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Comment by s_q_b | Hacker News Reader

That's too bad.

Best of luck as you move forward as a cleaning company.

The biggest issue I see with most on-demand cleaning services is that they don't do the type of cleaning I actually need done. I don't need my surfaces dusted as much as I need laundry picked up, washed, dried, and folded, and trash, like soda cans, the occasional pizza box etc. gathered up and tossed.

Basically I want an on-demand cleaning service I can call when my place is a total mess, without doing any pre-cleanup.

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>That's too bad.

>Best of luck as you move forward as a cleaning company.

I'm sure that was said with the best of intents, but it could also be the most withering put-down ever issued in the dotcom space. I'll be saving that phrase for special occasions.

Haha, in retrospect it does read that way, but its not a put down at all. My company works on lots of innovative projects, but my bread and butter is an IT hardware service solution that lowers vendor maintenance costs. Doesn't get much less sexy than that.

I'm a firm believer in going straight for the big, dull, slog of a B2B startup for the first go-round. Hopefully the end result will be some cash in the bank and a good deal of experience for when it's time to try to change the world.

Hire an independent immigrant maid service. It sounds... I don't know, evil or something, but corporate maid services are terrible while independent hard-working low-skill immigrants (typically middle-aged women) have been awesome for me.

I pay $25/hr and my house cleaner comes twice per week and vaccuums, does laundry, takes out all the trash, picks up everything, etc. Literally anything you can think of.

Make that into an app, and I'll be your first customer. It's the convenience factor that bothers me. How do you differentiate a good housekeeper from someone who's going to steal my nutella? (I don't keep much of value in the house.)

Ask your neighbours. Madness, I know.

No question that this needs to be done. The problem is mobilizing said labor force to accept technology. My maid barely checks her email once per week.

The depression of wages and lack of adopting technology/communication go hand in hand, to no surprise of anyone here.

I just met her through a moving service when I hired people to pack up and move my belongings when I bought a new house. Actually need to put boots on the ground for this kind of thing.

SMS-based maybe? Pretty much everybody's got a cell phone.

$25/hour seems astonishingly high for an independent maid service. You should be able to find similarly high quality maids for $10-15/hr, or fixed rates that are far below $25/hr ($25-50 per cleaning).

Trust is a big factor. I can run errands with her in the house without fearing for something being stolen or I can leave my toddler with her and she's great. $25/hr isn't that much at all considering she scrubs floors and does very detailed work that the major places won't do (for even more money, I might add).

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