Since moving to my new condo in April I’ve had a maid and it’s left me wondering why it took me so long to get one. Living in Thailand there are many conveniences you can take advantage of to make your life easier and having a maid is one of those.
Why Get a Maid
I’m pretty lazy so getting a maid means that I don’t have to do the chores I hate. I don’t like cleaning, sweeping, mopping, ironing or pretty much anything else related to keeping my place looking good. The good news is that maids will do all this work for you.
My 41sq meter condo isn’t huge and I could take care of it myself but I’d rather someone else did it. To be honest I have a lot of free time but I’d rather use that for more exciting things than sweeping breadcrumbs from under my toaster.
Maids here also do much more than just cleaning. The main benefit for me is that my maid will do the laundry and ironing for me. When she arrives she sticks everything in the machine and when the first load is finished she irons my work shirts. The second load is the bed sheets which allows her to make the bed when they’re done. The final load finishes just as she leaves so she hangs everything up and then I just have to put them in the drawers when they’re dry.
Three Hours Once a Week
Every Friday from 9am to midday I have a maid come to my place to clean, wash, iron and sort my place out. For the princely sum of 565 baht a week my place looks great, and all my shirts are ironed. All this was organized through an agency – Maid Delivery, who I can thoroughly recommend. The maid I get has changed a couple of times but they speak basic English and know what they need to do. There are actually a few other agencies if you follow the link below in this article about getting a maid in Thailand you can see them too.
All in all it means I only spend around 30 minutes a week cleaning my place on top of what the maid does. It also means I don’t have to pay a laundry to clean and iron my shirts which probably cost me around 400 baht a month.
How Much a Maid in Bangkok Costs
This is a topic of heated debate on twitter whenever someone talks about how much they pay their maid. I’ve had two maids during my time in Bangkok, one was a maid from my work and my current one is via an agency.
The maid from my office asked for 500 baht for 3 hours work. She suggested the price but in the end I could tell she wasn’t happy as she complained that she had to work hard for it. In the end she only came twice before I saw the problem and didn’t want to deal with the hassle.
Via the agency I pay 565 for 3 hours. Obviously the agency take a cut before the maid gets paid but I have no idea how much.
Other people talk of paying around 800 baht for three hours cleaning whereas in another condo I know of they charge 450 baht for three hours work. What I will say is that a decent maid is worth the money. Sure the minimum daily salary in Thailand is about 320 baht but there is no reason not pay someone what they are worth to you. For me what I pay is fine, in fact I feel up to 250 per hour would be reasonable.
How Many Hours and How Many Times per Week
My condo is 41 sq meters and I get a maid in once a week for 3 hours a time. Normally she gets through all the work with about 30 minutes left and then spends the rest of the time re-organizing things on my shelves and matching up my odd socks.
In all honesty If I wanted to I could probably change it to four hours every two weeks if I had enough shirts to get through 10 days work! However, my place would probably look like a dump in that time if I did nothing so in the end I guess weekly works best for me. If you need advice on how may hours a maid will need then contact one of the agencies in the link below or ask your made yourself what they think.
Why it Took This Long to Get a Maid
I actually wrote a pretty popular guide on getting a maid in Thailand which detailed my struggles in finding a maid. Basically because I wasn’t living in central Bangkok within a few minutes of a BTS station most agencies didn’t want to arrange a maid for me. When the English speaking agencies fell through I tried a maid from my company but that became awkward for a number of reasons mainly related to money.
Expat Envy
I was talking about my maid with a few expats here and only one of them has a maid, the others do all their cleaning themselves. They were all pretty surprised with how low the cost was. The big selling factor was how a maid could also do ironing on top of cleaning. In the end I think it happens that we think these services are expensive in our home countries so don’t bother looking into them here in Thailand.
Having a Maid In Bangkok
For between 2-3,000 baht a monthly it is a no-brainer to get a maid whilst living in Thailand. Whilst I appreciate some people don’t have wiggle room in their budget for a maid I feel most people making 50,000 baht or more per month can certainly afford one.
In the end I am happy with the service and my place looks a lot better than if I had to clean it myself!
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