Hiring a Cleaner

[SlingsbyKindaDay]

I've never had a cleaner before. I have a lady coming on Thursday to quote.

What should I be expecting to pay and what kind of frequency should they realistically be visiting?

3 bed end of terrace with 3 toilets.

I have a cleaner once a week.

She mops the hard floors (kitchen, hallway, dining room and downstairs bathroom).
Hoovers carpets (living room, 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and hallway)
Cleans 3 toilets, 2 showers and bath as well as all sinks.
If there is washing in the machine she hangs it out, if there is washing hung out she brings it in and folds it.
If dishwasher is clean she empties it. If dishwasher is empty then she stacks it and puts it on.
She asks for £30 an hour and is usually there for 4 hours, so £120 a week. If she is there for more/less time we pay her accordingly because sometimes she does a few odd jobs if we ask her, such as changing sheets on all the beds or the odd bit of gardening.

She was recommended to me by a friend and we both absolutely love her. I do think she does more than the average cleaner but that is what she charges per hour and the kind of stuff she does when she's round.

I couldn't live without her!

£30 an hour?! Feck me, I’m in the wrong job 😲

Was not expecting £120 a week! Crikey Moses

£30 an hour is a lot but I think probably is a fair wage if they're a good cleaner. My parents pay £70 for 2 hours to an agency and the standard of cleaning is pretty crap tbh, I think they're getting ripped off. When I was living in London about 8 years ago we paid £20 an hour.

@rarahjama is this UK? This seems insanely high.

We pay £30 for 2 hours and our cleaner cleans all of our 4 bed, 3 bath house (greater London).

30 an hour?! Wow.

We pay £125 a week for 10 hours housekeeping including all laundry/ ironing. Our housekeeper is self employed, working for 4 families.

My recommendation is to be clear about what you need/ don’t need doing. Write a list room by room. Agree whether the cost is for the time or for the job. We pay for the time and our cleaner is happy to find jobs to do. Get a sense of whether they can do that. Oh, and always a non smoker for us. I deeply resent paying for fag breaks, having a smoker in my garden and the accompanying whiff.

Once you’ve found someone, be lovely to them. Good cleaners are worth looking after.

My cleaner does all of this in a 3 bed, 2 bath house for £12 an hour... and she does it in 2.5 hours.

It was £11 an hour until this week too.

Ours does everything but not every week. she has her own schedule for inside windows / high up dusting/ under sofas / inside fridges and oven / wiping all skirtings etc that she wouldn’t need to do every week.

Every week stuff is bathrooms (three), all the hoovering (three floors ) and steam mopping, dusting, mirrors, kitchen surfaces / fridge front / hob etc. she’ll also change bedding if I ask / leave out the clean sets and does the bins if I ask.

we pay £60 / week and she’s here 3 1/2- 4 hours.

£12 / hour is very cheap. I’m not comfortable paying really low rates for someone’s time and expertise.

they should send someone round to assess. I did this and he told me how many cleaners and how much, per cleaner, based on what I wanted. I wanted a one-off deep clean and they did that for 90 with two people over 3 hours.

A maintenance I'd say half that and do it every two weeks with just one cleaner.

But ask for an assessment so you can specify what you want and have recourse to ask for a refund or do-over if they don't complete what you agreed.

I pay her her rates, she sets them so this is the value she puts on her own time and expertise.

I also pay her every week, including when she doesn't come, because she's on holiday or her children are ill, or I'm away, or I have to work from home etc, so I suppose it works out at more per hour actually worked.

Our old cleaner ( had to cut back ) charged £15ph. 3 hours, once a week. She did general tidy/made beds/mopped and hoovered. Did the bathrooms properly and every other week, changed the linen. Xx

Mine charges £20 an hour and comes for 2x 3 hours per week it's just me in a 4 bed detached.

I'm in SE London and it's £14 ph. I have two who come together for an hour a week for a three bed terrace so £28 / week.

So I'm taking from this cleaners really vary 🤣

I have a cleaner through an agency for 3 hours a week, £15 an hour. We do have a big house so in 3 hours she can only do a superficial clean. She cleans bathrooms, kitchen, wipes surfaces, hoovers, mops floors etc. It's a huge help and money well spent in my opinion. I do deeper cleaning (like under sofas and bed, inside cupboards) myself as and when needed - not very often!

I pay £15ph and have two girls for one hour, they blast the entire house over (3 bed, 3 bath detached, large extension). Love them, best £30 I pay all week.

We pay £15 an hour for 3 hours. 5 bed house, three bathrooms + downstairs loo. She doesn't do every room every week (if we've not had guests or we're working in one of the rooms for example). She steam mops, hoovers, wipes surfaces, makes up the spare bed if it's been used and I leave clean bedding out, and washes up the odd thing that didn't make it into the dishwasher. She is pretty phenomenal though - I have no idea how she does it all in three hours. Before anyone says I'm being unfair to her, we've offered to up her hours but she always says no. Before covid she did 4 hours but that included ironing DH's shirts for the week - she asked to cut down when he started working from home.

From other threads on here and experience with friends and previous cleaners - the key to happiness on this front is being clear between you what the expectations are and what is realistic.

£17 ph, 3 hrs every other week to start with and we're going to see if that works. Lovely lovely lady too so that helps. Uses all of her own products and doesn't charge extra for oven, inside windows etc if I want them doing. Love her already