Cleaner shamed us for house - not sure how to feel

[tokajlover]

We have had a cleaner for coming up to 4 years now and she’s brilliant, no complains from us whatsoever.

The reason we have a cleaner is because, like most people who do, we find it makes life much easier with a young child, and both my DH and I working a substantial distance from home, about an hour to an hour and a half’s commute a few times a week plus starting this year, school drop offs and pick ups etc. Our lives are chaotic but nothing out of the ordinary for young-ish professionals with a young child, except maybe the substantial commutes. Having a cleaner is definitely a God send!

Apparently, however, today she pulled my husband aside as he was WFH and told him that we need to do better, because she needs to do a “hard factory reset” every time she comes over.

Our house was definitely messy today after a weekend where we hosted and were away on the Saturday! But we don’t leave disgusting messes, food, we don’t have bugs etc (feel ashamed to even have to say this!), we aren’t hoarders, and our house is just a normally messier than we’d like it to be but not disgusting by any means 3 bed. The best way to put this would be, I guess, if announced guests had popped up today I would not have thought it the best time and would have said “sorry for the mess” but I wouldn’t have been excessively worried or scrambling about to get the place ready, as I wouldn’t have thought there was anything particularly bad about it just not “visitor-ready” and messy.

I feel so embarrassed now though and mum guilt has kicked in - I keep thinking that there’s plenty of full time working parents who don’t have a cleaner so what am I doing wrong.

She only does 2 hours a week but she did start out doing 3, with the idea initially being that she would do the general clean in 2 hours and do one deep-cleaning thing each time, she is the one who asked for fewer hours. We pay above the average rate which is not me congratulating ourselves by any means and we never minded as she does do an excellent job, just to clarify we are not under-paying her or anything like that!

I guess I just feel a bit ashamed and don’t know if she had a point or was this weird? Presumably people have cleaners to clean and sometimes the house is not in top shape when your cleaner arrives, but I thought that was normal? As I said we never leave messes for her to deal with later on purpose or any disgusting things, but part of me can’t help but feel extremely ashamed and bad!

The cleaner requested the two hours.

Yes, requested! OP is more than capable of judging if that works for her or not!

It sounds like this was a one off in terms of untidiness. Except she's saying a factory reset FFS is needed every time. So are you lying or is she overreacting?

But the OP has said the hours were reduced to two at the cleaner's request!

I tidy as much as I can before our cleaner comes, clear surfaces of extra bits, so the areas are free for her to clean as it makes everything easier and quicker! I assumed everyone would do this. Tidying is not the same as cleaning!

I think that a couple of the responses on here aren’t doing you any favours to be honest. That’s not your fault of course but some of us are a bit sickened by a few of them which is making a few of us feel
like we need to stick up for the cleaner.

You've answered a few of the comments so could have said ‘I’ll speak to the cleaner.’ As a few of us have suggested. It certainly did seem like that was going unanswered. I hope (suspect) it’s a big misunderstanding over wording.

Your post is very unclear what your expectations are. Telling us how busy you’ve been and your long commutes doesn’t say much about the state you leave your house in. What do you do and what do you expect her to do? You should have already discussed each others expectations.

If she has to tidy before she can clean, I can understand why she would be frustrated.

Big girl pants time.

Op I’ve had a cleaner since I was 23 and got my first house, I’m now 57. My house is tidy, I don’t expect cleaners to tidy and I don’t live in mess. Didn’t with you child either, and we both also work.

however people’s perception of mess varies. I’ve seen houses where rhe owners think it’s normal mess and there is stuff all over the place. It’s not. I don’t think I’ve ever had a cleaner who complained about non existent mess. They don’t do that.

my current cleaner has been with me 12 years, she binned a client off last year and found it very difficult, she showed me some pictures, the woman claimed her house was normal mess and couldn’t understand why the cleaner took issue. I could. There were plates, clothes, stuff everywhere,

the cleaner is not a maid like a hotel room, if you want her to tidy before she cleans, text her and ask for extra time, but as said if she’s that rare cleaner complaining about non existent mess as you claim, then simply fire her,

I have a cleaner for two hours a week, and it's very clear (because we are neat and tidy anyway) that the job is to mop and vacuum mostly. I clean routinely in the kitchen and bathroom, so both are clean enough, but her job is the floors and skirting boards. And the vacuuming.... just because I hate hoovering. But the house is never ever really dirty.

yes this. I think its not the thing of saying something about needing more hours to keep the house done, its about the way she put it . If she had said something like " I think you it might help if you prioritised what you want me to do because I can't fit it all in the current hours" or similar, that would be ok but yes what she said was judgemental and I don't need that in my home from anyone.

A few of my friends are cleaners and go and do each others homes so they don’t have to do their own houses which is think is genius!

she showed you pictures of someone else's houses??????? WT actual F!

I have just come back from bedtime and I wasn’t expecting this many replies! Thank you all, very useful responses most of them!

I am trying not to come across as defensive, the only posts I had an issue with were the ones implying I was expecting her to be our “slave” or that I wasn’t answering when I posted this thread like 2 hours ago and then it was obvious bedtime routine hours…

I don’t think anyone is wrong - clearly some cleaners are happy to both clean and tidy, some see it as cleaning only, and as long as people are paid for their time it’s up to whatever works for the individual. We do employ her for cleaning not tidying it’s true - she has willingly taken on some nore housekeeper style roles as obviously she has worked with us for a number of years and knows the layout of the house well by now. She wanted to do that/asked and we said yes, I guess the disconnect came from the fact nothing was ever mentioned before as to this being a problem.

We do not actively tidy the house before she comes - it also isn’t impossible to walk around beforehand. She does do some tidying - again, it was never flagged as a problem and if at times she didn’t have time to do everything that was fine by us.

I never did think 2 hours was enough, so we clearly need to either do more hours as we initially asked for if she can fit them in, or we need to properly tidy away everything before she comes so she can only do cleaning. That’s fair enough and am happy with either!

She is great and of course I will speak with her and ask which option works best - I was never not going to do that, me coming here was genuine curiosity as to other’s arrangements and 5 pages of responses clearly imply that there isn’t one correct way only what’s been agreed and what works for the family + cleaner in a way where they get paid fairly for their work. I don’t know why some took that as me not wanting to ask her about it.

Anyway it is literally just a matter of communication - need to clarify what works for her and adjust accordingly either the tidying we do beforehand or if she’s happy to do both, then the hours, or for us to clarify that we don’t mind if she can’t do everything in 2 hours alone sometimes.

I can see that now and the only reason I ever even posted was because I am normally quite thick-skinned but any comment that may project onto my parenting/house is quite personal, as I would never want to actually be seen as messy or for our home to not be nice and I do see it as a reflection on me as a mum - but it’s not about how messy we are or not, but rather whether everyone is clear on expectations and happy with the current arrangement or not.

so the solution is as ever to chat openly about it which I will - all the responses here have been helpful and as I said, I genuinely don’t think anyone is wrong about this!

She’s a cleaner not a tidy upper!! You are wasting her time with tidying up then she has less time to clean

All this has been a bit of a waste of your time then - the situation is really not that complicated to sort out.
Didn’t you realise you’d get a complete assortment of answers and virtually no consensus in reply to your very long post.

My cleaner made it clear she couldnt clean if the floors and surfaces were cluttered with stuff. So,i tidy up and clear before she comes.Tbh ,it galvanises me to be tidier too which is a win win.
She also told me she sacked a customer for leaving dirty marks on the toilet bowl, so i check my sons toilet before she comes too!
My family laugh at me but she is right ,for her to spend the time cleaning is better than just moving around our mess.

you need to tidy so she can clean.

2hrs isn’t enough to clean a house

esp if need to do some tidying first

thi cleaners also shouldn’t need to tidy before they clean

more hours are needed and have a chat with her about extra

‘Get a cleaner’ is always suggested on here to help but I found it massively added to my stress levels as I had to tidy before she came, so I stopped bothering. I think she was rude but I also wouldn’t ever expect a cleaner to tidy.

I used to work as a nanny and they also had a cleaner, after the weekend the cleaner would arrive on Monday morning and the house always looked like a bomb had gone off! I have always said the mistake so many people make is thinking that the cleaner is there to tidy their house.
A cleaner is there to clean your house, that means that you put all your shit away, clear all your surfaces etc and pick up all the shit in the bathroom so they can come in and clean.

I’ve just had a post about MN affecting my mental health and its posts like this. Sorry, not picking on yours especially but it warrants saying. All you had to say is ‘you need to put all your stuff away.’ Instead you repeat the word shit to try to make the OP feel, well, shit. And that is a shitty thing to do.

The fact that she had a go at your DH, whilst he was working from home and arrogantly moaning about the state of your house is not in her job description.

She needs to be pulled up about her attitude, and in your own home she has the nerve to disrespect you is absalutely not acceptable.

So don't go feeling bad OP, this goes you you and your DH.

The shame is not yours to carry, you are busy people, with a busy lifestyle and in your own home, you both deserve to be treated with kindness and respect.

She is paid to do her job, she needs to get on with it and shut up. I would wipe the flipping floor with her hahaha.

The cleaner got above herself and fired her mouth off without engaging her brain.

If anything like this happens again, she needs to be pulled up about it immediatly and spoken to with a firm tone of voice to keep her opinion to herself, it is extremly rude and she will be told to get out of the house and not come back.

The job could be given to someone who appreciates it.

I wondered what that conversation sounded like as well, but I'm pretty sure OP said it was driven by the cleaner.

Everyone in my house knows that Thursday night means ‘tidy up before x comes’. That means no shit left on bedroom floors, all washing to be in a laundry basket or put away properly, no crap left out on kitchen sides, dishwasher unloaded and left empty, any glasses brought down from bedrooms, all rubbish in bins, bins emptied, shoes put on shoe racks not discarded in the hall or kitchen, beds made, basically everything looking tidy. Takes about 20 minutes all hands on deck and means she can come in the next day and just get on with cleaning.
These are the minimum expectations.
if the dc have ever left their bedrooms messier than outlined she has my full backing to shut the bedroom door and leave it.
I wouldn’t want to go round picking up anyone else’s crap.
Only you know really how messy your house was, but it’s good that she spoke up.
Perhaps you just need a new cleaner who can do more hours if it’s really needed.
ours does 4 hours a week.

Your cleaner is a cheeky bitch