Our cleaner got offended

I restrict humanity to treating them well as an employer, for example, paying the cleaner during Covid when she couldn't come and wasn't eligible for furlough. Similarly paying when they are bereaved, etc, and can't come.

If they are telling me their life story, they aren't cleaning.

At work I am very mindful of professional boundaries and don't overshare. My reports sometimes have to tell me personally.stuff in the context of reasonable adjustments. But work is work, not a chatting shop.

Not the point of the thread I know, but so many of you are saying you booked a cleaner for two hours and cleaner started leaving early...I don't know what's surprising me more - that you can get your cleaning done to a worthwhile standard in two hours (because that's not a lot of time for a "proper" clean), or that the cleaners seem to think they can get it done in even less time. I know I said I was paying my last cleaner for the work he did and not the time he spent on it, but even then he was never here for less than 3 hours.

It is difficult to find a good honest and reliable cleaner. The best two I ever had (and for years) both cleaned primary schools in the early mornings and then came to me. So there is my tip of the day. They were honest, professional, DBS checked etc

Honestly, why does this puritanical view always get trotted out?

let her go and keep looking till you find a good one - it will be a mission. Activate your network, be prepared to be assertive. There are so many bad cleaners.
I had a really judge one once who turned up on her first day and phoned me up in a rage because my house was not next to the next number house. “I’m at 26, you said you were at 27? Where are you?!” On the other side of the road. Like most roads, the odd numbers are on the other side from the evens. This pretty much set the tone for the whole thing- she was constantly telling me off for things she had misunderstood.
I have found out about Mrs hinch since then and I “get” her now - her look and vibe was very much “I want to be Mrs hinch when I grow up”

she was the worse but the main problem with bad cleaners is you can’t ask them to do things or not do things with any traction. They treat your house like their workplace. So they want to come and go and do what they like even though you love there and you are paying them. Don’t use bleach, don’t throw away the toddlers’ “crafts”, don’t come at random times when im breastfeeding in my pyjamas but at agreed times, don’t use air freshener etc etc … all ignored

She's the one being unreasonable, I think you should look for another cleaner..
It's your money after all, why let it go to waste?

Cleaners are an absolute nightmare. Had one steal £300 from me.

Ha a friend's DH unexpectedly working from home one day and the cleaning lady brought her young DD with her and didn't realise he was there. He overheard her say to her DD : "If the room looks tidy just spray some air freshener around they will think it's done"!
Two hours is two hours and she obviously had things to do to fill the time if she wasn't getting everything done. And surprised she tried it on with you actually at home!

She sounds horrid. You have to stand up to this, you did right. Otherwise you would be bullied completely by her, which is mad.

That's so weird. We have a cleaner who comes once a month for 6 hours (big, old farmhouse). He was done early, so he offered to clean the windows on the outside and clean the fridge! He is a keeper :D

She's used to people just letting her get away with it. You've done the right thing ... fair days work for a fair days wage!

I would also expect her to stay two hours.
but in my experience good cleaners are near impossible to find, and those who find them hold on to them for dear life. We went through 3 cleaners and trialled a further 2 before settling on our current fantastic lady. We treat her well. When the house is dirtier than usual, we tip her at the end. We offer her coffee etc. she takes a short break during the day which is on paid time. But all of this is worth it as I want her to feel valued and hence do a good job. It’s also about respect. Cleaning must be a miserable job to have for life. And she contributes so much to our family! Just as valuable as a nanny, in my opinion. So I suppose it’s a two way street - yes you have to manage them, but you have to also value them, in my opinion.

I just do it myself now. Paid someone more than I earn per hour for a deep clean and I still do it better myself
I've never had a deep clean (paid for a few one offs as a treat to myself) and not been disappointed afterwards

Maybe English is not her first language and there has been some misunderstanding, something lost in translation perhaps?

If not, tell her you no longer need her as she's not sticking to the agreed verbal contract of two hours.

I would expect your cleaner to do two hours. With my cleaner, after about a month she told me she could do it in 1.5 and just billed me for the 1.5 hours per week.

Every cleaner I have had we have had a discussion about what was to be cleaned. My longest employed cleaner who was with me 8 years got a real rhythm going so she did it more quickly. She did however take it on herself to do small extra things if she did. She was marvellous, when she stopped I was very sad to lose her. I attempted to find someone else but gave up plus I had retired for 18 months by then. It’s a couple of years now, if I could get someone as good as her I would.

Always agree the job.

That’s all in the brief, though. You have to agree exactly what each job entails. Hoovering means hoovering under the sofa as well as the bits you can see. So it’s not subjective. If they don’t hoover under the sofa you can remind them that the two of you agreed that the whole job of hoovering included going under the sofa.

Performance management is horrible. Looking someone in the eye and saying ‘you did not do a good enough job’ is so awful that most of us avoid doing it. Employing a cleaning company is much less stressful as you’re delegating the performance management to the company managers and supervisors. Of course you’re paying for that, but some may think it a price worth paying.

If someone is in your house and has access to all your personal details, it's normal to want to get to know them a bit.

It's not like we chat for hours about their lives. However, they've been coming for years and during that time we've got to know each other and chat about various things. It's exactly the same with my work colleagues, I know about their lives. I thought this was all perfectly normal.
What's probably not normal is me feeling too awkward to stop overpaying them!

I am seriously interested in going back to cleaning as I could do with the money. It seems to be lucrative. Where would I go to get a good family to work for though? It works both ways

Obviously she was wrong to do this — if you agreed two hours she should have stayed for two hours.

But I wonder if, for your next cleaner, it would be better to think in terms of a fixed price for the agreed job? So decide what you want doing every week and perhaps build in one additional deep-cleaning task? The cleaner will probably quote based on time, but once you’ve agreed the price it won’t really matter how much time they spend doing it as long as it’s done.

This is the reason I clean my house nowadays. I have changed multiple ladies and got sick of paying to have to clean after them as well and to bear with their phone conversations/leaving early/coming late/being fussy of cleaning materials available etc.

Me too. We've given up trying to find a cleaner as it was causing more stress than it was worth.

The problem with that is it incentivises shortcuts and slapdash work, so rather than getting into a discussion about time you have the even harder conversation about the subjective quality of the work.

For e.g if someone said they'd finished the hoovering and they'd not bothered to do under the sofa that would feel unfinished to me.

Basically, if the person you employ is all about extracting the most cash for the least work then it doesn't matter if that's a cleaner in your home or an office worker who swans off for long lunches and produces half arsed work.

I had one cleaner who by week 2 had told me so much about their lives by week 4 the agency had replaced her with someone else because she was "experiencing unexplained illness" which I took to be embarrassment from serious over sharing.