The Low Wage Life of Housecleaners

House cleaning services are notorious for their positive sense of advertising. In their commercials, peppy music plays as you watch fairly attractive maids carefully scrub the countertops or gently wipe windows--smiling the whole time, of course. Driving down the street, you might pass a brightly colored company car with four or five housekeepers bunched inside, all wearing uniforms that match the vehicle’s hue. Perhaps you’ve even heard some of their catchy slogans to further promote their services, such as “Relax, and it’s done” or “House too dirty to be seen? Call us to get it clean!” Even some of the company names have a favorable tone, like Merry Maids or Maid Brigade. But if someone attached a camera to an actual team of cleaners working in a house, I think one would find that their reality is far different from the calming scene in the commercials.

People take for granted the hardships that housekeepers have to endure on and off the job. At the homes, they have to make every inch of the house squeaky clean, digging into the grime and dirt of every toilet seat, carpet stain, or dusty shelf. Sometimes they even have to operate under the pressure of time, working as quickly as they can without missing a spot or damaging property. Breaks can even be disallowed, so they have no way of replenishing the water they lose when they sweat. Once they finish with one house, they hastily advance to the next and repeat the whole process. They come home at the end of the day with sore muscles, dehydrated bodies, and about $7-9 for every hour they worked.

My family has had house cleaners for as long as I can remember. Instead of using the larger corporations, my parents have hired individuals over the years to maintain our household once a week. Although I do not recall the housekeepers from my early childhood, I have become very fond of our current house cleaner “Dolores,” whom I have had the pleasure of knowing since middle school. Dolores and I have become quite close over the years; during her weekly visits, we converse with each other about my school work, her family, and sometimes even our love lives. But there are other topics that pop up frequently in our conversations such as her health and finances. Countless times she has related to me some new thing that she’s tried to treat her arthritis or has found fault with the expensive cell phone bill she shares with her daughter. Dolores is thankful for all that she has, but I can tell that she sometimes struggles to make ends meet, like many household cleaners.

Through this hypertext, I wish to present a personal aspect of the housecleaning industry on behalf of the hard-working cleaners and to show others that their lives are frequently surrounded by poverty and hardships.