AIBU to wonder if I am being overcharged for cleaning?

Sorry I see you say you've already tried Fantastic Services - but how was it £26 per hour with them? It's not - I pay £18. If you want a cleaner who brings all their own stuff (usually this means 2 cleaners come and do day, 2.5 hours rather than 5), it's a little more (like £20 per hour). FS will generally try to upsell you though, eg, oven cleaning or carpet shampooing. It may be they were adding something on?

Sounds mad OP. £200 for a bathroom?! Just call a company like Fantastic Services, etc etc as you're in London. I have 5 hours for £90 (so £18 per hour). There are loads of agencies which can send someone the next day.

For a one off job, proper deep clean with steam etc, I'd charge £100 but probably £80 to you at the end and tell you to spend the rest on the baby/postnatal treats for you.

But I am a solo cleaner who works hard to keep my outgoings low. I don't pay vehicle costs for instance whereas some cleaners have to factor that into every job. Some people have higher insurance than others because they are covered for more (some people have no insurance at all). Some people have income protection fees. That creeps up the price of every job.

You know, you could find someone cheaper than me and probably more than adequate on a task app.

If you can get in it, yes. It can smell and cause limescale issues. Even plumbing. I do mine about twice a year but always do it on a move out clean.

I am in the midlands. My window cleaner comes every 8 weeks and charges me £15 to do a 4 bed detached house! For an extra £5 he will do the conservatory windows as well. I only get them done twice a year.

As for cleaners, the going rate round here for a regular clean seems to be about £20 per hour. If you want a more deep clean, it goes up (more products, harder work etc). I don't have a regular cleaner but occasionally have a deep clean or blitz clean which involves doing a bit more (exactly what seems to vary from company to company) and costs a bit more. I pay up to £25 per hour. In a couple of weeks, I am paying £200 for 2 cleaners for 4 hours (so 8 hours of cleaning). I have been quoted almost double that by another company but just didn't go with them! These ladies have been before and I was very happy with them. Shop around would be my advice.

Edited to say someone quoting £200 just to clean your bathroom is crazy! I would want my whole house doing to a decent standard for that (incl 2 bathrooms and a downstairs loo) - although when my cleaners come, I will ask them to spend more time on certain rooms and miss out certain ones (or just do them quickly) if they don't have time.

@Lexibletheflexible we’re supposed to clean inside the cistern?! Why is that?

Quite a lot of toilets have concealed cisterns anyway, in one flat I had you needed to unscrew a wall panel to get to it.

I wouldn't no. But my bathroom gets done daily. There isn't 200 quid worth of cleaning in it.

That's the thing, I'd have to see it (not suggesting you post a photo!) Purely because my experience has shown me that standards differ wildly. When I started out, I'd believe the majority of people who said "it isn't that bad" or "it just needs a quick wipe down". And it wasnt as easy as just doing the work they expected it to take and that's that because they would leave you awful reviews when their landlord complains.

Over time, I got more confident about being realistic with people about what needs doing and how much time and money it will take to do it well.

Baths are a good example because some people will swear that the greyish look is something to do with the finish but you actually scrub it and then you see it's just a build up of dirt that hasn't been agitated well enough to remove over time. That can be layers and need a few times of scrubbing and rinsing.

It depends on the condition.

I quoted someone a price for an end of tenancy clean recently but when I got there, it was clear that the flat was barely lived in. Instead of the whole job quote I gave, I told them to pay me £20ph and it ended up at £80 as it was really no more intensive than a normal clean. 2 bed, 2 bath brand new flat. They rarely used one bathroom.

How about local WhatsApp groups? E.g. your street WhatsApp if you have one

How are you looking for a cleaner?

I wouldn't take Mumsnet as a guide on this stuff TBH - better to ask around locally. Mumsnet also thinks £20/hr is cheap for babysitting and no one where I am in London would pay that. (Our babysitter is a teacher and she asks for £13/hr)

Join Nextdoor. You can get reasonable (legal) rates there.

Same but on Mumsnet everyone thinks £20 is cheap. I can't work out what's going on - is it different areas of London? Or cleaners posting to try and normalise a higher rate? Something else? Maybe the higher rates are agencies? I have had recommendations from friends, not agencies

I live outside of London and pay my cleaner 25 quid for 1.5 hours. I felt that was the right rate to offer.

I am in Yorkshire. My cleaner charges me £40 a week for a small 3 bedroom. She takes between 2-2.5 hrs to clean. She does bathrooms, surface's floors and dusting. Then once a month does windows and some other things. Seems to work

I was one of her first clients. She is ace as I can swap days with notice and does a great job.

I found it hard to get a reliable cleaner as the first few just didn’t turn up weekly.

£15ph in London. All my friends pay similar. This is the second cleaner we have had and both charged £15.