House cleaning services record a surge in orders

Domestic services have grown into a brisk business as people struggle with the spring-time cleaning to celebrate the Spring Festival season.

"It's the tradition to clean the house thoroughly ahead of the Spring Festival, as that is said to bring good luck in the new year," said 28-year-old Li Lian, a hairdresser in Beijing's Chaoyang district. "For me, I'd rather hire an hourly worker to clean my house. The two bedrooms, big four windows and the oil-stained kitchen... I don't want to do any housework after working for a whole year." 

"Take the window as an example. It usually takes me an hour to clean a window, which even then is not clean, as some spots remain. The hourly worker can make the window clean and shiny quickly and effectively using their special tools and skills. They help free me from the struggling chores," he said.

Li Lian is not alone, as the domestic services market has embraced a boom during the traditional festival season. 

58 Daojia, a services platform, said in a recent report that the domestic helpers registered at the platform saw their average orders rise to four per day during the Spring Festival holiday, about one more order compared with the usual time.

Services including cleaning household appliances, windows and babysitting are popular among the customers, according to the report. 

The report said that people's expenses on domestic services will also see a rise over the season, reaching about 1,084 yuan per month - a 31 percent rise from the usual time. 

"I'm happy to pay the money, though the services will be more expensive. These services do need professional skills, which is also time-consuming," said Lin Xiaoyu, (林小宇) a 35-year-old financial analyst in Beijing.

Lin said the money is not a big problem as it's hard to find a suitable domestic helper during the Spring Festival holiday.

"The nanny went back to her hometown. It's understandable that the Spring Festival is the most important day for many Chinese people. Then we now face the problem of finding a nanny who can temporarily replace her to take care of my baby," she said.

The surging demand for domestic services has driven a rise of the helpers' salaries. The report by 58 Daojia said that around 57 percent of its registered domestic helpers can earn over 6,000 yuan per month, and nearly 30 percent can earn around 8,000 yuan per month. 

Yang Qiusi, a 46-year-old hourly worker in Beijing who has registered with Tian'e Daojia, also an online platform, said she and her husband decided to stay in Beijing for the holiday and took cleaning orders over the break.

"It's a hard decision actually, but I don't want to get quarantined after going back to my hometown as Beijing now has sporadic COVID-19 cases. I can take more orders here and make money, which is not bad news for my family," she said.

Yang said she has been very busy since the early January and the work load will continue until the end of the season. Usually Yang takes one or two orders per day, but she got four or more orders each day during the festival.

She said she charges 50 yuan per hour and she promised to her regular consumers that the price won't go higher during the holiday.

"It's important to have good faith doing business. It's my pleasure to deliver cost-effective services to my customers, and to make them celebrate the festival in a neat house cleaned by me," she said.