To feel a bit awkward re the cleaner?

Don't feel awkward, you're paying her so she should be cleaning as you ask her to. Explain what you want, texting might be easier

For a 4 bed house (3 bathrooms) our cleaner does 4 hrs every week. I think you need to pay for more time or give her a list of rooms to d9 each week that rotates so different rooms get covered

We have a 4-bed detached and in two hours a week our cleaner does:

Hoover of every room bar husband’s office plus stairs
Mop all hard floors
Clean kitchen surfaces, sink, splashback, cupboard doors if needed
Bathrooms: toilet, sink, bath, shower cleaned.
Wipe surfaces in bedrooms

And on a rotation some other bits like doors and inside of windows if she has time.

I would prefer the whole house done v two rooms done to show house standard so maybe you need to have that chat with her.

I think you need to say what your priorities are. Then ask her to rotate anything else.

For example ours comes two hours a week. I asked: every week to please prioritise the bathrooms and the hard floors. Then rotate anything else. She usually does this every week plus hoovers and wipes down the kitchen. Then rotates other bits as she likes….

I have a similar sized house to you- our cleaner does 4 hours and does the whole house every fortnight, then the week in between she does 2 and does the living room, kitchen/diner, and main bathroom to keep the high use areas topped up.

In two hours my cleaner does:

• "proper" cleans of the kitchen and two bathrooms.
• light cleaning (just wiping surfaces, mirrors, mild tidying etc) of the living room, conservatory, dining room, and kids' bedrooms.
• hoovering/sweeping/mopping in all above rooms plus hallways and stairs.

She's a bloody gem.

Hopefully she will speed up as she gets used to the house.

But I wouldn't expect all that to get done in 2 hours.

Kitchen/diner, hoover the whole house except bedrooms plus clean one other room on a rota would be reasonable to aim for I think.

Cleaning a whole 4 bedroom house in 2 hours is asking too much, but I don't think you are being unreasonable to expect a kitchen, two bathrooms and a cloakroom to be cleaned in a couple of hours, including a quick whiz round with a mop in those rooms as well. I wouldn't expect the rest of the house to be touched though

I would love to have the model you describe and I think I’d just ask her to rotate the rooms. My issue is similar to others that my cleaner doesn’t have a longer slot available so she can’t deep clean and she wants to reset all the rooms for us. It’s good but it means we do the deep clean. I might ask my cleaner to copy yours! Sounds like you might prefer to copy our approach and lower the standard to cover more rooms or extend the time

2 hours isn’t a lot for your size house. Be more specific. Say the kitchen and all bathrooms must be done and the living room every other week.

I think to do what you expect would take 3 hours
My cleaner does 2 hours twice a week

Have you actually told her you are hoping for that? If so, ask for her feedback

I have a similar size house to you. We've had cleaners in the past, and also said not to worry about bedrooms. Even then, they've said it's 3.5-4 hours for the rest of the house. If you want her to do every room every week, she just needs more time.

We have a cleaner for 2 hours a week and she hoovers the whole (4-bed) house, mops all the downstairs floors and cleans the kitchen and three bathrooms. She doesn't do that much dusting or move the furniture, though she does wipe the accessible surfaces. To be honest, I think it's a challenge to get all that done in 2 hours (esp since we got a bigger kitchen and added a bathroom) but she is very popular and doesn't have a longer slot for us.

Wasn't sure how to vote as YANBU to expect more than two rooms cleaned, but your post sounds like you want to be told that YABU for feeling awkward?

You need to be specific, eg, please clean kitchen every time you come, and rotate between bathroom, living room etc. I have what sounds like a similar sized house to you, and my cleaner takes four hours to do the whole house.

guess I’d hoped that each time she came, she would be able to get the kitchen/ diner done, the main bathroom, the en-suite and maybe the WC too.

You need to communicate this with her. It will be less thorough but most cleaners do speed up after a few cleans.

Mine does 4 hours and gets most of the house done plus ironing but if I have specific requests I just ask her.