cleaning service.... average prices?

Im seriously thinking of hiring a cleaning service to come to my house once a week. With school full time, and a full time job, and my husband working a full time job... i find it almost impossible to do the cleaning as thorough as id like. I barely manage to keep things picked up and maybe vacuum and mop once a week. Of course all the pets take up time to!!! But that is something i enjoy doing and would not want to pass it off to a cleaning service.. [acronym:bc735c80b8="Laughing out loud"]LOL[/acronym:bc735c80b8].

Anyway, basically I am wondering if any of yall use a cleaning service/maid service and what is an average price that i would be looking at?
Thanks!

[rich311k]

We pay are cleaning women 12.00/hour. She is here about 6 hours every Friday.

[greenfish]

We have a cleaning service that come every other Monday. We pay $80 a visit. It really helps!

[Fishyfanatic]

Every other Thursday a woman comes by and cleans at my moms house for $60. She is there from about 9:00 AM till 3:00 PM. So I guess that's $10 an hour.

[sudz]

Every Thursday, and its 60 bucks canadian. She's really become more of a friend though. We sit down and have tea with her for a few hours, she looks forward to coming, and dedicates the whole day, though once "tea time" is over, shes done in about 3 or 4 hours. If you can, interview the person your going to be using first. Ours has become a good friend of the family (went to christmas dinner over with her family last saturday) and she has the keys to the house, incase we're not home.

I think 60 bucks a pop for a 2400 sq foot home is about average in ontario. Probably more downtown toronto, i imagine

Thanks everyone... i found out a lot of services around here charge my square foot/number of rooms... stuff like that. It's nice to get an idea of what price i will be looking at. Even if i just had someone to come once or twice a month to do the deep cleaning, i think it will help a ton.

Don't they usually bring all of their own equipment? will they be using my mop,broom, vaccum cleaner? It doesn't matter of course, just wonding ...

[Fishyfanatic]

The cleaning woman that my mother uses brings some of her own stuff. She uses their central vac, rags, and supplies (such as Dawn, Pledge, and Windex). But she brings her own mop, broom, and dusters because she prefers hers over my parents. She also has some of her own supplies that she uses but she will then recommend to my parents that they buy the same stuff. I think that may be why its a little big cheaper since their cleaning woman does not have to buy the standard stuff like Windex and Pledge.

well i called some places today and most just had like answering machines so i left my name and number. I only got a hold of ONE and they said it would be between "130-200" for the initial visit and then between "80-120" for each visit after that.
That seems a bit steep for only an 1100 square foot townhouse
Hopefully some of the other places will return my call and i will get a cheaper quote.

[Fishyfanatic]

Unless you live in an upscale town, I would think that price is high. Hopefully you'll find someone that is cheaper.

Originally Posted by Fishyfanatic

Unless you live in an upscale town, I would think that price is high. Hopefully you'll find someone that is cheaper.

Unfortunately i live right by The Villages wich is one of Florida's Largest retirement communities.. http://www.thevillages.com/index2.htm

I would consider where i live Middle Class, but becuase so many of these cleaning companies do a LOT of work in The Villages... i fear that they have skyrocketed their prices.. and they can afford to becuase these Older people will pay it. I mean, if they can Offord to have 2 homes and live down herre for the winter and up north for the summer... well lets just say prices have gone up since the villages has grown bigger.