She has a good reputation, and lots of people--herself first and foremost--have assured me I'm extremely lucky to have her cleaning my family's building. So the tempting thought came to me: why not hire her to help me get my very messy house in order?
The last time I hired her to clean a rental, she herself persuaded me that it was a bad idea. It's not that she wasn't interested in the job: it's that the whole time she was cleaning, she talked nonstop about how gross and filthy and nasty her other clients' houses were, and how weird and disgusting and sick the clients themselves were.
She didn't name names, but she gave enough identifying details (retired professor from such-and-such department at the local college, lives in such-and-such a neighborhood, everyone calls him Bob) that anyone who cared to could figure out who she meant.
Now, maybe this isn't really bad service. Maybe it's a universal perquisite of cleaners to gossip about how gross and nasty their clients are. But in a small town where everyone knows everyone else...that's the kind of help I don't think I need.
