Do you still have maid coming in?

[troutnut1]

We figure there is only two ways to get Covid 19. You can go out and pick it up. Or you can have it delivered.

 

[harllee]

Who cares? Live your life!

Or catch Covid from your housekeeper and possibly end your life.

 

[imnontrad]

I have been thinking of STARTING a cleaning service. My reasons are that I hate to clean and I figure that the people who do this service really need the money.

 

[HMMY]

We've had the same cleaning lady for 20 years. We continued to pay her weekly not to come from March through mid-August. She used to clean when we were all at work/school. Now that everyone is working remotely, we vacate the house when she cleans. We go to the park. Not sure what we'll do when it's dark and cold outside. If our city resumes shelter-in-place, we will tell her not to come and continue to pay her until the shelter-in-place order is lifted. We feel privileged that we can afford to do this.

 

[rk911]

Curious, we have had the same woman for years. She is like family every two weeks now.

She has been wearing a mask as have we and only cleans with the supplies in our house. That said, we are not her only customers and of course cannot control who and what she is doing away from us.

As higher risk people we are approaching windows closed season, thus far they have been wide open.

DW and me are both so torn right now what to do. My back issues making cleaning a chore and she is the one luxury I have always said I would sacrifice other expenses for.

yup...still having her in every two weeks. she doesn't require us to wear a mask and vice-versa. she uses her own cleaning supplies. we've always pretty much stayed out of her way while she's here and that, too, has not changed. as long as she is willing this will comtinue.

 

[Rambler]

We’ve never had a maid service. We were discussing it and looking to find someone early this year, but before we made the decision to hire someone, Covid made it for us. Our new to us (two years ago) home is much larger than the one we left in CA, and our interest in doing things we no longer enjoy has diminished, so once Covid is over enough to consider a service again, we plan to. And, we are going to downsize, to just a tad smaller than the home we left behind, in about two years (wait listed for a new home to be built). All of that said, the cleaning we will request will be things like floors, baseboards, dusting, ceiling fans, bathrooms, etc. We’ll do our own laundry and dishes. But we’ll have a pro do the stove hood.

 

[bhoferp]

I have a cleaning lady come once every month or two, whenever things start to get out of hand. I wear a mask when I have to be close to her (like when I let her in). We stay on a different floor from her. I run an air purifier on the level we spend most of the day for hours before she comes and after she leaves. She cleans that level first and then we stay there until well after she leaves. I also run the fan on the furnace nonstop. She uses her own cleaning supplies. I always “clear the decks” before she cleans. That reduces the time she is in our house (and reduces the cost). Unlike a lot of you, I have always preferred to be here while she cleans, but she does seem trustworthy. She told me yesterday that she gets tested weekly for COVID, using pop-up testing sites provided free by the county. Not perfect, but it’s the best I can figure out, and it really lifts my spirits to have a clean house.

 

[jasg]

This gave us pause...

In an April interview with The Harvard Gazette, University President Lawrence S. Bacow recounted his reaction upon finding out that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 on March 24: “Well, we’d been very, very careful, and I was a little bit surprised, in truth, because Adele and I had not seen anyone except each other for close to ten days before we started experiencing symptoms. We were completely isolated in the house,” Bacow said.

But the Bacows had not, in fact, been isolated in their house. They had continued to invite two Harvard custodians to clean their home for four hours, twice a week, well into the first wave of the pandemic. Bacow resides in Elmwood, the traditional home of University presidents.

According to one of these custodians, Diana, who spoke under condition of anonymity, the last day they cleaned the Bacow residence was March 19, ten days after the University announced it was shutting down and three days before the Bacows began experiencing symptoms.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/11/7/free-fall/

 

[REWahoo]

^ This is why we take a drive, eat lunch, spend some time in the RV and otherwise occupy ourselves with something outside the house when our housecleaner visits us every two weeks. I even expanded our wi-fi network to reach the RV so we could stream Netflix while the house gets cleaned.

 

[harllee]

For those of you who still have housekeepers coming in your house how long do you stay out of the house after the housekeeper leave? Doesn't the virus droplets stay in the air for 3 hours or so?

 

[REWahoo]

For those of you who still have housekeepers coming in your house how long do you stay out of the house after the housekeeper leave? Doesn't the virus droplets stay in the air for 3 hours or so?

We're usually back in the house about an hour after she finishes. According to the calculator found here, that should be enough time form more than 90% of any airborne Covid to decay. Your timing may differ based on sunlight, temp and humidity.

 

[harllee]

We're usually back in the house about an hour after she finishes. According to the calculator found here, that should be enough time form more than 90% of any airborne Covid to decay. Your timing may differ based on sunlight, temp and humidity.

I can understand how temperature and humidity could affect the airborne virus inside the house but I con't understand how sunlight would affect the virus inside the house (unless maybe you had real large windows with no window coverings).

 

[REWahoo]

I can understand how temperature and humidity could affect the airborne virus inside the house but I con't understand how sunlight would affect the virus inside the house (unless maybe you had real large windows with no window coverings).

Agreed. I used a very low UV index (1), a temp of 74 and humidity of 40% to get a 90% decay rate after 53 minutes. That's why we are comfortable with waiting an hour before returning.

 

[SpinDoctorTX]

OP, DH promised me the Jetson home when we married 18 years ago- didn't happen! We had a wonderful housekeeper until I retired at 56. I kept her on until after DH's 70th B-Day 9 mos later. By then, I knew how much I hate the gym (always did), so I took most of it on. It's a large part of my calorie expenditures.

It's really hard to know- about any thing- what the best course of action is these days. We err on the side of caution in general, but it seems you do need someone to come in & help.

 

[meekie]

We haven't had ours come back. We have 2 high risk and one moderately high risk people in our household and are being very cautious. We're also all out of work right now, so we setup a daily schedule for housecleaning so it can be broken up into 10-15 minute sessions per day.

 

[rk911]

For those of you who still have housekeepers coming in your house how long do you stay out of the house after the housekeeper leave? Doesn't the virus droplets stay in the air for 3 hours or so?

we remain in the house while she cleans. we're normally in a different room while she cleans which was our practice way before the virus became a thing. we do it not out of fear but to stay out of her way.

 

[Milton]

Way too easy for someone to pocket a small knickknack, without my noticing till it's too late to complain/accuse. Unless I go behind them every single time, checking every display cabinet.

Think of it as a painless way to de-clutter.