Hire the Best Housekeeper

The difference between a good housekeeper and the right one is rarely visible in a list of tasks. It shows up in whether the house looks the same on a Tuesday in February as it does the day before guests arrive, and in whether anyone had to ask.

In practice that means knowing which surfaces take which product, how to handle marble and silver and antique wood without damaging them, and how to move through occupied rooms without becoming part of the day. Fine finishes are unforgiving and most damage in a private home is done slowly, by well-meaning people using the wrong cloth. We ask candidates about materials specifically, because the answer separates someone who has worked in a fine home from someone who has worked hard.

Most of the homes we staff already employ someone. A housekeeper joining a household with a laundress, a houseman and an estate manager needs to understand where their work ends, and that boundary is more often the reason a placement fails than any question of skill.

We talk it through before anyone is presented. Who directs the housekeeper day to day, who handles the wardrobe, what happens when the family is away, and who decides when a room needs more than its usual attention. Households that answer those questions before hiring keep staff for years. Households that leave them open tend to be searching again within twelve months.