To expect poo stain removal for £16 per hour

[LaurieFairyCake]

I have just got off the phone to my friend who has hired a new princess cleaner. She wasn't too impressed with the clean as the loos looked it hadn't been cleaned properly so she called the company up (think Molly Maid type thing):

Her: "I'm not too impressed as the loos still looked like they hadn't been cleaned properly"

Female Manager: pause "We don't clean loos Madam"

Her (stupefied): "Sorry, you don't clean the loos"????

Female Manager: "No, we can't have our maids do that as really that's up to the householder"

Her (totally flummoxed) : "Er, ok right - well, I guess the rest of the clean was ok"

and then she signs up for 4 hours a week at £16 per hour

When she phoned me up she seemed quite resigned to it.

I am totally [shocked]

I would expect the loos to be cleaned for £16 per hour.

Is that unreasonable? Fgs, care assistants in care homes round here get paid £6.75 an hour to do all sorts of heavy cleaning.

When did cleaning become so precious? And WHO EXACTLY do you need to hire to clean the loos? - Local council dramatically masked bio-hazard folk???

[Animation]

trixymalixy - why do you expect your toilet still to be wiped if you've already cleaned it?

[trixymalixy]

I didn't say that we cleaned it, I said that we didn't leave it shitty.

[Lucyinthepie]

I'm finding this thread quite funny really, especially Pa's rants, although in a way I can see what he means.
Well, I'm a cleaner as I said before, and my customers do seem quite appreciative. Not grovelling or going on about being grateful, but I think they appreciate the work that has been done. The whole thing works for me if there is a general feeling of mutual respect. When I've taken on customers who patently think of me as their employee and skivvy then I tend to part company with them fairly rapidly. (I'm not their employee, they are customers of my business). I guess if you feel some respect towards someone you probably wouldn't let them lift the loo seat to be faced with... well, we all know what it looks like!
In a previous "professional" life I lived on my own and still had a cleaner come in for two hours a week. I appreciated coming in each Friday evening to a house that had that sort of freshly cleaned gleam about it. I didn't feel she was doing anything demeaning, but of course I wouldn't have dreamt of leaving a shitty toilet for her. She cleaned it though. As I am now, she was proud of her business and didn't take any shit from customers. (Pun intended).
I think this £16 per hour cleaning company is completely out of order and I'm surprised anyone is prepared to pay them that for this service. Easy sorted, go somewhere else. The cleaner will of course be getting a fraction of £16 per hour.

[valiumredhead]

good fucking God... ask your self .. did Jesus have a cleaner ?

Maybe he did, he had women washing his feet - I bet they were a dab hand with a bottle of bleach and a Parazone wipe as well!

[nijinsky]

Pa- sometimes a job needs to be done. It is actually rather a bourgeouise attitude to suggest that some people's jobs are so inferior that other people should feel guilty for employing them to do that. If you feel that way, you should probably undertake such work yourself and get more of a realistic attitude towards it. Cleaners are far from exploited in this country, being either protected by extensive employment legislation or self employed.

Its this strangely guilty attitude some people have towards the practical things in life. I remember cutting my hedge and a man walked past and said "Can't the Council do that for you?" Why? Its my hedge, my house, why can't I cut it myself? Ridiculous attitude. Ditto some people feel sorry for the dirty job that refuse collectors do. They are actually rather well paid for unskilled manual labourers and I've done far dirtier jobs myself, such as shovelling horse shit when a student. And I'm a privately educated lawyer. Some people just have a problem with getting their hands dirty.

Are you related to Mr Spoc, Pa?

[Gooseberrybushes]

well I still think anyone that isn't infirm or incapable should clean up their own poo and wee, I really do

I just don't see where mutual respect comes into it when talking to someone who I pay to clean my poo

everything else yes but there's somethign about toilets

I don't have a cleaner any more so it doesn't arise anyway

[Gooseberrybushes]

also the op was about "poo stain removal" not swooshing round after poo stain removal by owner

so there we are I think yabu one ought to clean up after oneself if one can

[Animation]

Gooseberrybushes - yeah, got to agree with you there!

(great user-name btw)

[colditz]

I'd clean toilets all day for £16 per hour. It's more than a teacher earns.

[IQuiteLikeVodka]

Molly maid will pay their cleaners bloody minimum wage and cream the rest for themselves, so just wanted to point out that the individual cleaner in question is unlikely to be receiving this £16 an hour lark

[trixymalixy]

But the OP said the agency said "we don't clean loos madam" whether shitty or not. I could understand saying they wouldn't clean shitty loos, but to say they don't clean them at all!?!?!?

AFAIC you get cleaners in mainly to do bathrooms and floors. I would sack a cleaner that refused to clean the toilet as that's one of the main things I would want a cleaner to clean.

[Sidge]

For 16 pounds an hour I'd lick the bloody toilets clean.

That's more than I get as a Nursing Sister.

(Well I wouldn't really lick them clean but I get paid less to do far worse things than clean a toilet.)

[Animation]

Trixymalixy - what about those wee marks on the porceline seat - would you wipe those off before your cleaner came?

[Animation]

porcelain - (spelling)

[DoMeDon]

My friend worked for MM and the cleaners themselves don't earn £16 an hour. I don't think the amount they earn is especially relevant anyway. Whether you are highly paid or not is a secondary issue to doing the job you are paid for. If I could afford employed a cleaner I would want my whole house cleaned. I would never employ a cleaner who didn't clean all through as it is a waste of money. My friend's cleaner doesn't do skirting boards and she doesn't feel she can bring it up. Why pay someone to do half a job - do it or don't - there is no in between!

[Gooseberrybushes]

no sorry I think I can understand why you would not distinguish between pooey loos and non pooey loos - how are you going to put that in your literature and your contract? toilets with a poo smear will not be cleaned, toilets without a poo smear but with wee on the seat will be cleaned for extra charge, toilets with menstrual blood stains may be cleaned under certain conditions etc

far easier to say up front "we don't do loos"

if I was a cleaner I would charge extra for loos and say so

[Gooseberrybushes]

i just think it's degrading to the cleaned up person as well as the cleaning person

[Gooseberrybushes]

yes animation, think we are in a radical minority

[RubyGrace17]

My cleaner does clean the toilets in my house (6 of them) and has done ever since she started. However, I am constantly cleaning and I would never ever dream of not giving them a wipe over before she comes (as I do everyday anyway).

Ruby

[FootprintsOnTheMoon]

As a mother, I'm waaayyy desensitised to poo. Light scrub on the end of a brush doesn't register after starting the day with a toddler jumping on top of me in bed, giving me a kiss, and pulling his hand out of his nappy to show m the contents.

Cleaning toilets is more about getting round the seat hinge and descaling. No biggy, but strange for an agency to have a stance on it. Hotel style shiny sanitary ware is surely one of the big attractions of having a cleaner. Doing it yourself, it still all gets done, but I find I never achieve having everything sparkling at the same time.