How much do you pay your cleaner?

[Toddlerteaplease]

Mine has just put her prices up to £17 an hour. Which is more than I get paid and I've been a nurse for almost 20 years! Ive been overlooking the fact that she doesn't do the full two hours. But I can't anymore. It's a shame as she's trustworthy and reliable. But it's time to find someone else I think.

15

I pay £35ph. But that's for 2 cleaners. They used to do 2 hours a week. But now they come fortnightly and do 3 hours or sometimes 4.

£15 per hour for 3 hours (it recently went up from £13). She provides all cleaning products, mop, hoover, cloths etc.

Affluent area, 5 bed house, 4 bathrooms. She sometimes finishes 5-10 mins early but then there are other times she works on 5-10 mins if something has taken a bit longer. All gets done though so I wouldn't say anything about that.

Carers get a bad deal. That’s down to their employers. And its dodgy ground. If their travel times isn’t covered, across a shift they could fall below NMW.
We can’t all get a bad deal in sympathy of someone else who does.

How has everyone found a cleaner? I have health problems and would like to find one but I’m not sure where to start?

Maybe the question should be how big is your house and what is the weekly cost of cleaning.

Ours is 5 bed and our cleaner was charging £95 a week 18 x 5 hours plus £5 materials. I felt this was very expensive particularly as she didn't get through all rooms. I think if she had been more efficient I would have been happier paying the high hourly rate.

We pay £20 per hour in very rural Shropshire, I am very happy to pay this for the excellent job she does.

Since I posted this I received an email from our cleaning company saying prices were increasing to £17.50 per hour. I think it's fair enough to be honest. There's been a massive increase in the cost of living recently.

This is the problem with nursing. Reasons why agency staff leave permanent because nobody has to put up with shit attitudes.

OP can clean her own house or she can become a cleaner herself. Or is that abouve her skill set?

£35 for 2.5 hours (more like 2 though)

You could look on local Facebook groups or Nextdoor for recommendations. Ours does 2 hours a fortnight and has just put up her rate to £14ph (Somerset). We supply everything, but she brings her own cloths. She is really hardworking.

Absolutely. Some really disgusting comments here about cleaners.

£15 an hour I provide all the cleaning materials and cloths etc
I wouldn't clean someone else's house for less than that would you?

Care.com

It is an expensive hourly rate but there's no way you can do a 5 bed house properly in 5 hours.

£22 an hour. She is fantastic and well worth that and more. She actually does more than clean for us now, she does a few errands and walks the dogs too.

Its more than reasonable, not sure what you being a nurse has to do with it.

Yep. OP clearly thinks she’s far superior to her cleaner. She’s a nurse don’t you know. 😏

A nurse of 25 years I think she said? Someone who has an initial 3 years training (you now need a degree) and doing a highly skilled job which involves saving lives and caring for people at their most vulnerable on a daily basis should certainly be paid more than a cleaner.

I pay £20ph and make sure that I treat her on her Birthday and Christmas. It was £15ph but I raised it without her asking late last year due to cost of living. I also pay her to mind the dog when we are on holiday.

Take whatever hourly rate you're paying a self employed person and halve it because - after insurance, NI and private pension contributions, self-funded sick and holiday pay, travel expenses and unpaid time travelling between jobs, time spent taking bookings, invoicing, chasing payment and doing the accounts - that's more like their actual earnings.

£8.50 an hour doesn't sound that great, does it?

@Tootsey11 exactly!! It's extremely physical. I sometimes think if all the people that had cleaners actually cleaned their own homes they wouldn't have to spend so much money/time in the gym!

Bloody hell, how little do you want to pay her? She’ll have a lot to cover out of that, as she’s self employed, so don’t worry you’ll still earn more than her really. 🙄

I don’t really understand how you can say you haven't realised how much everything has gone up. Who hasn’t noticed? Gas, electricity, food cost have risen massively and there’s so many people talking about the cost of living crisis that it can’t have passed you by.

For what it’s worth we pay our cleaner £25 an hour.

But the people that whinge about their cleaners pay usually do so about skilled jobs too, like vet care. They just begrudge paying and don’t think about other people/businesses having expenses and overheads. Selfish really.

We are in the same situation with the increase. She's reliable and does do s good job BUT like you and others pretty much never does the full 2 hours.

I'm tempted to agree to the increase but say we need to move to paying for actual time worked (e.g £17 x 1.75 if she finishes 15 mins early).... whether I have the guts to do that / have the conversation is another question!!

£70 for 5 hours split over 2 days (bathrooms and kitchens twice a week, bedrooms and living rooms once a week)
She's reliable but honestly not a great cleaner. We supply all products.