to think that £7 an hour is a reasonable amount to pay a cleaner?

[gonaenodaethat]

That's it really.
I've been looking at agencies and they all seem to charge closer to £10 which seems excessive to me.

I live in the North East by the way.

[MmeLindt]

No idea, sounds very cheap to me but around these parts we pay closer to £15.

[ChooksAway]

I'm a cleaner in the North East, and I earn £10 an hour.
The cheapest I work for is £8 an hour, but only because I do 8 hours a week for this family.
TBH, I think you may struggle to find someone to do it for £7, but good luck in your search :)

[gonaenodaethat]

£15 per hour?

Where do you live MmeLindt?

[Theantsgomarching]

I pay £10/hr in North-West...

You know the saying "if you pay peanuts you get monkeys"

[MissAnneElk]

I don't think agencies will charge less than £10 per hour as they take their cut too.

[MmeLindt]

I am in Switzerland, labour costs are sky high here. £15 is the lower end of the scale, my neighbour pays more.

Yes, agencies will cost more as they have to pay their staff too. You may get an independent cleaner to work for £7.

[dixiechick1975]

I pay £10 non agency in a small northern town. she pays for materials and her insurance. An agency would be dearer.

Think you would struggle to get for less.

[fedupofnamechanging]

I too think that £7 is too cheap. Cleaning is hard work and if you want it done properly the wage you pay should reflect that.

[MrsDoofenshmirtz]

I don't think ten pounds is much at all. They have got to get to your home, travel costs, and you can do a lot in an hour.

[greedyguts]

Depends where you live. I'm in a fairly nice city suburb (not Londond) and I pay £10.50 via an agency.
Only £7 goes directly to the cleaner though, so I guess you might be lucky and find someone directly.

[DomesticG0ddess]

I pay £10. I paid £8 previously, but it was cheap in comparison to everyone else, she wasn't reliable and it was obviously cash in hand. Agencies are more like £12-15. We're in the South.

[azazello]

I pay 12gbp - Oxfordshire. That is an agency as independant cleaners are very thin on the ground.

It doesn't matter really whether YABU or not, you just might not get a cleaner.

[HollyGoHeavily]

I'm in the NW and pay £9 which is pretty much the going rate round here....

[DreamTeamGirl]

We pay £11 in South east
seems reasonable to me, as she doesnt get sick or holiday pay, plus she has to travel to my house, taking her 20 mins or whatever on top of the hour she is with me.

[PaulineCampbellJones]

I live in the NE and pay £12 an hour but through an agency. They are very good though so happy to pay.

[pommedeterre]

£10 an hour SE but not London. Totally reasonable to me. Independent crazy but lovely lady. I'd feel mean only paying £7.

[CMOTdibbler]

I'm W Midlands, and pay 10 an hour to an independant who is fantastic, but thats def the going rate

[iwantavuvezela]

I pay £10 in north london - i think what you need to factor in is that it is very difficult for a cleaner to work a full 8 hours - if they have two jobs a day, they still have to travel to and from those jobs - so i guess if they were working for you for 7-8 hours for the day then £7 might be reasonable, but if they are only working for 2- 4 hours, then you would need to pay higher because they will have hours they cannot work ....

[nearlytoolate]

The living wage for london is 7.45 per hour. Not sure what it is for other regions (NE is probaly one of the lowest cost regions in england).
As others point out it is supply and demand though, so depends on labour market in your area.
Personally I don't think cleaning is a bad or difficult job. Nicer than lots of jobs I can think of - pleasant surroundings, lots of autonomy (no one standing over you telling you what to do and when, as long as the job is done) and flexible hours. No qualifications required, just integrity, reliability and willingness to work. I pay my cleaner £8 an hour directly and supply all materials. I think that is fair for my area (NE England).

[geordieminx]

I pay cleaner £7 hour, and £2 an hour to the agency.

We are in Scotland.

You probably could get someone to work for £7, by looking at ads in newsagents.... we thought about it, but there is so much scope for things to go wrong - you could come home and find your house had been cleared... cant imagaine the insurance company would have much sympathy "well I saw an ad in this shop, got her mobile number and handed a key over"....

If you dont want to go through an agency then the safest thing is to get a reccomendation from a friend but tbh I stuggled.

Whereabouts in the NE are you btw?

[nomedoit]

It seems excessive to you OP? When I read this my first impression was that this was a troll.

A cleaner earning 7.00 per hour working a 35-hour week for 48 weeks of the year would earn a whopping 11,760 before tax.

No sick pay
No paid leave
No benefits

Oh, and with time and petrol in between houses.

I think exploitative is the word you're looking for.

[diddl]

Might also depend on what you want doing.
Light dusting & vacuuming maybe OK.

[nearlytoolate]

I was doing some searching to try and answer what a reasonable minimum wage is - not actually that easy to find out - but found that Joseph Rowntree suggest £13400 per annum as basic standard of living for a single person before tax in uk. www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jul/02/welfare
So £7 doesn't really cut it. £8 just about does (I assumed 37 hour week for 46 weeks of the year), but maybe its time for me to consider a pay rise...

[spoonbill]

I used to be a cleaner and now I employ a cleaner. I think £10 is the minimum they should be paid. And I think if you've found a good one you should pay them holiday and sick pay and the odd bonus. We place enormous trust in women who we barely know left alone in our houses, cleaning objects that they will probably never be able to afford. We ask them to clean up our most intimate messes: toilets, baths bed sheets and we want them to be quick with it. Be reasonable, that deserves a decent financial reward. After all you can always do it your self