My New Life in Malta

Our flat is a clean place. M and I are clean people and always make an effort to have tidy living quarters. However, we decided that perhaps once a month we should have a professional come in and do a thorough cleaning of the entire place. In between these expert interventions, we can just do some light upkeep around the house.

So, the search was on to find a good cleaner who could come at regular intervals. As with most things in Malta, we went on word-of-mouth. M’s sister suggested her own cleaning lady. We figured that somebody who is able to clean a big house belonging to a family with teenagers should have no trouble with our little two-person dwellings.

The recommended lady showed up at the agreed time, and I busied myself on the computer as she did her work. So you can imagine how very, shall we say, surprised I was when after a very short while she came up to me and said “I am finished, I am leaving now” with the confidence of somebody who had finished all her tasks. I had not heard the vacuum cleaner at all. As far as I could tell, she had not been in the bedroom. In fact, she had not even gone into the kitchen, where I had been the entire time. I did not know what to say. Perhaps in Malta things are done this way? Perhaps there are certain things that are just not done by cleaners? And so when M came home, I told him what had happened and added that at least in my non-Maltese perspective sweeping the floors and ironing a few shirts did not constitute proper house-cleaning. That was the last time she came.

Next, M’s mother offered the lady that has been helping her with the housework for years. She even offered to come with her to make sure that things got done properly. It was an offer we could not refuse. They showed up one morning, and I even went out so as not to get in their way. We both came home later to find dust still on tables. But it is very difficult to complain to one’s mother/mother-in-law about such a thing. She was a bit offended. And so we thought it best to keep family out of this matter.

What to do? We continued searching, and finally M’s good friend D said that he had a lady that came once a month and did a thorough job of his flat, where he lives alone. It sounded exactly like what we needed! He told us that she charges a bit more than usual, but she is worth every ċenteżmu. And so we gave it one more try.

D’s recommendation is a sweet lady from Rabat, who must be in her late 50’s. We had a chat with her before she began, and I explained in my staggering Maltese (this was a few months back) that we had just had a woman who swept, ironed and left, and that we really expected her to do more. She then turned to M and asked “what did he say?”  At least my language skills have improved since then.

This time we made a list of what we considered basic: vacuuming, cleaning bathroom and kitchen, dusting where there was dust. Pretty simple, wouldn’t you say? We also agreed that there were other, less pressing things that could be rotated. One time she could do the balcony windows, another time she could sweep the balcony, occasionally the kitchen window, etc.

She turned out to be excellent. The house was left spotless. She was a keeper!

Since I am usually the one who is home when she comes to clean, she and I have developed a nice friendship. She is one of those relatively few Maltese who really struggles to speak English. Even though at first she would not answer me in Maltese, just like most locals do not, with time she has warmed up to the idea that instead of struggling with English she can just chat away to me in Maltese. (At least part of the time. Old habits die hard). Because believe me, she looooooooves to chat. A lot. All the time. About everything. Whether I am listening or not. Sometimes she even chats to herself. It is really charming to watch.

There are only a few caveats to follow. For example, if we leave out any dishes or pans, she will put them away where she thinks they should go, which can lead us to have to hunt all over the kitchen for them later. So I now make sure they are all put away before she arrives. The other thing is that she does not believe in recycling, so she throws everything out. In fact she throws out whatever she deems to be rubbish. So I do a quick check around the flat and make sure to put away anything that she might consider rubbish. And I take out the recyclables before she can get to them.

This morning she told me of her upcoming holiday to Corfu. It will be her first time on an airplane, and her first time outside of Malta except for three short visits to Catania in Sicily. What a great country, where cleaning ladies can take holidays on the Greek islands!