About Us:
We are the Carr family—a lively household of six with four wonderful adopted children, each diagnosed with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). This presents unique challenges, including ADHD, memory gaps, dyslexia, developmental delays, and social anxiety. To better support our children's learning, we've embraced homeschooling for three of them. Balancing education and daily life keeps us on our toes, and we're seeking a proactive domestic assistant to help our home run smoothly.
About the Role:
We're looking for a self-motivated domestic assistant to manage household tasks with minimal supervision. Your primary responsibilities will include:
Cleaning: Comprehensive house cleaning, including bathrooms, kitchen, dishes, and general tidying.
Laundry: Collecting, washing, folding, and organizing laundry for all family members.
Organizing: Decluttering and ensuring items are in their designated places. This includes organizing drawers and cupboards, and attending to minor household repairs (e.g., straightening a crooked shelf).
Occasional child monitoring: Once a week, while Drue runs errands, you'll supervise three children (ages 7 -9) for short periods. Note: This is not a nanny position; if Drue leaves the house, the kids will have specific activities to engage them. Neil will always be upstairs working remotely. Your job is simply to monitor the kids as you do your other work and grab Neil if the kids cannot stay on task or need intervention.
About You:
Our ideal candidate is:
Proactive: Able to identify and address household needs independently.
Experienced: While prior professional cleaning experience is a strong bonus, it's not mandatory.
Comfortable: At ease around high-energy children, and comfortable working in the house while the family is there.
Discreet and Respectful: Capable of working in our home with minimal disruption, allowing parents to focus on homeschooling and childcare.
Reliable: Possesses dependable transportation and can adhere to a mutually agreed-upon schedule.
Physically Capable: able to navigate stairs while carrying loads of up to 40 pounds. Able to work either standing, squatting, or on knees when necessary for select cleaning tasks.
Schedule and Compensation:
Hours: 8–10 hours per week, spread over at least four days (e.g., approximately 2 hours per day). You can choose hours you prefer within Monday to Friday, 8:30 AM to 3:30 PM. Consistency and communication regarding any needed schedule changes are required.
Compensation: $30–$40 per hour, depending on your experience and payment method.
Benefits: While we don't offer additional benefits, we respect your need for personal days, vacations and holidays and allow for those.
Additional Requirements:
Successful completion of a background check to ensure suitability for working around children.
We will treat the first two weeks as a trial (at full pay) to ensure that we’ve all found a good fit.
A Day in the Life:
Picture this: you walk into the Carr household in the morning and are immediately greeted by the sparkle of a spilled pile of crafting beads in the entryway and a sink full of dishes stubbornly clinging to last night's chili.
Before you can grab the broom, a child dressed as Mario dashes past you, hollering something that sounds both urgent and unintelligible. Drue follows close behind, valiantly attempting to redirect Mario back to his reading assignment while wielding the kind of patience that only moms can muster.
As you make your way into the living room, you spot a stealthy pile of LEGOs lurking, ready to ambush Neil’s feet. Knowing the unholy pain of stepping on one of these tiny landmines, you heroically clear them away and restore peace to the space.
In the afternoon, the plot thickens. Drue heads out for a doctor's appointment, leaving you to monitor three kids while also tackling three loads of laundry. It starts promisingly: the kids sit quietly, dutifully working on their iPads, with clear assignments in front of them. Satisfied, you head to the basement to tame the laundry beast.
But when you get to the laundry room and realize you're out of detergent, the real adventure begins. You open a cabinet, only to find it stuffed with Christmas decorations, sporting supplies, canned goods, and what appears to be pieces of a socket set. Do you panic? Of course not. You don’t even ask Drue what to do about it. You know that the Carrs are too laid back to care about the specifics as long as you’re getting things done. So, you dive in and organize the chaos, turning the cabinet into a Pinterest-worthy masterpiece in no time.
When you return to the living room, one of the kids has abandoned their schoolwork in favor of some Olympic-level sofa jumping. You calmly encourage them to get back to their assignment and gently remind them that their dad, Neil, is just upstairs working—and that you will call him down if necessary. Neil is always home, ready to step in if things go rogue.
Just as you're wrapping up for the day, the final boss appears: it’s recycling day tomorrow, and Neil hasn’t gotten the bin to the curb. You spot the overflowing 50-gallon recycling bin and roll it down the stairs and to the curb, scooping up some abandoned popsicle sticks along the way because—of course—someone left those lying around.
By the time Drue gets back, the laundry is folded, the cabinet is organized, the recycling is out, and the house is one step closer to a state of organized chaos.
If this sounds like your kind of adventure and you’ve got the superpowers to handle our whirlwind family with humor and grace, we’d love to have you on board!
Application Process:
Interested candidates should email Neil through the email in this listing with responses to the following:
1. Tell us about yourself.
2. What interests you about this job?
3. Do you have any professional training or experience relevant to this role?
4. Have you previously worked in someone's home while they were present?
5. What experience do you have working around children?
6. What schedule would work for you? (Note: Flexibility is appreciated, but consistency is key.)
7. When can you start?