To ask about getting a cleaner.

I have a 5 bed, 3 bath house and have a cleaner come for 3 hours fortnightly. When I can afford it, I'll move it to weekly.

Except the cleaner doesn't know where all your clutter belongs. A weekly cleaner isn't a live-in house maid, working there full time and learning which item belongs to who and where it lives.

With a general domestic cleaning service, if you want your cleaner to tidy your clutter, they'll just gather it all up and place it in one spot. You will still have to tidy it all away later, so the clever thing to do would be do it the evening before so your cleaner isn't wasting the time you're paying for on picking up stuff before they can even start the actual cleaning.

So, OP, this also will slot time. If you're happy for.your cleaner to also.spend time gathering up belongings and clutter before they clean, but you still want a high standard all-over clean, factor in more 'tidying' time. OR don't complain if you leave lots of clutter out and your cleaner gets left cleaning done. That's on you.

Well, that can clear clutter if that’s what you want, but obviously they get less done on the time.

2 - 4 hours a week

2 for the absolute basics
3 much better
4 probably optimal - or if you are messy, necessary.

I’d start with 3. Wouldn’t do fortnightly with young kids.

Fine to include bed change.

Ask around, look in windows and at gumtree - there will be ads. There will be local agencies too but you’ll pay on top so try to avoid. Get two verbal references.

Manage it actively, write down everything you want doing, get them round, meet them, they will assess the house and between you you will work out what can be done in the time.

Best thing I ever did.

Pls bear in mind, a cleaner is not there to clear up untidy clutter. A cleaner cannot adequately and efficiently clean if they have to move loads of clutter out of the way first, because it eats into the slot time. For the best clean I'm the quickest time, the evening before the cleaner is due, everyone needs to tidy away their belongings, clear surfaces and floors of clutter.

They also shouldn't be expected to clean up any urine, vomit, faeces or other bodily fluids, either human or animal. It is a general clean you're paying for, not a biohazard clean. Which is far more expensive.

I'm a cleaner. Been in the trade for 5 yrs now.

I'd say, a house that size, including bed changing, you're looking at a 5-6hr slot each time. But to give you a more accurate time, I'd have to do a home visit first to see the size & layout of the property and the overall condition of it.

If the property is in a 'neglected' condition (as you say) I'd recommend having and extra hour as well, for the first 2-3 cleans, to bring it up to a standard where it can then just be maintained each week.

I do bed changes, but I offer housekeeping services too. Not all cleaners do. Some just offer cleaning and that's it.

A house that size, with young children and busy working adults, I'd recommend weekly cleaning. I'd only do fortnightly for small flats and bungalows with an elderly couple etc, as they don't lead busy lives.

The cost for general weekly domestic cleaning varies depending on the area you live, and the experience and expertise of the cleaner. I'm experienced, know my stuff, fully insured. run a legitimate tax & NI paying business, have many many business running costs, have an accountant etc. So I'm not the cheapest in the area. But I have a very good reputation and word of mouth has always been my source of work.

You can get far cheaper cleaners than me - often people just starting out, think it's easy money for just wafting a duster about, want cash in hand because they don't want to pay their taxes. But they don't last long when they realise its actually a lot of hard graft, both physically and mentally.

Ask local neighbours, or on local Facebook groups, or the Nextdoor app, who they'd recommend.

You'll pay more for a company who runs a big business, as they have staff to pay as well as turning a profit. The upside to this, though, is if the cleaner usually assigned to slot is ill, they'll send a replacement. And this can happen a lot. Cleaning companies staff turnovers are frequent, so you'll find in the space of a year you'll meet lots of different cleaners, all with their own varying standards and enthusiasm for the job.

You'll pay less for a sole trading independent cleaner, and they'll really get to know you and your home. How you like things, the most efficient way to clean it to the best standard, they'll learn what needs doing every clean and the tasks that can be rotated. As the business is entirely theirs, their enthusiasm and standards tend to be much higher. The downside is though, if they are off for illness, or any other reason, you have no cover. You just have to donit yourself until your cleaner returns.

I also have 2 small kids, and dh and I work full time. We have a 4 bed 3 bath house. My cleaner comes 2 1/2 hours a week and does all the bathrooms, 3 of the bedrooms (#4 is my office which I'm usually working in so I clean it myself). She does kitchen, living/dining room and hallway. If I ask her to she does beds too, so one week I get her to do the kids, the other she does ours, as long as I leave the sheets out for her. She literally doesn't stop moving for the whole time she's here.

We pay £15 per hour for her, but for new customers she charges £18 per hour. We make sure before she comes that rooms are tidy and everything is put away, she's there to clean not tidy up (as I keep telling the kids).

She's also done a couple of extra cleans for us, we had her come before Xmas for example to do an extra clean when we moved furniture to put the tree and decorations up. She was a huge help.

If we went to fortnightly I would have to up the hours to 3 or maybe 3 1/2 as I'd want her to do all the beds each time.

We found her as a recommendation on next door.com we had a couple of others that didn't work out, one came to do a deep clean but didn't clean under anything, another didn't turn up on time. It took time to find the right one. But the lady we have now is worth every penny.

I have a small 4-bed (really 3-bed and study) 1200sqft and have cleaners in for 2hrs a week. This is usually enough and they will change the bed linen too. For your size of house probably 3-4 hours you'd need depending on how thorough you want them to be.
I use an agency (found on local mum's group on Facebook) and they usually send 2 cleaners for an hour or sometimes 3 cleaners for 40 mins - and this actually works out better as two of them makes it much easier and quicker changing the sheets! I pay mine 17.50 an hour (London / Surrey borders)

It's fine to ask for bed linen to be changed. I think you'd need 4 hours a week, or less if you don't want the beds changed every week. I have a 4 bed, 2 bath house and have 2 hours, but she doesn't do the 3 teen bedrooms so effectively only one bedroom, 2 baths and the downstairs. And no bed changing. Years ago when the kids were smaller I had all 4 bedrooms done, and some ironing, and paid for 4 hours. I pay £18 an hour but I think that's at the top end of normal, having seen threads on here.

A - 3 hours per fortnight will just about stay on top of it but it won't be an amazing deep clean and our cleaner somehow never made it into the wet room to clean the shower. So it's not quite enough time.

We are very untidy so a fortnightly rush round tidying up was all I could cope with. I guess if she came weekly maybe my house would have stayed tidier??

I was paying £17/hr after several price increases.

D - word of mouth / Facebook.