aibu to find it a tad annoying when my cleaner is 40 mins early?

[peanutbuttersarnies]

I sense i may be being unreasonable. But it does annoy me slightly.
I have a cleaner with a large local cleaning company not an individual person. Its supposed to be a 1-3pm slot but they are arriving early. Sometimes 40 mins early.
In some ways i think fair enough they are ahead of schedule and keen to get on with theirs day work. But they are booked for 1pm not 12.20.
It means i have to wake my toddler really early from his nap and get out the house with nowhere to go til our toddler group starts at 2pm
I'm probably being a bit petty though? We wnader the supermarket or streets to get out their way. So its not a massi e inconvenience. Toddler is a bit overtired from short nap.

I could of course change slot. But they didnt have many available. This one was quite a good time for us.

I spend a long time before the cleaner arrives making the house reasonably respectable, as I would for any visitor. Therefore clean toilet, clean towels in bathroom, no abandoned laundry on the floor, all dishes done, my bed made (cleaner can do the dc beds if she feels like it), dead flowers thrown out, dry washing on airer folded, dishwasher emptied, cat plates washed up ... etc. I don't want her thinking I'm a complete slob. If she arrived 40 minutes early I would not feel "ready".

Arrrr Mintyy I used to do that when I had a cleaner (those were the days)

YANBU
My cleaning company turned up 20 min early once and i told them to go away and never used them again :-) in my defence I was 8 months pregnant and thy woke up my sleeping 18 month dd. Having a clean house isn't worth the hassle.

mylovelyboy why so horrible?

My 3rd ever post and didnt come here for that attitude. Bye mumsnet.

Lala, please don't let MLB put your off mumsnet. Her posts are often on the antagonistic side.

OP, YANBU.

I agree the doctrine. I've noticed this on other threads with that poster.

lala it's nothing you have said. likely the poster would have found someone else to be nasty to if you hadn't posted.

I'm itching to say something mean because I'm well jel' you've got a cleaner.

YA[throughgrittedteeth]NBU though. I hate people waking up the kids. It usually makes me want to wring their neck, not give them money.

I'd have been less tolerant already OP. (Imagine if you had company indeed, hmm?)

Back to sleeping babies, my equivalent is supermarket deliveries. I book for a slot that suits me. Ocado in particular often ring to say they're nearby and could deliver, maybe an hour or 45 mins early. If I'm home I usually say yes - except if dd is napping in her pushchair in the front hall, in which case no, i don't want her woken up, so decline nicely.

(And, when it's early evening, I book it for after DP is home, so arriving while I'm still looking after dd isn't all that helpful - rather like her 'help' with unpacking). Yes it's manageable but I planned it to be easy and efficient.

They can be a bit nonplussed. There seems to be an assumption that early is good, or if you're in you must be available. Neither is always true.

If the time is 1 o'clock then it's not unreasonable to expect them to come for 1 o'clock. Why should you be inconvenienced. It's got nothing to do with whether your toddler needs to get used to noise or having them working in another room. You're paying for a service, they're not doing you a favour.

You wouldn't turn up for an appointment at the dentist 40 minutes early and expect to be seen, or arrive at your place of work at 7.30am and expect to be allowed in when the door isn't opened before 8.30.

I'd speak to the agency. They're the ones responsible for the booking. What's the point of having a start time if no one sticks to it. You might as well just ask them to turn up at a sometime during the following week, or month, at a time that suit them.

Agree with all the previous posts except the narky ridiculous ones It is not unreasonable to expect a service you've booked to be done at the time you've booked. If they turn up more than say 10 mins early next time, keep them on the step and say 'I'm not ready for you to start yet, I have booked the 1-3 slot, so can you come back in a bit please?' (Phrasing it as a question is just about politeness in this instance...) Then say at the end of the visit that it doesn't work very well for you to have them there much before the time you have booked, so in future they will need to start at 1. YANBU at all but you do need to say or they will assume, since you haven't so far, that coming early is fine.

I just asked my wife about this. We also have a cleaner. She also likes to get out of the house. She said she was talk with the cleaner first. If the cleaner wasn't prepared to cooperate, then she would change cleaners/cleaning company. She has had to talk to the cleaners at different times. It is not something she likes to do. I remember one cleaner was so difficult she actually asked that one to leave.

I love all this 'running your life around your toddlers (sic) sleep'

Some of us have no choice! DD has one nap a day now.

It doesn't matter how long or short that nap is- she has one.

If she's woken after 5 minutes there is no way on earth I will get her down for a second nap. Meaning she spends the rest of the day grumpy and grizzly, will sleep appallingly that night (she is often up for 2+ hours in the middle of the night if she is overtired), then is grumpy the next morning too. It can take her 2 days or so to get back to her usual self.

A fairly recent development is that she will only take that nap in her cot, not in the pushchair, car, or even the sling these days. She might drop off, but will wake as soon as the movement stops, so see previous comment.

So yeah, I do make sure that we are at home in the middle of the day at some point so DD can have her nap. And I do make sure the place is fairly quiet, meaning we have TV on and background noise but I won't Hoover upstairs or make any sudden noises.

I'd love to have a baby like SIL, you could jiggle the pram and she'd fall asleep and then you could leave her. If she got too tired, she'd sleep longer the next day.

But some babies just aren't like that, through no fault of our own!

My cleaner did this last week. She'd said she would come at 12 and came just after 9. I was in my dressing gown I asked her to come back at the correct time. Trouble is her clients change slightly every week so she always seems to come at a different time and whatever time she's told me it'll be, it isn't. I've asked her now to text me the day before and tell me a time rather than try and arrange it at the previous week's appointment. I don't care what time she comes, I just want to know in advance so I can be dressed and make sure the house is in a fit state!

Do you know if they spend the three hours they are paid for?

I do wonder if they do the full time.
Also i just found some sharp knifes in my cutlery drawer that the kids have access to. I hadnt realised they had been putting stuff in drawers.

I know what you are saying cronicallytired. Its is annoying when people imply you are pandering to your kids and that they have done something really clever to get kids who just fit in. When in fact its just luck! My littlest is 19 months now and tbh he is getting easier to fit in. It doesnt matter so much if he jas a shorter nap. So it does get better as they get older.

Mine comes when she fancies, I don't even mind what day it is. The difference is, we are all at work or at school/ college, so it literally makes no difference.

Perhaps your cleaners are used to that set-up and are not really thinking about the disruption to you?

Though they could come early and do your ironing maybe? Anything is better than ironing.

If they are coming early at their convenience, then they should still work until the time they are allocated to finish.

I go into work early sometimes, as do many people, I just get on with the job and wouldn't dream if leaving early because I had chosen to arrive early. Life doesn't work like that.

YANBU OP, I'd give them one more chance after speaking to the agency, assuming you are happy with the work they are doing, and if they do it again then find someone else.

I got rid of my cleaner for this sort of thing. Cleaners are suppose to make your life easier, not stress you out!

Mine is that early too! I have a conference call that finishes 20 mins before her arrival but she always loudly enters 30-40 minutes early! I can't send her away as on phone but will have to speak to her about it