Can I ask advice from holiday cottage owners/managers/cleaners?

[ProfessorofPerspective]

I have recently taken on the local management of holiday cottage in the South West. The owner lives a few hundred miles away.

It is 4 bedrooms, with 3 bathrooms, lounge, kitchen and dining room. There are 2 double beds and 3 single beds. I launder all the bedlinen at home, along with towels, tea towels and bathmats etc. Usually 4-5 loads of washing.

I do everything involved in a turnaround - full cleaning obviously plus errands, including buying loo rolls, bin bags etc, going round there fortnightly to put out the kerbside collection.

I am paid £100 all in per booking inclusive for cleaning and laundry.

I am starting to feel that it may be on the low side for the amount of time and effort that it all takes. Although its a Saturday changeover, there is an expectation that I should be available to pick up at new bookings any point, even though I have a full time job in the low season.

Should I be grateful or should I be having a little chat with the owner?

Can anyone help? Bloody double fitted sheets - I never bother ironing my own!

Not a manager, owner or cleaner but that sounds incredibly low! I would expect an hourly rate for the washing, ironing, shopping, bins out out etc on top of the cleaning for the house.

Same as above, not a manager, owner or cleaner. But roughly how many hours do you spend doing everything? I think it's hourly rate that matters the most and if they expect you to be "on call" all the time that deserves a higher hourly rate IMO

Well, I've just spent two solid hours ironing! And still a little more to do.

I don't usually add up the time specifically but I think I will start needing to. I will have a better idea then.

I've also attended when asked to meet the new gardener, tourist organisation rep for the inspection and now I've been asked to meet a marketing person there. I also had to go up there with keys one time when a guest locked themselves out. Some of these things don't take much time but there is an expectation that I will can drop everything and run.

I'm an easy going person and like to help but wonder whether I need to be a little more commercial!

There's an app called Toggl OP, I would use that and log every single minute you spend doing stuff for them (including just letting people in etc) and see how much you do over a month.

I think you do. I would hate to rent a holiday home and know that the cleaner was being paid a pittance like that. Especially as I willingly pay £25- £30 for taking a dog even though I leave the place pretty spotless and I’d say confidently that I leave no ‘extra’ cleaning tasks because of it. In fact, you’re not just a cleaner at all, you’re like a PA or administration organiser?
Do they reimburse you for the items you restock?

We pay about £150 per changeover for a 2 bed cottage, and we also have a letting agent who does all the liaison with guests.

Charge more!

I clean 3 holiday cottages in N.Wales, as staff cleaners we get £12.50 per hour (owners of cleaning company get paid more). I think you need to have a word!

Not enough.
150 for cleaning
20 pp for laundry
30 per call out, meet & greet
All purchases paid for.

If they don't like it they can find another idiot

Yes, I do get paid for the items I restock and he is good about payment. He's had the property a long time and the bookings aren't great at the moment partly because its all a bit dated so he begrudges spending more out on it. It's a bit of a vicious circle at the moment.

The last housekeeper retired after 13 years so I wonder if she has been paid that rate for a long time. Hopefully if the marketing lady can increase bookings, things might improve. I will also ask her about the payment rates.

Well sounds like you need to keep track of time and tasks carefully for one turnover, and the ‘standby’ time + tasks around the period the place is let. Then you put those hours into different ‘buckets’ depending on how hard the task is. Establish your charge per hour for ‘bucket A’ tasks, B, etc.

When you’ve got it all straight, and have compared your ironing rates with local services, etc, then contact the owners and lay it out. No more ‘whole job’ rate that doesn’t take into account other requests and on call times. Tell them what you do (down to the minute) and your rates for each category of task. Add that you like working for them, and look forward to doing so into the future using your new pay scale.

Here are some things that are not your business:

-what previous people worked for them, at what rates, for whatever time.
-what budget the owners do or don’t have for improvements
-what the marketing lady (who works on behalf of the owners not you) thinks about your rates.

You just cost your time & effort according to the local market and your needs. Communicate that rate to the owners. Accept their offer of work at that pay scale (or don’t, as you prefer).

Straight advice - thank you!

We pay our housekeepers £100 for a changeover, but that's for a two-bed two-bathroom house. It sounds to me as if you should be charging more.

Just saw this info for owners

www.schofields.ltd.uk/blog/4899/cut-your-bills/

'A good cleaner is worth their weight in gold and will charge around £200 per changeover for a 3-4 bed rental. Some will only charge £100 but you shouldn’t compromise on cleaning as this will lead to bad reviews and complaints!'

I do a good job so it looks like I need to get my case together.

That’s low. I pay £25ph for cleaning and approximately £10 per bed for laundry. I’m in a cheaper area than you. Effectively each changeover costs me about £100 but I sleep 5 in 3 befrooms

I will conduct a time and motion study from this week onwards and reassess my position!

I'm a cleaner and to clean a house of that size alone without all the errands etc you run I would probably charge in the region of £60/£70 depending on size of rooms etc obviously

I would say your definatey being underpaid

I send to pay £75 for small two bed cottage including laundry but that was 8 years ago and did not include any call outs or liaising with anyone.
You should definitely charge a call out fee or be paid to manage the place as that seems to be what you are doing.

For a similar service my brother pays £200. Per changeover.

We have a very small simple property (takes 45 mins to clean properly eg no stairs, hard floors etc), no bed linen involved and will pay separately for any other call outs other than cleaning. I pay £45 for a clean so it sounds as if you are on the very low side. It's also harder to make an old fashioned property look clean so I'm guessing you're also working hard at it. Why not giving a cleaning agency a call to see what they'd quote to do the job and that will give you an idea of what others charge?

I'm still recovering from a 12hr clean after an insurance let in the spring- 10 weeks with 3 huskies in residence (and 3 children) was paid a double rate for that. I have obviously sold myself short for a while.

My friend in the SW cleans for a holiday let. She isn’t the manager, they employ her at £15 per hour to clean. She said her manager earns loads more, but she is really happy with her £15 per hour cleaning rate.

The cleaning is one thing.
The laundry, drying, ironing, (ironing uses loads of elec) shopping, & multiple call outs are another,

I used to be involved in this.
Ironing takes hours.
You can wait for ages for a plumber, or arriving clients( who stopped to do shopping when they say they are 15 minutes to arrival)
I managed to get most of the clients to text me when they were 10 mins away. but the owners think you are doing nothing just waiting to let them in. What about calls at 9pm for restaurant advice, or want extra pillow case, or they need a doctor... This job is hard

You do need to be charging for the call outs too. I pay £35 for each one to my housekeeper so I keep them to a minimum.

After the first guest lock out I put in a second keysafe so I can direct them to a second set of keys. It's also handy for the trades to let themselves in without her having to be present.

You need to set out very clearly your low season availability. If you are not available for mid week changeovers then the owner needs to know now. Unfortunately it's a necessity for most cottage owners to take short breaks especially out of the summer period.. Guests are moving away from one or two long holidays a year towards several much shorter stays.

They tend to be last minute as well. I've taken bookings with the guest arriving an hour later. My agreement with my own cleaner is that the cottage will be cleaned and prepared or the next guests on the day of departure so last minuters are easy to accommodate.