How Much Do Maids Charge To Clean A House

Domestic worker

A maid cleaning in Denmark in 1912.

A maid, or housemaid or maidservant, is a female domestic worker. In the Victorian era domestic service was the second largest category of employment in England and Wales, afterwards agricultural work.^[ane] In developed Western nations, total-fourth dimension maids are at present only institute in the wealthiest households. In other parts of the world, maids remain mutual in urban middle-grade households.

"Maid" in Heart English meant an unmarried woman, especially a immature one, or specifically a virgin. These meanings lived on in English until recent times (and are still familiar from literature and folk music), alongside the sense of the word as a type of retainer.^[two] ^[3]

Clarification [edit]

In the contemporary Western world, comparatively few households tin can afford live-in domestic help, usually relying on cleaners, employed directly or through an agency (Maid service). Today a single maid may be the only domestic worker that upper-middle course households utilise, as was historically the case.

In less adult nations, various factors ensure a labour source for domestic work: very large differences in the income of urban and rural households, widespread poverty, fewer educated women, and express opportunities for the employment of less educated women.

Maids perform typical domestic chores such as laundry, ironing, cleaning the house, grocery shopping, cooking, and caring for household pets. They may also accept care of children, although in that location are more specific occupations for this, such equally nanny. In some poor countries, maids accept care of the elderly and people with disabilities. Many maids are required by their employers to article of clothing a uniform.

Legislation in many countries makes sure living weather, working hours, or minimum wage a requirement of domestic service. Nonetheless, the piece of work of a maid has always been hard, involving a full day, and extensive duties.^{[ citation needed ]}

Europe [edit]

Maids were once office of an elaborate hierarchy in great houses, where the retinue of servants stretched upwards to the housekeeper and butler, responsible for female and male employees respectively. The word "maid" itself means an unmarried young woman or virgin. Domestic workers, peculiarly those low in the hierarchy, such as maids and footmen, were expected to remain unmarried while in service,^[4] ^[5] and even highest-ranking workers such as butlers could be dismissed for marrying.^{[ citation needed ]}

In Victorian England, all centre-class families would accept "aid", but for about small households, this would exist only ane employee, the maid of all work, oftentimes known colloquially as "the girl".

Historically many maids suffered from Prepatellar bursitis, an inflammation of the Prepatellar bursa acquired past long periods spent on the knees for purposes of scrubbing and fire-lighting, leading to the status attracting the colloquial name of "Housemaid's Knee".^[6]

Asia [edit]

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Strange women are employed in Kingdom of saudi arabia, State of kuwait, Qatar, Nigeria, Hong Kong, Nippon and United Arab Emirates in large numbers to work equally maids or other roles of domestic service, and are oftentimes vulnerable to multiple forms of abuse.^[seven] ^[8] ^[9]

Southern Africa [edit]

In some areas in the region the word "maid" is avoided. This is near likely due to the fact that it sounds similar a racially derogatory term in Afrikaans. The Afrikaans give-and-take for a mite (small arachnid) has been used demeaningly to refer to woman of colour. The english word for a friend: "mate" is also avoided for this reason.

Types [edit]

George Clive and his family with an Indian maid, painted 1765. Equally she appears to exist caring for the kid, she may be an ayah.

Maids traditionally accept a fixed position in the hierarchy of the large households, and although there is overlap betwixt definitions (dependent on the size of the household) the positions themselves would typically be rigidly adhered to. The usual classifications of maid in a large household are:

Lady's maid: a senior servant who reported directly to the lady of the house, but ranked beneath the Housekeeper, and accompanied her lady on travel. She took care of her mistress'due south clothes and hair, and sometimes served as confidante.
Firm-maid or housemaid: a generic term for maids whose part was chiefly "above stairs", and were commonly a niggling older, and improve paid. Where a household included multiple housemaids the roles were oft sub-divided as below.
- Head house-maid: the senior business firm maid, reporting to the Housekeeper. (As well called "House parlour maid" in an establishment with only i or two upstairs maids).
- Parlour maid: they cleaned and tidied reception rooms and living areas by morning, and often served refreshments at afternoon tea, and sometimes also dinner. They tidied studies and libraries, and (with footmen) answered bells calling for service.^[10]
- Chamber maid: they cleaned and maintained the bedrooms, ensured fires were lit in fireplaces, and supplied hot water.
- Laundry maid: they maintained bedding and towels. They likewise washed, dried, and ironed clothes for the whole household, including the servants.
- Under firm parlour maid: the general deputy to the house parlour maid in a pocket-sized establishment which had only 2 upstairs maids.
Nursery maid: also an "upstairs maid", but i who worked in the children's nursery, maintaining fires, cleanliness, and skilful order. Reported to the nanny rather than the Housekeeper.
Kitchen maid: a "beneath stairs" maid who reported to the Cook, and assisted in running the kitchens.
- Caput kitchen maid: where multiple kitchen maids were employed, the "caput kitchen maid" was finer a deputy to the cook, engaged largely in the plainer and simpler cooking (sometimes cooking the servants' meals).
- Under kitchen maid: where multiple kitchen maids were employed these were the staff who prepared vegetables, peeled potatoes, and assisted in presentation of finished cooking for serving.
Scullery maid: the lowest grade of "below stairs" maid, reporting to the melt, the scullery maids were responsible for washing cutlery, crockery, and glassware, and scrubbing kitchen floors, as well as monitoring ovens while kitchen maids ate their ain supper.^[11]
Betwixt maid, sometimes known every bit a "tweeny": roughly equivalent in status to scullery maids, and oftentimes paid less, between maids in a large household waited on the senior servants (butler, housekeeper, and cook) and were therefore answerable to all three department heads, frequently leading to friction in their employment.^[12]
Still room maid: a junior maid employed in the still room; every bit the work involved the supply of booze, cosmetics, medicines, and cooking ingredients beyond all departments of the firm, the yet room maids were function of the "between staff", jointly answerable to all three department heads.

In more small households a single maid-of-all-piece of work or skivvy was often the only staff. It is possible this word originates from the Italian for slave ("schiavo"—"endemic person").

In pop culture [edit]

One of the well-nigh in-depth and indelible representations of the lives of several types of maid was seen in the 1970s television drama Upstairs, Downstairs, fix in England between 1903 and 1936. The lives of maids were well represented in the Downton Abbey serial, set up in England betwixt 1912 and 1926 and shown from 2010 onward.

The master characters in the NAMIC Vision Award-nominated television serial Devious Maids are four housemaids.

Run across also [edit]

Au pair
Charwoman
Strange domestic helpers in Hong Kong
French maid
Janitor

References [edit]

^ "Occupations: census returns for 1851, 1861 and 1871". victorianweb.org.
^ OED, "Maid"
^ In Anglo-Cornish dialect "maid" is commonly used to mean "girl"; Bal maidens were women working at the mines of Cornwall, at smashing ore &c.
^ David Hume, Essay Xi
^ Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, p.139
^ "Housemaid's Human knee (Prepatellar Bursitis)". Patient.info.
^ ""As If I Am Not Human" - Abuses against Asian Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia". 7 July 2008.
^ Chamberlain, Gethin (xiii January 2013). "Saudi Arabia's handling of strange workers under burn down subsequently beheading of Sri Lankan maid". The Guardian . Retrieved 14 January 2013.
^ Homo Rights Lookout man (14 July 2004). "'Bad Dreams:' Exploitation and Abuse of Migrant Workers in Saudi Arabia". Un Loftier Commissioner for Refugees. Archived from the original on 12 March 2020. Retrieved xiv Jan 2013.
^ A Parlour Maid's timetable is summarised in this webpage extract from a book.
^ "Victorian Life Way". victorianlifestyle.org. Archived from the original on 2013-02-20. Retrieved 2012-08-04 .
^ "ourwardfamily.com".