We found it!

After lengthy analysis and discussions with more than two dozen cleaning companies in Cincinnati, we have made our choice. We decided to work with Lucy's Cleaning Service (click here for their website and contact details). We got them to do a one-off deep cleaning, just to test out their services, and they turned out to be GREAT.

Here are some of the reasons that have influenced our decision:

Price

They offered us a great rate, which was even lower than what we were paying the maid a few years ago. It's really a great deal -- we get to spend less money and can deduct the expense on our income statement!

Speed

Since they have a team of cleaning people, the one-time deep cleaning we order took less than five hours! It would have taken a whole week with the maid we had hired before. Hands down, we didn't expect them to wrap it up so soon.

Professionalism

They bring their own supplies and it only takes a five minutes conversation with their supervisor to tell them what you want to get done. The previous maid was asking us to get the supplies for her (she couldn't be bothered with shopping, even if we offered to give her money in advance to get them herself).

Wide range of services

They handle everything there is to do in a house, from regular dusting and swiping floors to window washing and carpet cleaning. They even cleaned an old wine stain on the carpet in our living room.

Eco-friendly supplies

My son has a mild case of asthma, so we should refrain from using chemical detergents around him, as he might get allergic to the agents found in the popular cleaning products on today's market. Fortunately this wasn't an issue with Lucy's service -- they always use eco-friendly cleaning supplies and will only switch to something else if you specifically ask for it.

Availability

They are well-staffed, so we didn't have any trouble booking them. We signed a weekly contract but can always call them up for emergencies like liquids spilled on carpets or furniture.

Satisfaction guarantee

If you don't like how they clean up your house, you can call them and ask to clean again, until you are satisfied. I have yet to see other services do this (when I was showing the old maid that she had missed a spot, she used to go like "Oh, that tiny blob there? Forget about it, I'll get it next week, I have to go now. Where's my money please?" …)

This being said, we are excited about the service we have contracted and would always recommend Lucy's to all our friends.

We realized we need a maid

We live in a two-storied house in the suburbs of Cincinnati -- it's me, my husband and my 30 year old son. The house has twelve rooms. We bought it in 1999 when my husband was running a small company that went bankrupt in the mean time.

We can't complain about money. All three of us have decent jobs and we make close to $200,000 a year. The house is paid in full, we only have to pay off one of the cars, so you can easily see that there isn't much debt in our family. All of us have FICO scores of 750+.

The problem is that we can't cope with cleaning up the place. We only use four out of the twelve rooms on a daily basis -- two bedrooms, a living room where we gather around for dinner, and an office where we work and study on weekends and in the evenings. We all work 12+ hours a day, that's why I mentioned we get to see each other after 9pm and on weekends. None of us can find time to clean up the right way -- only vacuum some rooms on weekends, dust and mop the staircase and that's about it.

We tried to get a maid some years ago, and everything went alright for a couple of months until we found out money and jewelry was missing. We don't keep large amounts of cash (who does?) but there's always some $1,000 or so available for emergencies and day to day expenses where they don't accept plastic. Well, one time there was only $500 left in the drawer, another time I was missing a 12 gram golden necklace and some earrings… you get where this is going.

We didn't have enough proof against her, but we let her go immediately.

We tried to keep the place clean on our own, but barely succeeded. And now, again, we decided we can't live without a maid, but learned from our mistakes and want to get someone we can trust. So this rules out a janitor who works full-time somewhere else and wants to make some extra money in his spare time. We want someone with references, someone who can issue invoices and can be held responsible for eventual mishaps. An insurance policy would also be good -- I'm not absurd, I can understand that we're all human beings and can make mistakes, but if water gets spilled on my $5,000 Alienware computer or the $6,000 stereo system gets jammed, then I want someone to pay for it.

We decided that the best solution would be to hire the services of a cleaning company. They might be a tad more expensive than a maid, but they should be well worth the extra money. A cleaning service should be fast -- a team can clean up everything in a matter of hours, not a whole weekend -- and should be trustable enough for us to let them in the house while we are at work.

We are currently analyzing offerings from various companies and will follow up with our choice. If you know of a good company, please drop me a line.