifted through my possessions.
She delivers home truths, too. One time she told my flatmate and me that when we finished our house party, we should assess the damage and text her so she’d know how many hours to set aside for a clean the next day. She was unimpressed that I messaged at 4am, but not for the reasons you think: “My husband and I laughed when we saw your message – our parties go on far later than that.” “Did our cleaner just call us lame?”, my flatmate asked. Another occurred after she spotted a new dress hanging in my wardrobe with its price tag on. She casually mentioned on the way out “by the way, that dress is not worth £40”.
Why should hiring a cleaner be seen as a moral failing? People act as though you’re getting someone to clean after you for free, or giving money to an aggressive corporation – rather than someone who could do with the money. People pay for dog walkers and therapists, and for some poor sod to wax their bikini line.
Hiring a cleaner so I don’t walk around with odd socks seems pretty harmless to me.
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