Value & worth

[FoxEye]

Straight question: do you live at home with your mum?

Why don't you try asking me if I do housework instead? I'd say that's a more appropriate question.

Because I could swap "Mum" for "wife" and the question would still remain.

It's not uncommon for men to leave the housework to their wives.

So in either circumstance you should ask me if I do the housework.

 

[The_Abyss]

Maybe I should join the millennials and hire someone to wipe my butt, clean my teeth, bathe me. Whilst I spend my oh-so-valuable time Tweeting about Facebook posts on my waterproof phone.

Frankly I don't care about what Mags and Abyss do. I just couldn't hire someone to clean my house for me. I'd consider that a dereliction of my own duties. Either I clean up after myself, or I live in filth, or somewhere in between. Getting someone else to clean my messes is... what's the word... not "cheating" but a sentiment somewhere between cheating and dereliction of duty as said.

As kids our parents always used to say to us, "If you make a mess you clean it up." As adults paying someone to clean up after me would really feel like I was escaping the consequences of my actions unfairly.

Call it a hang-up if you like. I can't be the only one here who feels like that?

Having said that, I read today that something like 50% of 20-30 year olds now pay cleaners to do the housework. 50%. That surprised me.

The first part of this post suggests that you're more interested in making a point rather than having a sensible discussion, but this is GD so that can be indulged.

Let's put the hypothetical question back to you instead. You're a high revenue earner (sometimes a top revenue earner, so you have a couple of Gucci belts). You are more than capable of earning £100 an hour, but to do so takes up a lot of your time so your free time is really valuable to you - you have some amazing hobbies and like to relax doing them. Do you:

a) pay a cleaner £20 a week to keep your house clean and free up your discretionary time
b) spend two hours a week from your discretionary time and clean your own house
c) pancake (I think we'd both agree that we'd be cooking this ourself)

In this hypothetical position, I'd consider it a dereliction or failure of basic common sense to select option b. Option c is just kicking the can down the road, with a tasty twist.

As a comparison, I thought about gardening while typing this. I sort of get on with gardening - some of it I enjoy and some I don't. My wife loves all of it, and we do it together so we don't get anyone to help us with this at all. Except when there's something significant required, such as last year when we needed to fell two trees. This would have taken me at least a weekend, probably more with disposal of all the mess. Instead for £200 I went to work and came back to a garden with two fewer trees in it, and some nice wood to age and try and work with in the future. The trees were my responsibility, but was this cheating? I was capable of doing the job, albeit nowhere near as capable as a professional gardener.

 

[FoxEye]

Are the Gucci belts secured in a locked wardrobe, or has the cleaner been security checked so I can be sure the Gucci belts won't be stolen?

In any case it's b) or d) live in my own filth (until (b) seems like the better option)

I was just reading a Sun article (I think ranks slightly above the Daily Mail), where a married mum said the best thing about hiring a cleaner was "not having to make my bed or take the bins out - I couldn't stomach those jobs".

Does that not sound to you like we're going soft in the head? The Russians won't have any problem invading Britain in the next decade or so If we can't stomach emptying bins I don't think we'll be put up much resistance.

 

[The_Abyss]

Fair enough, we're just very different then. If you're living in **** and have the means to get out of it but choose not to - your choice.

My cleaner is in every fortnight, so clearly I'm quite happy to make my bed and do the bins (I do my neighbours bins, and garden too). Oh and yes, the cleaner is DBS checked (I know her and her company well anyway).

Maybe stop reading The Sun and putting any substance, value or judgement on the content.

 

[FoxEye]

Fair enough, we're just very different then. If you're living in **** and have the means to get out of it but choose not to - your choice.

My cleaner is in every fortnight, so clearly I'm quite happy to make my bed and do the bins (I do my neighbours bins, and garden too). Oh and yes, the cleaner is DBS checked (I know her and her company well anyway).

Maybe stop reading The Sun and putting any substance, value or judgement on the content.

Perhaps for some people it's economics.

I'd wager there are at least as many that just don't want to do it (don't feel they should have to do it), and will spend the "free" time watching TV instead of hobbies or working extra hours or...

Hey, it's not my place to tell others what to do. If I stray across that line then anyone has every right to tell me to **** off. I'm just saying what would and wouldn't work for me.

 

[Blackjack Davy]

This just seems fundamentally wrong to me

Like it's one step away from paying somebody to wipe your arse because you've got better things to do than take care of that...

Disabled people having stuff done for them is fine. Able bodied people who just don't want to tidy up their own messes? I can't dig that.

You don't want to keep your own home tidy so you pay someone else to do it for you?

Just strikes me as fundamentally wrong.

Why? If you're rich enough to employ someone to wipe your arse (and Kings of England had a "Gentleman of the Privy Stool" to do exactly that) then why wouldn't you? I can't afford someone to wipe my arse, clean my place or even wash the car but if I could afford it why not? Who are you to deny those people their jobs? They might be desperate to earn the money! Sounds pretty selfish to me.

 

[FoxEye]

Why? If you're rich enough to employ someone to wipe your arse (and Kings of England had a "Gentleman of the Privy Stool" to do exactly that) then why wouldn't you? I can't afford someone to wipe my arse, clean my place or even wash the car but if I could afford it why not? Who are you to deny those people their jobs? They might be desperate to earn the money! Sounds pretty selfish to me.

I hope wiping arses pays well and they have a good union.

Just to make this a bit more absurd... if nobody committed any crime there would be no policemen. What would they do? Find other work. Is crime good because it keeps police employed?

If nobody dropped litter or sprayed graffiti there would be no litter pickers/wall cleaners. What would they do? Find other work. Is littering good because it keeps cleaners employed?

However even if I said "FoxEye says you shouldn't hire a cleaner", which would be weird because I'd be talking about myself in the 3rd person, the chances of this actually having any affect on anybody's decision making is so minimal that it can be discounted. So the cleaners will stay employed, and you have no need to worry about my destroying the industry

 

[413x]

You can't buy time.
Wrote a looong post in other thread semi relavent

Yes, it's easy to overvalue cash.
You see people on Facebook selling things for 1 pound
Now I hate waste, but I'd literally put it outside my house than wait in for an hour for someone to give me 1 pound !

I agree, time is precious and agree if you get paid 20 quid an hour and are comfortable, I'd rather pay a cleaner 10 and spend that time enjoying life

 

[FoxEye]

You can't buy time.
Wrote a looong post in other thread semi relavent

Yes, it's easy to overvalue cash.
You see people on Facebook selling things for 1 pound
Now I hate waste, but I'd literally put it outside my house than wait in for an hour for someone to give me 1 pound !

I agree, time is precious and agree if you get paid 20 quid an hour and are comfortable, I'd rather pay a cleaner 10 and spend that time enjoying life

Do you think that there is an increasing view that such things (as cleaning/housework) are beneath us now?

That housework now has the same kind of status as farm labour. It's something that the Eastern European immigrants do.

But also you'd have to be lot more trusting that I am, to let someone into your house. To have them clean your personal space and belongings without supervision.

Esp the ones that are employed by cleaning firms (and not their own business). Who might be on low wages, and therefore be tempted by some expensive trinket left lying around. Cleaners via agencies/firms are going to be on min wage pretty much.

 

[The_Abyss]

It isn't a question of being beneath people - only you have raised that as an issue.

On the trust issue - I covered that earlier with the DBS checks, perhaps you missed it.

 

[regulus]

I sold the big house that took AGES and AGES to clean and downsized to a smaller place that we now clean within an hour. I value my time but I do have tons of it. Work I come and go as I please so can easily knockout the cleaning on a random Tuesday morning with a quick once over on Sunday afternoon.

 

[[FnG]magnolia]

Do you think that there is an increasing view that such things (as cleaning/housework) are beneath us now?

No.

That housework now has the same kind of status as farm labour. It's something that the Eastern European immigrants do.

No. Offensive and also no.

But also you'd have to be lot more trusting that I am, to let someone into your house. To have them clean your personal space and belongings without supervision.

That's what cleaners do.

Esp the ones that are employed by cleaning firms (and not their own business). Who might be on low wages, and therefore be tempted by some expensive trinket left lying around. Cleaners via agencies/firms are going to be on min wage pretty much.

This says far more about you than you realise.

 

[[FnG]magnolia]

Why don't you try asking me if I do housework instead? I'd say that's a more appropriate question.

Because I could swap "Mum" for "wife" and the question would still remain.

It's not uncommon for men to leave the housework to their wives.

So in either circumstance you should ask me if I do the housework.

That's not a straight answer, and no 'mum' and 'wife' are not inter changeable words.

 

[LiE]

Don’t see a problem with a cleaner. We have limited time so when it comes to house chores it’s always the low hanging fruit - tidying the kitchen each day, putting the washing on, putting away clothes, general tidying, etc.

The cleaner does the things we just don’t get round to doing. Hover the house, mop all the hard floors, dust all surfaces, clean both bathrooms including showers and toilets, clean the many many Venetian blinds, empty all the bins, clean kitchen cupboard doors, etc.

2 hours every Tuesday.

 

[Freakbro]

I just couldn't hire someone to clean my house for me. I'd consider that a dereliction of my own duties. Either I clean up after myself, or I live in filth, or somewhere in between. Getting someone else to clean my messes is... what's the word... not "cheating" but a sentiment somewhere between cheating and dereliction of duty as said.

Call it a hang-up if you like.

It's definitely a hang-up

As kids our parents always used to say to us, "If you make a mess you clean it up."

And that's where it came from! It's interesting how different children can take such innocuous sayings and define their beliefs on it. I had the same saying said to me, it never made me think about it the way you have though

I do understand your sentiment, yes it is your own responsibility to clean and tidy your own house, but the method of discharging that responsibility (whether you do it yourself or pay a cleaner) isn't relevant at all, that's where your opinion strays into a hang-up.

I can't be the only one here who feels like that?

Nope, but I would say you are in a very small percentage that feel if you don't do it yourself it is a dereliction of duties.

 

[Terminal_Boy]

In London, we had groceries delivered weekly and used an ironing service as we were both working long hours.

Did our own laundry and housekeeping because neither of us wanted a stranger in our house.

 

[413x]

I don't understand why you would think having a cleaner is wrong.
Having someone pick up the bins is not really any different.
Or cleaning my dirty toilet water, water company do that and I pay them for it


Surely the main thing of having a job is enabling you to do more. If you work 5 days a week and earn a lot its even more sensible to pay a cleaner as you're on the wrong side of work life balance already

When get house of own, if I can't go down in hours I'd def cobber /consider a cleaner.
Id never think those people are beneath me , they could well have a very profitable business !

 

[adam cool dude]

Instead of paying a cleaner you could put that extra tenner into your pension contributions. 20 pound a week is a grand a year. 30 odd grand might let you retire a couple of years earlier than needed. That's also a nice holiday for two every year.

I don't understand why you would think having a cleaner is wrong.
Having someone pick up the bins is not really any different.

People do not get a choice in their council tax rates. I am sure if people got a reduction for taking their own waste to the tip they would take it.

 

[Bassmansam]

What are these £10 cans of beer people are mentioning?!?!

 

[Nitefly]

@FoxEye I think you’re on your own on this one. Cleaning the dishes and putting the bins out is simple enough, but I feel I have no time for ******** tasks time consuming task like cleaning the kitchen floor and deep cleaning the bathroom, so inevitably they end up looking rubbish until guests are due and there is a manic clean up operation. Unfortunately my house is so small having a cleaner for mandatory minimum ~4 hours a week, which seems to be the standard (although I haven’t really laboriously researched), is just bit uneconomical. If it was a touch cheaper, I’d definitely go for it.