hiring a maid

[geormiet]

Because of my love of cleanliness and my hatred of actual cleaning, I'm thinking of hiring a maid. When I was living in costa rica, we had a maid who charged $10 a day, and life was great. Now that I live in San Francisco, I anticipate that I may have to spend more like $15/hr but I think it might still be worth it.

Anyone want to share their experiences with having a maid clean their houses/apartments? I have a 2 bedroom fairly large apartment. No dishwasher, free washer dryer downstairs. What can I expect of a maid? Dishes, laundry, folding, ironing? Can I expect to tell her where certain stuff is supposed to go and have her do that? Like...recycling goes here, t shirts goes here, bowls go here?

Also best place to find a maid? I got a recommendation from a friend but she didn't sound 100% enthusiastic about it.