How would you react!

I love this advert photo for the expensive Neptune Kitchens. It certainly doesn’t look clinical.
We know someone who’s kitchen is just like this, only bits of gardening and plumbing paraphernalia are missing.

It may have been a rhetorical question to be followed by 'because I am' and that she wanted to discuss the subject with you.

My closest friend is terminally untidy. We met at boarding school and I would be told to tidy her drawers and cuboard because mine was always so tidy.

She has had a cleaner - the same lovely person for the whole 40 years - and despite that her house is always horrendously untidy. Beautifully clean, her cleaner works hard, but stuff everywhere.

I'm one of those who have to de-clutter before the cleaner arrives. He does the upstairs while I clear up the kitchen.

If she were a friend (as opposed to an acquaintance or 'just' a neighbour) I wouldn't feel the need to judge or make a retort.

It may be that she was thinking about getting one herself, as has been said, or that she knows of someone who is looking for one and wondered if you had a recommendation. It may be that she thought you looked tired, and would benefit from help to keep your house to the standards you have set (which are clearly different from hers, but that's no reflection on either of you), or all sorts of possibilities.

I may have said 'why do you ask?', but I wouldn't assume that a friend was having a go at me, or that there was a need to take offence or wonder about an ulterior motive.

Good point Greenfinch.
When I see a house where nothing is out of place,cushions plumped,no dust and no sign of any hobbies I assume the person that lives there keeps it like that all the time and has little else to do.

Nobody on their deathbed ever said "I wish I had cleaned more"

Maybe your friend was having a little dig.

Yes, I would have stared and then laughed too! It would be too funny for words in the circumstances.?

Perhaps she thought you must be spending a lot of time making everything tidy and if you had a cleaner you would have more time to do other things.

I was reminded that many years ago one of my friends had a cleaner. I thought that I could have one too and so this cleaner came to "interview" us. Unfortunately we had a thunderstorm and one of the dogs peed indoors and the other had a tick on his chin which he bashed on the floor leaving a trail of blood. She arrived to see this mess but agreed to come the following Tuesday. That day we had a phone call to say that she'd forgotten that Tuesdays were her regular hair dresser days. As if. So we found a different cleaner.

One day our washing machine broke down and the friend said we could use hers - Marge would be there so no problem getting in. My DH went down the road with the washing and the door was opened by the cleaner's husband, wearing a frilly apron and rubber gloves, brandishing a feather duster. He was a retired RSM so perhaps you can picture the scene.

I know she would not contemplate getting a cleaner and she genuinely doesn't care about the state of her house. She always says there are more interesting things to do! I just thought it funny that she asked me that question.

In the dim and distant past we had some friends who used to stay overnight when they visited us because of the distance and driving home after supper. We're not very good at housework because there's usually something else (better) to do but when we have visitors we always clean and tidy so the house look fairly spotless. This friend used to walk in and say "I see you've cleaned" which I found annoying because they never dropped in unexpectedly.

My DH is often moans about my untidiness and says that no one else's house is untidy. I try to explain that's because he only goes to friends houses for meals whereas I often used to pop into friends houses for a coffee and they too had piles of stuff everywhere. He doesn't accept that however.

You could say " if you find a really great one we coud share 80/20"

I'm afraid it would be no use her getting a cleaner if the place is in a mess because you can't clean if there is stuff everywhere. She would need to tidy round before the cleaners could even start.

I think V3ra might be right, and she’d been going to admit that she was struggling.

I'd have said, 'No, I don't feel the need, but how about you?'

I think V3rais spot on.
I have a very good friend who`s house sounds very much like your friend Oldwoman70.
I just laugh and ask her if she forgot I was coming then we both laugh.

I'd have fallen about laughing. That would have made my day.

I might have said “what a coincidence, I was going to suggest the same to you”.

I'd take it as a rhetorical question and the person who is thinking of getting the cleaner is actually your friend?