Hugely first world problem but are my expectations of a housekeeper too high?

[SlightEmbarrassment]

Prefacing this that I know I’m hugely privileged to be able to afford this etc.

We recently (Feb) hired a housekeeper on a full time basis (8 hours a day Monday to Friday, £45k annual salary) to look after our new house. She’s excellent at laundry and ironing, bed making second to none, but the house is not that clean and definitely untidy. Clothes and toys and STUFF out. Not a tip but not pristine or impromptu guest ready.
Am I unreasonable in expecting dusting, cobweb cleaning, putting things away in this time? I know I could do it myself but I’m paying her (I think) a good salary so I don’t have to.
We have a biggish london house but not a mansion - 6 bedrooms over 4 floors.

Part of the problem is maybe that she’s always talking on the phone on her AirPods, which I’m sure slows her down.

She’s also consistently 15 mins late but leaves bang on time, which again isn’t a huge amount of time she’s missing but feels irritating since I’m not sure the quality of her work is fantastic. There have also been multiple occasions she’s been a lot later due to various issues (dog was sick, plumber etc) but it’s happened more often than I feel is reasonable for such things to arise.

Part of the reason we hired her is my eldest daughter has severe dust mite allergies and associated asthma and eczema so it’s key the house is as dust free as possible to avoid asthma attacks etc. but shelves/ornaments are dusty.

But am I unreasonable in expecting a totally spotless, 100% tidy house everyday for her hours?

My elderly aunt had a housekeeper in her extremely large house (granted no children though, which makes a difference of course). She came for 4 hours a day mon-fri and seemed to spend the majority of her time drinking tea with my aunt and ironing everything in sight. She didn’t do any cooking though or gardening or errands. The house was definitely spotless!

In most of the rest of the world the only way families afford home help is because they don't pay proper wages

I think you probably need to sit down with her and explain, very clearly, room by room what needs to happen and what your expectations are for how her day is spent - it almost brings to mind those check lists you see in pub toilets with each task ticked off by whichever member of staff completed it.

having said that, with the salary she is getting I wouldn’t expect to have to explain that to her. I would expect her to be completely self starting and to be looking for ways of running the house more efficiently.

i am presuming she has a proper contract with terms including how much notice she needs

Tbh cleaning is not a housekeepers job. A housekeeper would expect to run the house, and supervise a cleaner (or more than one). So she may be a bit at being expected to clean.

Maybe, but it was very clear when we interviewed her and cleaning comprises the majority of her job description in her contract, so she knew what she was hired for.

I’m so fascinated by this.

Yeah, your house should be spotless with a 40hr/week housekeeper. Definitely hire someone else instead.

But like… what is it like having someone in your house all the time? Is it weird?

Are you constantly aware what she’s doing while you try to relax/get on with your day (eg “she’s on the top floor hoovering” etc)? Or are you out the house in the daytime anyway? In which case she must surely be taking a lot of breaks if the house is still messy and dusty.

Also if I was paying £45k a year for a housekeeper I would not be doing my own dishwasher or cleaning up after dinner! Madness.

What do you think labourers do? Or farmers? Or builders? Or any number of other jobs which require physical effort.

Publicans, waiters, any number of jobs require 8 hours of physical work.

Bloody hell. I'm in the wrong job. That's double my salary 😂

YANBU. If you've set out expectations for the job and she's not doing them that's a problem.

I don’t love it but am mostly shut up working anyway so I don’t monitor exactly what she’s doing at any one point. She seems to spend a lot of time in the laundry room. I assumed ironing but perhaps also procrastinating. Definitely an element of avoidance if she’s working somewhere though!

I used to own a recruitment agency for household staff - there’s def something amiss here! What was in her job spec?

Housekeepers would sometimes expect a cleaner, but if she knew you didn’t have one then she knew what the role entailed. Does she cook for you? Run errands?

To be honest, unless they have other duties, for a house of your size I’m not sure it justifies a full time role. 4/ 5 hours a day would be my estimation based on number of bedrooms, but it does depend on what you would like completed task wise.

I thinking you need to find someone else. Even a weekly cleaner would mean there is no dust on shelves. She’s not doing 8hours a day.

Crikey employ me . i can start in september.

Is her job to keep the place clean or to go around the house tidying up after you and your family who keep leaving 'stuff' out? Clothes and toys and STUFF out.
Why can't you/kids put own toys away/dirty clothes in laundry?

I'll start tomorrow! Sod band 6 ahp!

that's irrelevant , she is paying for someone else to do it and they're not .

Well, we do put some stuff away, but largely because we pay her £45k to tidy up for us.

Surely that’s like asking someone who employs a chef why they don’t just cook for themselves?

I'd expect it to be always immaculate!

Does she cook and look after children as well or is it all housework?

We do our our clothes in the laundry etc btw, but my kids are small and still learning. My husband works crazy hours and we have very limited family time and don’t want to be spending it tidying if we’ve paid to outsource it.

I’d put up with a bit of unreliability and arriving fifteen minutes late if she did a brilliant job - but she clearly doesn’t. I don’t think it’s working out and I would cut your losses. She sounds like she would be happier just doing laundry and isn’t into the cleaning and organising.

She doesn’t cook, bar pesto pasta once or twice for the kids when I’ve been running late at work. The odd childcare pickup under same circumstances but she’s definitely not juggling children and house on a common basis.

@MichelleScarn tbf sod entry level band 7 !

Not really, unless you're asking the chef to work in a shit tip you've created.
So what you want is someone to follow you around sorting out the mess you make and you take no responsibility for it?

I'm not sure that this person is right for you. You might be better just employing a cleaner, or various cleaners to come for a few hours each day if cleaning is the key requirement. Once the house got to a hood standard, they could come in most days and do what a hotel maid does each day on holiday, but for your whole house. I would LOVE this!!!

I would definitely expect my house spotless for that!

My cleaner comes ones a week (much smaller house) for 2 hours, so multiple that by say 4? for a bigger house and you'd still only expect it to take 8 hours a week.

With a full time housekeeper I would want them to also be dealing with shopping and cooking I think as well as laundry etc.