This week I got a call from a client who said she needed to "be Laurie'd." OK. Organization needed, some junk to be moved out of the house. She was moving back to the family homestead she had left last spring. No time for questions and none of my business. Last minute request. Why did she wait so long... I had a day and could do. I called Jane and off we went the next morning. Everybody needs a Jane. Where I am a generalist and get the job done efficiently, with no time wasted, Jane takes what I do and adds those little touches, when needed. She is categorical, OCD big time.
I completely cleaned out this woman's house in April with the help of 2 men, and a large truck and the Frederick County Landfill and the Goodwill. Day One, walked into the master bedroom, knee-deep in stuff, walking over god knows what, no room, not a square foot, to put anything down. Rule: Handle it once. It had to go somewhere. Opened the window at the end of the room and moved things from the floor, (after doing the "Laurie", split second inspection and assessment, and establishing whether it was good or trash, )and out the window went the trash, where I had a guy waiting with garbage bags, then into the back of the truck that was backed up to the house. My client was amazed. Well, it's a rancher. Not like the stuff was flung from the third floor. Action. Physical Movement of Physical Objects. Dog hair flying. Dust filled the air. I found the valuables she was desperate to locate plus her deceased husband's stuff, that was important to her and her daughter. Two days later, the house cleaned out, old dead food thrown out of the fridge into garbage bags, everything scrubbed clean, not quite sterile, but we went through a lot of Comet and some Clorox, truck to the dump, more bags out front waiting for trash pickup, we were done. I will not discuss the volumes of stuff because it is not the worst/most I have seen, just one of the most dysfunctional. I would have hired a cleaning crew but there was no time, according to her. It had to be done then, before the weekend. We finished on Friday afternoon. $2300 later, she had a house that was purified of baggage, dog hair and dirt. She was happy.
This week, I walked in to a mini version of the spring time clean up. Nine hours later, 15 cubic yards of trash hauled in the back of my vintage Volvo wagon, because who knew... that there was need for a truck, and she had to move out that evening...my laborer was not able to work that day, so I did the man's work, yet one more time. We moved cat urine soaked daughter's clothes bagged and taken away, one load of cardboard ( Amazon books, TV boxes, etc. ) to the recycling center. ( I never buy that much stuff in 5 years....) End of the day, done with the job at hand, I asked for my payment and she pulled $240 out of her wallet for a $800 invoice. Two people, $90/hour, 2 people at 9 exhausting, sweat soaked, cat pee inhaling, but hard to get away from, gunk scrubbing, dust inhaling, junk hauling ( calculate 40 lbs per bag x 50 bags, apx is 2000 lbs, moved out of the house, lifted into the car, lifted out of the car. That's moving 6000 of trash by myself in one day. Well, to be fair Jane moved some of it out of the house. This time there was no window to throw anything out of. Townhouse community, not country ranch house with allowance of huge yard. Long story short, I had to chase her down to the old homestead the next day to collect my fee. How's that for making a living in difficult economic times? Like I told her "NO one else would do this for you." On to the next job. This is absolutely the first time I have been treated poorly by a client. She has bigger problems than a dirty home.
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