Customers spend millions to hire someone to clean their house.

This year, Ms. Thu Huong, a bank employee in Hai Ba Trung District (Hanoi), had to seek out house cleaning services like every year. Due to the nature of her banking job, she is often busier as the end of the year approaches, leaving her with no time to clean her house.

"The Tet house cleaning service helps me reduce pressure, save time, and save energy for shopping, preparing for Tet, internal and external affairs," Ms. Huong shared.

Normally, the price for cleaning a house is only about 70,000-100,000 VND/hour, but now in addition to paying 200,000 VND/person/hour, Ms. Huong also gives 100,000 VND/person as lucky money.

A survey in Ho Chi Minh City these days shows that the demand for house cleaning has increased dramatically. The service price of professional units during Tet is commonly 140,000 - 200,000 VND/hour, double, even triple in some places compared to normal days.

Talking to Dan Tri reporter, Ms. Dung - a house cleaning staff for Tet - said that Tet is the time when every family is busy cleaning and decorating their house to welcome the new year.

These days, due to the increase in customers booking cleaning appointments, she has to "run around" to work to increase her income. "On the days before Tet, I work 3-4 shifts a day, the average income is more than 1.5 million VND/day. I still accept extra work until the 28th of December," said Ms. Dung.

Not only stopping at basic cleaning, many units also provide specialized service packages such as curtain cleaning, sofa cleaning, carpet cleaning or even rearranging the entire interior.

For example, the price for cleaning sofas ranges from 300,000-600,000 VND/set, cleaning curtains is 30,000-40,000 VND/kg... In addition, full house cleaning packages for 50-75m2 apartments lasting 3-4 hours cost from 900,000 VND to 1.2 million VND.

For larger houses of about 4-5 floors, the cost can be up to 4.2 million VND for the basic package and 10 million VND for the advanced package.

Still hard to find workers despite sky-high prices

Mr. Quang Anh (Binh Chanh District, Ho Chi Minh City) said that on weekdays, he often hires house cleaning services through applications, the price is only from 200,000-250,000 VND/3 hours of cleaning, and someone will accept the job just 30 minutes after posting the job.

The lowest price for the days before Tet is also more than 500,000 VND for every 3 hours of hiring a cleaner. Not to mention if you add the cleaning service of the cleaner bringing their own vacuum cleaner and cleaning tools, the cost can be up to 650,000 VND.

"Normally, someone would take the job right away, but now I've been waiting for more than a day and still haven't seen anyone take the job. If it extends to January 26-27 (27-28 of Tet), the rental price will definitely be even more expensive," said Mr. Quang Anh.

Minh Hoang, an office worker in Cau Giay District (Hanoi), is in a similar situation. The busy year-end work schedule forces him to leave home early in the morning and only return home after dark. Therefore, hiring a house cleaning service during Tet has become a solution for him to save time and reduce pressure.

However, making an appointment is not easy. "To choose the right time, I have to watch very carefully and book early. Even when I contact on December 24, I still have to wait until the next day for someone to accept. At the end of the year, the high demand causes many units to be overloaded, not having enough human resources to meet the demand," said Mr. Hoang.

As the days get closer to Tet, the shortage of workers makes the cost of hiring cleaning staff higher. One unit said that from January 24, the hourly cost is 250,000 VND/employee and increases to 300,000-350,000 VND/employee on the days closer to Tet.

In the peak context, users of cleaning services also need to be careful to avoid being scammed.

Some cleaning service providers have warned that recently, online scammers have also turned to scamming consumers. Their tricks are to deposit for services, then block accounts, block customer numbers and then disappear, or quote one price and charge another.