How to find a cleaner?

[ffallada]

...this might be a really daft question.....

A little bit of background: My mum was a SAHM and kept her house immaculate when we were growing up many years ago. She still does! Fast forward a couple of years and she is now well above the retirement age and, after a recent bought of illness, finally accepted that a cleaner might be acceptable help. I have promised that this would be a hassle free thing for her, I will sort it. I have even promised that she does not need to be in the house when the cleaner comes as she feels uncomfortable with hiring someone to do what she can do. (on a side note I have also offered to do the cleaning for her but at 24 weeks pregnant she refuses to let me help - lovely mum :)
The only problem is I have no idea how to do such a thing.

She has agreed, as a one off toe-in-the-water, to have a cleaner do a spring clean prior to a friend of hers coming to stay. As I mentioned, her house is a level of clean that I cant even aspire to, let alone recreate. So any clean would be a surface thing anyway.

She would like floors hovered / washed as appropriate. Bathrooms (2)cleaned. House dusted. Some of the silverware cleaned.

If this goes well I hope to make it a more regular thing so she can actually be retired!

Problem is, I've been googling and a large recognisable company has quoted £175 for this. This seems a little steep.

I only have a week or so to organise so I don't want to do the 'card in a newsagent window' thing.

I am nervous about inviting a stranger into her house without checking references etc. which would take time, so thought a large-ish company would get round that problem.

I would be grateful for any help anyone could offer. I am sure there is an easy way to go about this. (apologies for the long post)

[Linus33]

We found our lovely cleaner by asking my friends cleaner if she'd be interested but she couldn't take it on but she asked some of her friends who were also cleaning and up popped the cleaner we now have. Word of mouth is pretty powerful. Are you local to your mum? I realise that you don't have a lot of time though.

What about a call out on Facebook? I've seen people doing that and on MN Local?

£175? For how many hours? I guess they'd put a team on it! But I don't think it would need that. Sounds like your mum's standards are already pretty high so wouldn't really be that bad and a regular clean would be sufficient. My cleaner does 4 hours for us every other week for £10 per hour if that helps.

[ffallada]

Thanks for the reply :)

I'm not local to my mum, so don't know her neighbours, don't know if they have a cleaner, would be embarrassed to ask :(

Is £10 an hour a good rate?