Yes, it's OK for young people to have a bi-weekly cleaner

I used to think that people who paid others to clean were lazy. Too much money and not enough sense. A nose so high in the air that they'd be too off-balanced to even lift a vacuum cleaner. My mum took on extra work cleaning when I was a teenager. I met her off the school bus at various million-pound houses and failed to understand why their owners didn’t mop their own floors — or fold their own pants. The first part I can now comprehend; the jury's still out on the latter. The thing is, we're all busy. Too busy. A survey of 2,000 British adults found that the majority of people don’t have sufficient time in their weekly schedules to dust and scrub thanks to longer working hours, a desire to maintain a social life, and childcare responsibilities. Despite an ongoing cost of living crisis, the number of UK households who employ cleaners rose a surprising 70 per cent from 2018 to 2023, according to the most recent YouGov poll.

- Lydia Spencer-Elliott, The Independent

Mared, a 28-year-old who lives in London with her best friend Bam, 29, says her parents never would have dreamed of hiring a cleaner when she was growing up. She cleaned her room — and they tackled the rest of their “hoarder” house as a family. “I am more middle class than them, culturally and financially,” the civil servant says. She employs Bianca, a biweekly cleaner, who charges the girls £60 per visit, to scrub areas they can't reach, shift stubborn stains and, sometimes, fold their laundry or make their beds. “It's a privilege to come home to a deep-cleaned house,” reflects Mared. “These things take up your evenings and weekends.”

For Mared, a cleaner is a little luxury that she can afford, at a time when grandeur is above the general public's pay grade. To do this, she avoids splashing out on a gym membership or takeaway coffees, so she can take care of the space she spends most of her time in. “People are on a tighter budget — not going on holiday, or shopping at a budget supermarket—but there's this trend of elevating the day-to-day,” she says. “This is my thing that I spend my money on.”