Cleaners - How Much and How Long

[Blankspace4]

Both DH and I work full time, long hours, no DC but pets.

We have had a cleaner for the past year. We pay her £40 (ostensibly for 4 hours but read on....) cash in hand, to clean the whole house once a week. I’d prefer to pay by bank transfer but she has always resisted. This makes me think she is not declaring the income and I am complicit.

I also have reasonable evidence she isn’t staying for 4 hours. I’m pretty sure it isn’t much more than 2, and whilst she does a reasonable job, attention to detail isn’t great and she also has an annoying habit of throwing toiletries and food away that aren’t yet fully finished (which I’ve politely asked her to stop).

For those who have a cleaner, how much do you pay and for how long? Do you use an agency or is it similarly ‘cash in hand’?

If she wants to dodge tax, that’s her issue. I’ve nearly always paid cleaners in cash.

In terms of 4 hours, that seems like far too much! We had 3 hours for a family of 4. They’d be done well within and would finish by ironing.

Thanks @Iggly - I certainly don’t get any ironing done for me 😞 if there’s washing in the machine she’ll hang it up, and if there dry stuff on the rack she’ll fold and leave on the table, but that’s it.

How about the cost? We are outer London if that makes a difference.

£40 for 3 hours cash in hand. Cut her down to 3 hours and see how she gets on in the way of cleaning all the house.

What makes you think she’s only doing two hours?

In london we paid about a similar amount, £10/hour.

I pay £25 for 2.5 hours weekly. She often leaves a little early but she cleans a 3 bed terrace in that time and irons up to 5 shirts for dh. It’s not deep cleaning but a pretty thorough regular clean. If no shorts she’ll do the oven or something.

Most of the time we are both out of the house all days on Tuesdays (when she comes) but on the rare occasion one of us has been home she has been very put out and suggested coming back later in the week. I had a month off work due to recovering from surgery not too long ago I would text her saying I’d be out of the house from say 12 til 4, but then twice had to come back an hour early due to fatigue and both times she’d been and gone so 3 hours max (and that assumed she arrived at 12 on dot!!). Due to my health at the time I was too exhausted to make a fuss but I am a bit resentful, especially since we started at £30 for 3 hours and then she insisted she needed 4 hours to get the job done properly..../

Hmm that’s not good. If I’m in my cleaner likes to chat which is fine for a minutes but she will do so quite often when she’s working in the room I’m in, standing for 10 mins at a time, it adds up! She leaves after 3 hours too.

You could do with finding out for definite if she’s leading after 3 hours. Do you have a nosey neighbour

Yeah, I don’t think that’s a great sign. Our cleaner loves fussing over the kids. She brings treats and seems put out if she doesn’t see them!