How much does your cleaner do in two hours?

[Longtalljosie]

I've always been one for not having unrealistic expectations of what a cleaner can do, you pay for two hours of cleaning, you're not paying for a spotless house...

But I'm beginning to think my cleaner's doing far less than I should reasonably expect. And I'm not sure that buying extra hours would actually make any difference. I have tried talking to her about this but nothing changes.

Do your cleaners clean the toilet (I mean, actually clean it, not just squirt it with Domestos)? And do they put things away? Clutter is generally just put in a pile in the room it was in. I keep seeing things - eg the skirting, behind radiators, behind the loo where I assumed she was cleaning, and being mortified at the state of it. I've spent two hours scrubbing at the bathrooms this morning. Grime / limescale which has survived her efforts week after week came off with a bit of patience. I'd been assured it was impossible to get off but seemingly not...

She's paid £10/hour and is really, really nice. Which makes it hard to raise the issue with her, although I've tried.

[YuleBeLucky]

Our cleaner does a decent job, but she is not a deep cleaner. She does shitloads of todying / putting things away, which ins't really her job, so I am more relaxed about her standard of cleaning, which is good but not amazing.

She does clesan the toilet properly, yes. Bit weird for a cleaner not to do that!

But she doesn't clean woodwork or walls or pull things out and hoover underneath them. I do all that once every coupe of months on a 'soring clean day', and she just maintains the surface stuff, iyswim.

She charges £8 an hour and cleans a four bedroom house to a decent standard in 3 hours, btw.

[YuleBeLucky]

tidying, not todying!

excuse other typos

[beautyspot]

Longtall - she may be nice but she sounds pretty useless.

The best cleaner I ever had was a 70 year old lady who was a retired NHS cleaner. Wow. Professional.

You are not a charity and £10 an hour is an awful lot of money (considering that's in her hand..that would be about £14 if she were paying tax).

Get rid, get one that works and charges a decent amount.

[mousymouse]

my cleaner doesn*t do the toilets. she started of doing them by just squirting bleach but not really cleaning them so I told her not to do them.
she does (2 hours every other week):
kitchen surfaces and floor
damp dusting all over living room vacuuming and mopping floor
bathroom surfaces and floor
bedrooms vacuuming and dampdusting

[hillyhilly]

If you have bathrooms then maybe there is too much for her to do in 2 hours.
That said, I've had a few cleaners and my present one is "fine", not brilliant, (oh how I want Cathy back!) but good enough. She's not great on toilets and basins, not really thorough enough, more of a once over but dusts really well.
I would never expect a cleaner to tidy up although I do accept that she does a little she certainly doesn't do any putting away and I have the house as tidy as I can manage to get it.
Having a cleaner does not mean that you never have to do any cleaning again, it means that the whole house gets a once over once a week.

[hillyhilly]

Sorry, my atttempt to underline the S in bathrooms failed but hopefully you can see what I mean!

[atah]

mine thoroughly cleans an average size 2 bed, wooden floors throughout in 2 hours. I don't expect her to do tidying/putting away though. occasionally she has spare time and will do insed some kitchen cupboards or some windows.

TBH however nice she was if I had to do any cleaning after she had gone I would get rid of her - whats the point of paying her otherwise?

[atah]

inside not insed

[Bonsoir]

You cannot reasonably expect a cleaner to tidy. You need to deal with your clutter and put it away before she arrives.

[Gay40]

I pay my cleaner to do the house to showhome standard every few weeks. He can take 2 hours or 8 hours if he likes - I'm at work so I don't care. But he gets a fixed amount and I do not expect to do ANYthing when he's finished.

[Longtalljosie]

That's interesting Gay40 - would it be rude to ask how much he gets?

The clutter (not that there's huge amounts, recipe books in the kitchen, bills, catalogues etc) was tbh the reason I gave for her not really cleaning.

I tried to have a word with her, couching it that we hadn't ever really talked about how it was going, was 2 hours enough, would 3 be better, was there stuff she felt she was never able to get around to? But she sort of stonewalled, refused to sit down, "I'll just keep on cleaning, you talk", "Just tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it"

The only thing we could agree on was it wasn't reasonable for her to know where clutter went (although we agreed all newspapers could be put in the recycling) and agreed I'd buy two large wicker baskets, one for upstairs, one for downstairs, for things which needed putting away.

Made bugger all difference, I shelled out for these things from Homebase but they haven't been used once.

My cleaner in London was hilariously unreliable (to the extent I worried there was something seriously wrong with her, so often was she too ill to come) but I checked with one of her friends and no, she was just hung over. But it didn't matter so much as when she didn't come, we kept the money and cleaned ourselves. But when she did come in - you could tell that she'd been. There was that "wow" factor when you opened the door. I don't get that at all.

[CeliaChristmasFate]

I used to have cleaners. Two of them would come for 2 hours once a fortnight. When we decided to make cutbacks I started doing the cleaning myself and noticed what they were doing was really keeping the dirt at bay, not actually deep cleaning. There was never a fresh, clean smell when I came back, the toilets weren't cleaned they just squirted toilet duck under in them, furniture was never moved to clean behind etc. I'm much happier doing it myself and keeping the money!

[nameymcnamechange]

I've always told my cleaners not to do the toilet. I just think its a pretty minging job and I want to keep them on my side, so I ask them to leave it to us.

[whomovedmychocolate]

Am on the fence honestly. I have a very good cleaner - actually she's crap at toilets but she's good at everything else. But I think it depends entirely on the number of rooms and how filthy they start out.

And I think some cleaners start out great and deteriorate (like employees in every other business). I think you have to be straightforward and either say 'I'm not happy with X and Y, can you do it differently' or get another cleaner.

She sounds non-communicative though which for me is a no-no. I don't want people in my house who won't hold a basic conversation with me.

[Gay40]

£30. I worked out that it would take me about 3 hours of non-stop graft. (In other words an entire day with teabreaks and faffing about online).

He judges for himself what needs doing.

[kingbeat23]

Not having had a cleaner, I don't know if this post will be much use...but...I was offered by fiends to clean and they expected for 2 hours work at £20 to have the floors mopped and hoovered, the bathroom cleaned (showers, surfaces and probably toilet), light dusting and probably a wipe down everywhere else.

If you are having difficulities talking to her work performance I might, however, be able to help.

If you are HR competent then use those kind of tactics on someone else that you might employ.

When talking to my staff at work, I outline the work performance problems, how they can be achieved and the consequence of what will happen if they fail to achieve the expected standards.

I know that you may see this as being petty, but they are entering a contract with you to do work for you and this should be set out to them of what you feel are acceptable standards.

I don't think that sorting your clutter should be aprt of the job AT ALL, I would feel uncomfortable to sort anyones crap as who knows what is important to one person might be recycling for another, however, even if she is coming to clean your house then you need to deal with it on a professional level too.

As someone else has stated, she is beingnon-communicative and that implys, to me at any rate, that she might be well aware of what a crap job she is doing and is finding ways of being a lazy cow and still getting paid.

If you don't outline what is acceptable to you then she has no chance of proving to you what she is worth but if you do outline it and then she continues to be crap find someone else, there are plenty of wonderful people out there who would gratefully accept you wishes and carry them out as well.

[nameymcnamechange]

If it helps, if I was paying a cleaner for two hours this is what I would expect her to clean

Cooker hob
Kitchen sink and draining board
Kitchen floor
Hoover living room, dining room and downstairs hall
Bath
Tiles around shower and shower
Bathroom wash hand basin
Bathroom floor
Hoover stairs and landing
Hoover children's bedroom

Thats about it. I can't see how any "deep cleaning" can be achieved without letting any of the above go.

[nannyl]

we have normal sized 3 bed house.
3 big bedrooms, huge family bathroom and large ensuite
a huge kitchen diner and a front room

in 2 hours my cleaner hoovers and dusts EVERYwhere, and moves things so does dust everywhere

she deep cleans both bathrooms (inc tiles and properly cleans toilets)

she empties all the bins
she changes our bed linen

she mops kitchen and bathroom floors
cleans the hop / kitchen surfaces and sink

she is wonderful and worth her weight in gold

[Bonsoir]

Time spent cleaning is not just a function of the size of your house, but also a function of the number of people living in it.

When I am alone at home for a week, my house barely needs a couple of hours spent on it.

When there are five of us, there are 12 hours min of cleaning...

[kittya]

Mine comes for two hours. Shes good but not great. Im always amazed at the amount of cleaning fluids she gets through!! every week Im buying bleach or something else.

This week she told me next week she would come an hour earlier to clean the fridge out. I dont think it would take an hour but, there you go.

Shes very trustworthy though.

When you pay them by the hour do you expect them to stay for the paid amount of time or arent you bothered if they clear off as soon as they are done?

[mousymouse]

I pay by the hour and she fits in every thing I ask her (small flat though). if I need extra cleaning (oven, fridge or before guests come) I pay the extra time as per hourly wage.

[Longtalljosie]

Kittya - that's the other thing, as you say, previous cleaners burned through cleaning product. I'm always asking her if she needs any more of stuff and she never seems to (well she does eventually, but very slowly)

It's just the low level annoyances which are starting to get me down. I was talking to her about the sink in the downstairs loo (I repainted recently and the dustsheet fell off of the sink, there are miniscule droplets of white paint on there, invisible to the eye but you can feel the surface is slightly rough). She said she'd noticed and had "given it a really good go with that sponge there", gesturing to a scourer on the side. I was surprised as I hadn't seen her with it and it was precisely where it was before - I touched it a few moments later and it was bone dry.

[Cyb]

She sounds hopeless

i pay my cleaner £8 anhour

She tidies everywhere, properly tidies, hangs out washing, cleans a 4 bed ,3 bathroom ,3 storey house in 3 hours.

I would literally DIE without her

[Longtalljosie]

[Gay40]

She needs the sack, frankly @ LTJ