Rich homeowners shell out tens of thousands to clean their sofas. A single mistake could cost $75,000

Nowadays, you see the financial reporting of how much these tech titans are worth, and your eye could water. Well, we finally found out what they spend all that money on — ancient artifacts in their homes and luxury couches. But something we can all get behind is that their housekeepers are finally learning their worth and charging them something commensurate with their expertise.

Nowadays, we’ve gone numb to the fact that Elon Musk could have a net worth of half a trillion and, instead of using that fortune to make the world a better place, he uses it to teach AI to embrace Nazism. So, of course, in their interior lives, the vast fortune goes to — let’s not call it wastage — but rather an art collection in the form of furniture.

In a recent report by Bloomberg, it was revealed that it’s not uncommon for these “high net worth individuals” to spend as much as $456,000 on an artsy chair, $19.4 million on a rhinoceros-shaped cabinet, and $1 million on a Jean Royère sofa. And these pieces aren’t just ridiculous shock-jock art like a banana stuck on the wall or whichever latest ridiculous stunt has come out of the art world. These are highly accomplished people with fine taste. These are pieces that could be stolen if they were being exhibited at the Louvre.

Gina, a housekeeper at one of these homes, explained that to work there as a cleaner, you need to do research yourself. She said, “You’ve got to know about art. You’ve got to know about antiques. There’s a lot of custom pieces, and of course, they’re not replaceable.”

According to reports, these high-end housekeepers used to charge $60,000 max before the pandemic, but nowadays, they’d easily start negotiations at $100,000. And they would also expect benefits. On social media, when people found out about this, the overwhelming response was that housekeeping is a very essential job and these housekeepers are being exactly what they’re worth — especially since they’re now the custodians of what is essentially high-end art that will one day end up in museums showcasing how the wealthy lived in this second gilded age of tech. And besides, it’s not like the likes of Jeff Bezos are strapped for cash — he just recently rented out the entire city of Venice, after all.

However, that’s not to say that the housekeepers don’t make mistakes. As good as they are at their jobs, we’re all prone to making mistakes. Apparently, one housekeeper had a client who had gone out on vacation with family, and in their absence, the hardworking housekeeper polished all the doorknobs and finished them until they were bright and shiny. When the client came back, they found their finishing had been stripped off. They noted that it would cost them $75,000 to fix.

Most people don’t even know what a $75,000 vintage doorknob looks like, much less where to find it, so the client simply blamed themselves for not ensuring the staff was trained better.