If you have a cleaner, does she "improve" your home?

[whyohwhyohwhyohwhywhy]

Our cleaner does a fab job of cleaning out home. We try to leave it tidy but we are a family of 5 and DH and I work full time, so there is often a small pile of clothes out folded, or a pile of stuff on a kids desk sort of stacked together. I want her to clean around it.

As she is so good I have given fair compliments to her and told her she has an eye for making the house look lovely etc.

As the weeks have gone on she has stepped it up. She now hangs up clothes or even puts them away in the wrong persons drawer. She tidies away the swimming bag which is left neatly for the kids and they play hunt the bag every week before their lesson. She rearranges the dressing table, so actually today DH has it all for him laid out. Every week she delves a little more into something. Today was the creme de la crème - she has rearranged the whole sitting room to accomodate where she thinks that Christmas tree might go!!! It is impractical, but does look lovely, but I'm just 😯😯😯

Does anyone have some good fun to share here?

(Yes yes, I am grateful, not complaining, and yes it is sufficiently tidy blah blah blah)

Hahah my cleaner painted my banisters and dropped gloss paint over my oak flooring. I can laugh about it now but at the time... 😂😂

Hmmm.....I'm sure her heart is in the right place but that would push my buttons, personally.

Yep all the time but it will often look much better the way the cleaner has organised it 😅

I think my cleaner plays a little game with us whereby she rearranges something to how she thinks it should be and sees if we leave it that way until the next time she comes... 😂

My husband and our cleaner have an ongoing battle as to the best photo positions in our sitting room. Every Tuesday she moves them. Every Tuesday night he moves them back. 6 years she's been with me and not one week has she put them in the same position.

She's having to isolate for 10 days and I could cry that she won't be coming!! She's amazing

Photo moving is to show they have cleaned If they are in same position you may think she hadn't cleaned there.

Mine has tidied away a school library book so we couldn’t find it for ages.

Takes all the ham etc out of the packets and puts it on plates so have no idea of dates.

And the worst was when I had got all our bags packed for center parcs a few years ago plus a week shopping ready to go when my daughter had an asthma attack and had to go to hospital. We were given the all clear at about 9pm and were told we could go so I thought I’ll go home and just load it all into the car. All the clothes had been removed from the cases and put into the wash! The food had all been put away. I was so angry!

We had a little battle with a plant. She put it on the windowsill. I moved it back to the shelf. Repeat.

She then called dh down (he wfh, she hadn't seen me for a few weeks) one week to tell him the plant needs light and it's not getting enough on the shelf. The plant now lives on the windowsill

My cleaner at work (big guy) once tried to clear a toilet blockage by pulling it off the wall with his bare hands. Cue brown water trickling down the stairs.

@icedancerlenny why on earth do they do that with your ham? That's so nonsensical.

I'm not sure this counts but I got into a bit of a mess a few years ago so my sister came and cleaned for me. ( I paid her.) She often rearranged things. Most times I liked it. If I didn't, I put it back and usually(!) she wouldn't mess with it again. A fresh idea is so helpful.
Oh, I miss her coming - even if she did break the dining table leg; turn my underwear pink which she them put out in a gale so it got spread across all the local gardens; and steal my food. 🙂

Yes she makes little changes for the better, and also puts away clutter in entirely random cupboards and drawers. I found zoflora in the cupboard with my drinking glasses yesterday. She's wonderful though.

My cleaners come together - I have M the Upstairs Cleaner and Y the Downstairs cleaner.

M loves to rearrange things on the bedside tables, and I have a shelf in our bedroom with my little collection of antique panda ornaments (I'm aware of how deranged that makes me sound!). Every week the pandas move, but that's quite nice because she rotates them and so I get to see different ones at the front every week! She's also very good at sorting out the empty bottles my dc leave lying around the family bathroom!

Y doesn't put things away or rearrange stuff (apart from the photos, like someone else mentioned) but she makes a nice neat little pile of things in the lounge and kitchen which is then easy to put away.

The first time I had a cleaner/mothers help when my dc were tiny, she used to take dirty dishes out of the dishwasher and wash them in the sink. That really was taking it to the next level!

Mine rearranged my knickers into loo roll tubes she'd been saving up at home, emptied and organised my handbag without being asked/asking/telling me, and hand washed newborn DDs bottles, then put them back in the steriliser they'd been in so I thought they were sterilised. She also grated all of our christmas cheeses into seperate plastic bags. I only asked her to clean the kitchen and bathrooms and she never did.

My current one is perfect though, I asked her if she'd adopt me

Grated all your cheeses!!!

This thread is hilarious

I don't have a cleaner but interesting you assume all cleaners are female.

I was thinking about getting a cleaner but this thread is putting me off! I'd be so annoyed if someone moved my stuff around or went through drawers etc.

How many hours are you booking these people for if they’ve got the time to do all this crazy stuff? Or is it instead of the cleaning they are doing it?

Grated … Stilton?

Love these! Especially the ham and the cheese!

our first cleaner rearranged things and moved stuff a lot - was always finding the toasted er somewhere else or side table would move etc. But she'd take clutter or other stuff and put it in bags - and we would lose so much then find another 'Alison bag' tucked away somewhere. But she wouldn't clean ou bathroom which was a bit annoying. She retired. Our new cleaner is great - she neatens and tidies a bit but generally picks things up and puts things down again. it is so nice walking in and seeing and smelling out clean tidy house once a week

Ours occasionally tidies things into mysterious places. Mainly though we have the Battle of the Succulents which she things need to be equidistant in a row whereas I prefer them jumbled and clumpy.

I am so, so grateful to her though. She keeps me going when I feel like the spinning plates will drop.

A friend’s cleaner threw away all her out of date spices and jars in the fridge

Omg mine would never do these crazy things
Although she does put the hob grate things back on the oven back to front every week which dh just turns back the other way in the evening.
She doesn’t have time to be going through my knicker drawer (although god knows it could certainly do with it!).
She will fold a pile of clothes if dds leave any on their beds but apart from that the house is left really tidy ready for her to come in and get on with the cleaning.
We love her inordinately and I hope she never ever retires. She adds so much value to our home life it’s honestly unbelievable. I tell her all the time that she makes our house a home. I’d be totally lost without her!!

I'm a cleaner and reading these posts I really need to up my game. I'm a lazy useless cleaner going by this thread. The most extra thing I do is make one of my clients a cup of tea 😂