My day as a housekeeper

Now everyone has done a little housekeeping from time to time, myself included, although my mother will tell you these are skills I was not born with and developed in later life. Most people have also stayed in the odd hotel room, wether it be the Super 8 with the questionable stain on the inside of the bathtub or the Hilton with the questionable stain on the inside of  the family name...

And during our stays we have all had varying degrees of delight over the carefully arranged towels and the little soaps and mini shampoos, some of us finding ourselves so delighted that these hotel conveniences have ended up in handfuls at the bottom of our handbags to be filed in the 'just in case' section of our bathroom cupboards.

But who is the artist behind the towel designs and bathroom arrangements? Who is the person who assigns our mints and mini soaps? It is of course the faithful housekeeper. So I approached the central booking department of the resort town I live in to spend a day in the life of a housekeeper.

A housekeepers day starts at the office where you are given your clean schedule for the day. This is a list of properties with information such as how many beds and bathrooms the property has so that you can pack sheets and towels appropriately.
Each clean is given a time value for example 405 Maple drive is a 5 hour clean. The housekeeper is payed for 5 hours regardless of how long it actually takes to clean the property.

So, once the van is packed with tubs filled with the linens for each property, cleaning supplies, bag of rags, mop bucket and vaccum, we set out to clean the first property on the list.


Once you enter the property, the first thing you must do is check the fridge. A housekeeper doesn't get paid terribly well so your income can be supplemented with left behind food and of course liquor. Once the 'value' of the clean has been assessed you can begin work.
There is no rocket science behind it all, you make the beds - of course using hospital corners because nothing says 'clean' like a tight bed thats impossible to get into.

Then you wipe down all surfaces, mirrors etc. Vacuum all carpeted areas, fluff couch cushions and place novelty stuffed animals appropriately.
The key to housekeeping is to let the client know that you have been there. This can be achieved by moving items such as coasters and magazines to a different position and needlessly spraying cleaning products into the air to give it that lemony fresh smell.

The real art to being a housekeeper though lies in the bathroom. This will make or break the illusion of clean in the clients eyes. Whether the bathtub and shower are actually clean or not doesn't matter, as long as there is no hair. For some reason, even though it covers our heads and most of our bodies, you find one hair in your food or heaven forbid in your bathtub where the most malting occurs and a shiver is sent down most of our spines.
So de-hairing done, it's time for the towel and toilet paper art.

I can now confidently say that I can fan a face washer with the best of them. I can fold the loo paper in such a way as to say to the next occupant, someone has been here, and they've touched the paper your about to wipe your ass with - comforting thought isn't it!?

The key to housekeeping is to get the clean done in far less time than you are paid for while making it look and smell as though you have been there. The perks include having no-one looking over your shoulder while you work and potentially walking away with items such as bottles of wine, left over steak and misplaced articles of clothing. The downside is never knowing exactly what you are going to find floating in the toilet bowl after a bucks weekend... Thank goodness for the flush and of course the life time supply of mini soaps.
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