Hiring a housecleaner

Agnes scrubs my floors. Agnes vacuums the dog hair off my couch. Agnes creases the toilet-paper end into a triangle and folds my dish towels to look like fans. Agnes’s work to clean my 1,550-square-foot condo, which takes her up to six hours, costs $90. She comes every other Monday, and when I walk in the door after work on those days, a smile spreads across my face as I see the gleaming kitchen countertops and I inhale the heady cocktail of Pledge mixed with Windex. But what really makes Agnes more than worth the money: I never have to spend my weekends cleaning the bathtub.