When the dustballs multiply

Nadia Cohen misses her cleaner more than anyone else

The person I will miss most during the lockdown is my cleaner. There, I said it. My husband, Dan, loathes domestic chores as much as I do, and we hired our lovely Brazilian cleaner, Lilian, years ago to avoid bickering over the toilet brush. So two weeks in from paying her goodbye, our house is now crackling with simmering resentment.

My husband has been self-isolating since returning from Italy a few weeks ago, and I worry this will not end well.

My God, how can one man use so many teaspoons in a day? I find them teetering on the edge of the sink, discarded next to the kettle, plunged into the sugar bowl. Everywhere, in fact, but the dishwasher. Meanwhile, our twin sons Felix and Harry, 11, want to bake banana bread and turn the living room into a parkour course.

There are also unfinished jigsaw puzzles, discarded socks and board-game pieces everywhere, and by the end of the day I want to scream at the sight of my once pristine home.

The boys help with chores, but even when they do make their beds and put clothes away, it is just not as neat and organized as when Lilian does it.

And I have a newfound respect for how quickly and efficiently she blitzes our house. It took me more than six hours last weekend to clean the place from top to bottom.

Our neighbours, both high-powered corporate lawyers, were lucky enough to have a full-time housekeeper, and she too has now returned to her family, and I fear this will take a heavy toll on their marriage, too. With his clients thin on the ground, the husband is on a mission to prove the expense is unjustified — by doing everything himself. Very badly.

Through gritted teeth his wife has only half joked how her colleagues in divorce law could find themselves very busy when these restrictions are lifted.

She is not alone. The first weekend in lockdown and my WhatsApp chat groups nearly blew up.

Interspersed between all those not-sofunny-now memes about how irritating your children/spouse is, came a stream of classic white-collar angst over the moral question of whether to keep paying cleaners to stay away, and if so how much?

Some consider their cleaner part of the family, and are loyally paying in full, others wonder if reduced retainers might be acceptable.

A friend said: “I’m not being paid so neither is she. Am I horrible?”

The situation is as messy as my house right now. If I am honest, part of me is glad to channel all my nervous energy into jobs I had put off.

But as I dust plastic plants and chuck out old bras, it occurs to me I am going to have to switch from polishing off a bottle of Merlot every Saturday to polishing my floors.