Not sure if this is truly etiquette or business..

Anyway, I have a woman coming to clean my house tomorrow. I found her on craigslist. She didn't list any rates, she seems to just be desperate and looking for cash or food. So I emailed and told her if she was interested I could afford to pay her $75 to come and do some cleaning and we could negotiate what $75 worth of work is when she came. So my question, what would a fair amount of work be? My kitchen needs to be thoroughly swept, mopped, and counters/stove scrubbed. It's not filthy or anything. But it needs more than the half-arsed job my roomates and me have been giving it. Same with the bathroom, I just scrubbed the shower the other week. But the floor could be cleaned again. The living room, hallway, and my room need to be vaccumed. And I have some laundry, OK, a lot of laundry, like an overwhelming mountain, that I already washed but needs to be folded. Is that too much for $75? Does that seem fair? Or like too much? It's really nothing too intense, just stuff I haven't had the time/energy to get around to

Sounds like it might take her more than a few hours to complete this first visit. After that, it might not take her as long to maintain the house. How often do you plan on having her come?
My mothers rate is $45 per hour. She rounds up. So, less than an hour is still $45. 1-1/2hrs= $90. 3hrs-20min=$180.
I don't know if this is typical, but it her employer pays it. She works for herself, and by herself.
Hope this helps.

This will likely be a one time deal. Normally I do all of my own housekeeping. But I've been working and going to school full time so even when I do have the time on the weekend, I'm exhausted and just don't feel like cleaning. So if I have her come again, it probably won't be until finals come around again! :) It will just be her coming and working alone, I'm going to pay her directly, there won't be any middleman.

Well, I hope she does a good job for you. I still think this will take more than 2hrs to accomplish. And, without knowing how well she cleans, its hard to say what she is worth. You might want to break the job up between two days.(If she doesn't have travel expense) Then you can see her work, and if need be, increase her take pay just a bit. (see moms rate above)