Research claims that married couples fight more about house cleaning than anything else.

My wife and I have been together 11 years next month and whilst we do have a happy marriage, it is not always smooth sailing. That said, we work together in the office for 8, sometimes 10 hours a day, and then we go home and spend the next 4 -5 hours together before bed and starting over again. By rights, we should hate the sight of one another, but we don’t. And the reason we don’t is… well, I don’t actually know. I do know that I am very lucky and get a fairly easy deal. At work we both have our strengths and weaknesses, which are the polar opposite to the other’s strengths and weaknesses. We are like Yin and Yang. Or Bert and Ernie.

If I could put my finger on why we work so well, I’d say it is that my wife Lizzie loves house-cleaning. So, in the past, if I hadn’t done my fair share of cleaning the house, it wouldn’t be a problem (mostly) as she would pick up where I had slacked. If she has spare time, she will clean. She loves it. However, over the past couple of months, our business has gained in stature as we have over 33 five Star Reviews on Google, which has seen our phone go off the hook. We have just got busier and busier over the past two months, that she simply doesn’t have time to clean our own home, as ensuring the smooth operation of the business is absorbing all our time, so we have given in and have our own Maids routinely clean our house for us. The only time we previously had our home professionally  cleaned was when we had new recruits join and we’d have them clean our house as part of their training. Since then, it has almost been completely harmonious, both at work and at home.

Before starting this business, we always employed a maid service, but we were never happy with their service. They always changed maids or our schedule without informing us, and sometimes they didn’t even show up. And this always led to arguments because we knew that on a Thursday, we should be coming home to a clean house, only to find that they hadn’t been or that they sent someone else and they didn’t know that they were there to clean our home. I got so fed up with it that we did our own research and we quickly realized there was a void for a quality reliable maid service.

Whilst researching this, I did some research on the internet, no not that sort of research, and I found that a new "marriage health app"; Get Lasting, had surveyed over 75,000 couples and they found that it wasn't bedroom activity that caused the most issues with couples, it was disagreements about the housekeeping and how to clean the house to a consistently high standard.

According to the app, the top five reasons married couples fight are; how house cleaning is or should be done, what "clean" should look like, how often they should have, erm, bedroom activities, how much time they spend using their mobile phones or tablets, and what to spend money on. Cleaning can cause major conflict between couples, especially if the chores aren't split evenly.

Marriage and Family Therapist Dr. Gary Brown explains that arguing over what "clean" is, means that some boundaries about what is and isn't acceptable need to be made.

"The real issue here is what is reasonable to expect in terms of what clean looks like”, he told Bustle.

"It may be that you both don’t agree on what is reasonable. If that’s the case, then see if you can find a way to compromise between your must haves in terms of cleanliness, and what is more negotiable." Or the best solution for most couples is to simply hire a quality maid service. And by that, we’d probably recommend You’ve Got Maids, of course.

If you do hire a maid service, please just check that you use a licensed, bonded and insured service. Read my previous blog, How to Avoid Paying $96,000 which discusses the pitfalls of hiring a maid service that turned out to be uninsured.

You’ve Got Maids of Thousand Oaks, Malibu and Camarillo offers a full service weekly, bi-weekly or monthly maid service. We also offer 52 Point Spring Cleans (Deep Cleans), Move in or Move Out Cleans, Pre-Party or After Party Cleans. We have consistently been the most highly-rated local house cleaning service on Google.

We cover the whole of the Conejo Valley, Malibu, Camarillo, Ventura, Oxnard and Carpinteria.

Our Maids are all background checked and drug screened. They all have to pass a comprehensive training program with a minimum of 90% for their passing grade.

We are licensed, bonded and insured and we offer a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee.

Call us on 805-917-6243 or email us at thousandoaks@youvegotmaids.com