If you are like me, you wish you had a full-time cleaning person. Hell, you wish you had someone following you around picking up after you every waking hour. And again, if you’re like me, you can’t afford either of those options. Enter Homejoy, a website that provides you with reasonably priced, quality home cleaning services. If you can get a date or a hookup using a website, why not use one to get someone to prepare your lair, or clean up post-debauchery. 

I discovered Homejoy when I picked up their local area operations manager, Lynne, while I was driving for Sidecar. Lynne had just finished up screening prospective cleaning professionals at a huge Victorian in the Alamo Square area. 

Founded by sister and brother team, Adora and Aaron Cheung, in July 2012, Homejoy started because Aaron was working crazy startup hours and letting his home go to near squalor. He barely had time to try to search for his phone under all his mess, let alone search for and qualify a cleaning person. That was his light bulb moment -- he wanted to have someone dispose of his trash without trashing his stash of disposable cash. 

Homejoy is based in San Francisco, but their service is now available in 31 cities in the U.S. and Canada. Their mission is to “make homes happy,” while providing cleaning opportunities for a mess of folks who enjoy, well, messes. Homejoy does this by partnering with cleaning pros that usually have several years experience in residential or commercial cleaning. Some have been domestic cleaners, some have been hotel housekeepers, some have been housekeeping managers, and all have been vetted and received thorough background checks. Also, they’re certified by Homejoy before they can accept the opportunity to un-thrash where you crash. It only takes 60 seconds to book and you can review the service via text message. How convenient is that?!

FYI, for those of you who choose to go the “under the table” route: If you pay anyone more than $600 in a year, you are required by Uncle Sam to report that income. There are a slew of other requirements when employing “domestic help,” as well. The lesson is to pay cash to get your trash stashed, or go the legal, stress free route, and book Homejoy. They’ll happily deal with the nitty-gritty for you.