To think a professional cleaner shouldn't need 6 hours a week to clean a regular 3 bed semi

[NorkyButNice]

I've just hired a cleaner from a recommended local firm, paying 10 pounds an hour. The boss man came round to see the house last week and said he thought it would need 3 hours a week, possibly 4 in the first week while the cleaner worked out where everything is.

I got home yesterday expecting a lovely clean house and found that she'd done the lounge, dining room, hallway and kitchen, and that was it! No bathroom, downstairs loo, none of the bedrooms - so less than half the house. She hadn't left a note, so I didn't know if she'd run out of time, or just had to leave early because of an emergency.

I texted her and rang the boss man who apologised profusely and said he'd refund me one of the hours. Her text response said that she ran out of time and that she thinks it'll take 6 hours a week rather than 3 for the first few weeks!

She told her boss that part of the reason it had taken so long was because we had lots of dust under the sofas which she'd spent a long time removing, but I've just fished out slippers and toys from under one of them so she's obviously not done that good a job.

We've got a regular 3 bed semi - nothing special at all with no fancy furniture or clutter. She's taking the mick, right?

No she's not taking the micky. 6 hours sounds like an absolute minimum to me.

I would not bother with an agency

Just put an ad in the lcoal newsagent and ask for references.

Then all the money goes to the cleaner and I bet you get a better job done.

yanbu.
We have a 3 bed split level flat. Our cleaner takes 3 hours. If you have a dining room as well then maybe an extra 30 or 45 mins.

Taking the mick without a doubt.

I work once a fortnight for a lovely family - I don't "tidy", just clean but I do 2 hours and do more than that! There are bits i don;t do due to time and what they are not bothered about - if I was there every week I could do much more as things would be kept on top of more - so she has loads of time!

I'll do it for you

Oh i also clean windos inside in that time too!

6 hours sounds a lot to me unless there was ironing aswell or a filthy oven, fridge etc. 4 hours should be enough.

Did she have to tidy up a lot before she cleans?

She's hoovered, dusted, polished in the lounge.

Hoovered, dusted, wiped down dining table in dining room.

Hoovered, mopped floor, cleaned surfaces in kitchen.

Hoovered, dusted in hallway.

All these rooms are adjoining and you can push the hoover round the lot of them in 10 minutes easily at the end.

GiddyPickle your first list sounds exactly right - ie I'd have expected her to get round to going upstairs within the 3 hours she was given.

It depends.

I have my cleaner in most days, but she also does other things for me (laundry, chickens, dog walking, running errands).

To actually clean our house (not ovens, fridges etc) not tidying away takes around five hours. Yours is a bit smaller so I'd say four.

Three blimmin hours to hoover, dust, polish and mop three rooms

That's an hour, tops, in a reasonably tidy house. Unless your house is an absolute bombsite, your cleaner is taking the weewee.

Your list can be done in an hour!

I do more than that!!

My cleaner does much more than that in 2 hours - and I only have her every other week.

Norky I've found over 20 years of trying to get decent cleaners to give my OCD-tidy house a thorough once a week clean, that it's pointless trusting them to know what you want, or assuming that they have the sense to know that a clean includes the bathroom etc. They all start off well, then after a few weeks realise that the minimum they think they can get away with, and it's downhill all the way from there. I pay for 4 x hours @ £10 per hour once a week. We have four bedrooms & three bathrooms + four other rooms. This might sound a lot, but it's 100% tidy, not even a piece of paper out of place, so all it needs is the (mainly tiled or wooden) floors cleaned, the one bathroom we regularly use given a good clean, even though we keep it clean anyway, and the kitchen cleaned. No children, cats are outside, no hassle. My current cleaner is good, but I do get annoyed some weeks when she has cut corners and not done what I would have got done in the four hours. I wish now that I'd written a clear list of what was expected so that it was defined in advance. I don't want to lose her now by presenting the list, so will just have to carry on vacuuming the corners myself !

If she claimed to have taken ages cleaning under the sofas, but that didn't look very clean when you inspected it, that is a sign that she's having you on.

You can do a lot of cleaning in 3 hours! I had a cleaner for 2 hours/week & they hoovered & mopped a 3 bed semi, including cleaning the toilet/sink/bath and making sure the kitchen counters were clean. Of course I didn't expect anything extra on top like windows or oven cleaning in that time - I just wanted all the major surfaces to be clean and dust-free. It's important to leave a clear path for that to happen though - no one can clean properly around clutter.

We kept getting different cleaners from the agency every few weeks though, and some of them were really poor - so I just gave up in the end. I'm sure a good self employed cleaner is a better idea, if you can find one!

6 hours is long unless you're omitting the fact that you're a secret hoarder and there's piles of crap precious items lying around. My parents have a big ol' house and have a cleaner for four hours once a week and she does pretty much everything.

I agree with AlbertCamus, IME a lot of cleaners start to cut corners after a few weeks. At my previous job I had to manage an agency cleaner for the office. It needed to be done out of hours because of the way the office operated, so no one was there to keep an eye on them. The new ones would start off great... then suddenly you'd notice the bathrooms were dusty, the kitchen was grimy, everything looked like it was done in a rush.

I checked the alarm log and usually spotted that they were in and out in an hour instead of the 2 hours per day they were being paid for. So I'd have to have yet another conversation about timekeeping and standards, with the cleaner insisting they hadn't cut corners... blah. We were nice too, I was always flexible if they wanted to swap the odd day, and tried to be polite and friendly.

Albertcamus - why not do your cleaning yourself then you can get your house upto your own exacting standards rather than griping about "the help" on here? And save yourself £40. I used to clean houses back in the day and have had clients such as yourself who will never, ever be happy with what you do. I used to hate cleaning houses that were already spotlessly clean because I couldn't see the point.

But back to the OP, yes YANBU. 3 hours to clean your house should be perfectly adequate unless your house warrants an appearance on Kim and Aggie.

tryharder agreed, I have never had a cleaner who does the house as thoroughly as I and/or my husband clean it - I suppose that's just because it's our house & we take a real pride in it.

I do the cleaning myself during my 12-weeks a year holiday from teaching, but enjoy coming home after a 12-hour day to a clean house during termtime.

I personally enjoy cleaning and think it's a really worthwhile job, so do not mean to demean cleaners.

I find it's just like most jobs: a person can/will either do it properly, or alternatively is utterly incapable of understanding how to do it properly. If they fall into the latter category, they are letting the side down, as occurs in any given job.

I can assure you that I'd quite often rather spend an hour earning £10 cleaning an already clean house than dealing with my demanding and responsible job !

We've got 2 under 4's so it's not completely spotless, but we've got pretty good storage so all the clutter gets tidied up at the end up the day ready for it to start again.

When I left in the morning yesterday there were a couple of small piles of paperwork on the coffee table and desk but that was it clutter wise. Unless nobody has a few big toys on the floor that need moving when you Hoover?

Totally ridiculous. My cleaner does 3 hours a week and manages to keep on top of a fairly large 5 bedroom house in that time. 3 bathrooms, big kitchen, three large living rooms, hard floors that need to be both hoovered and mopped. It all looks spotless when she's finished.

She is taking the mick, big time. The agency guy is too - asking for 4 hours to start with "while she finds out where everything is". It takes 5 minutes to point her at the cleaning equipment, and that is all she needs to "find out".

Well Norky, I'd just cut my losses and try somewhere else then. Or advertise for a self employed cleaner with current references.

A cleaner probably does need 3-4 hours to do your house... but I'd expect it all major surfaces to be clean at the end of those 3-4 hours. Not a half-ass job with excuses about cleaning under the sofa! You move the sofa, you hoover up the dust bunnies, it does not take ages.

Note: 3-4 hours would not include windows or big jobs like oven cleaning! Or stripping/remaking beds either, I think.

YANBU, my cleaner takes 3 hours to do 4 bedrooms, kitchen, 2 bathrooms, one downstairs loo. That includes hoovering and washing floors. Usually she has time to iron 4 or 5 pieces as well.