To not want to pay £18 an hour for a cleaner

[Nishky]

That is very very expensive surely

[bumperella]

Why does a teacher get paid only £2 more than a cleaner?
Nowt to do with education, training, insurance, overheads, the Ills of Society or anything else - just supply and demand.

[Reastie]

We looked into a cleaner a few years ago and for us in a village near an affluent town (cleaners seemed reluctant to travel out of town centres so getting anyone with their own transport that wasn't an agency was difficult) it was around £15 an hour, so £18 an hour doesn't surprise me. Hour for hour I work I'd probably earn better money giving up my teaching job for being a cleaner.

[Opalite]

Hulababy I was thinking more along the lines of the work involved instead of the education required
Mobile cleaners face some really grim situations and the work is often demeaning, especially if you're being paid a low wage
I do think society values the mental work more than the physical but I don't think that one is more difficult than the other

[LessMissAbs]

Was quoted £12 per hour for a property in Aberdeen. Didn't go with that as I felt it was too much for cleaning. Plus they wanted to stretch it out to 3 hours "to make it worthwhile". It was an hour and a half's work at most.

[RoseRedder]

I suppose we could bring back slaves

I hear they are free

[VerySmallSqueak]

Remember a cleaner that does domestic work very often has to travel between jobs,and may only actually work for a few hours a day.

3 jobs in a day at one hour each for,say £8 an hour,is only £24 a day.

She/he may have travelled for a couple of hours and paid all the petrol and cleaning materials.

I think you pay what you are willing to pay,but I think a cleaner who feels valued is a good cleaner,and a cleaner living below the poverty line probably not so motivated.

I agree that £18 is a lot,but someone is obviously paying it and thinks they are worth that sum.

[missmarplestmarymead]

Opalite. It is a stupid question because I imagine it is the sort of question which would require Homer Simpson to reply, 'Doh!'

[Opalite]

missmarplestmarymead, I don't agree with that at all. Read my previous posts if you'd like to find out why. I don't think it's stupid to want to hear opinions on this.

[Katinkia]

I pay mine £10 an hour in Hull. She uses all my stuff. I haven't had her long and find the whole business quite embarrassing. But I have 3 boys - 2 of which are registered disabled and the other is being assessed so I have my hands full and am knackered.

I still feel awful when I am home and she is cleaning. I feel like such a lazy cow.

[MilkyBarButtons]

I am at this thread!

magicberry so someone is willing to do the job so you will pay as low as it goes". Are you happy to slag off the British people who won't work for a lot less than the minimum wage too? Is not working for an illegally low amount lazy layabout scum? Remember the benefits system considers everyone must get the minimum wage, so if you are paying them a lot less it won't be topped up. I'm sure it's their fault and not yours though.

Reastie cleaners seemed reluctant to travel out of town centres so getting anyone with their own transport that wasn't an agency was difficult) it was around £15 an hour, so £18 an hour doesn't surprise me. Hour for hour I work I'd probably earn better money giving up my teaching job for being a cleaner.

Let's start with minimum wage £6.31, then let's add transport time between jobs(back and forth) time doing admin such as time sheets or tax returns if you are SE, agency workers will have agency fees to pay and SE may have accountancy fees, then let's add liability insurance, business car insurance, petrol, excess, wear and tear on the car, uniforms, cleaning, advertising, sourcing for jobs, lack of sick pay, holiday pay etc, etc. this barely scratches the surface, I make jewellery and my list of expenses(beyond materials) is 2.5 pages!

You would only be better off if you spent every hour cleaning with no transport time, Down time in between or extra costs. They are reluctant to travel out of town because the transport times devalues their hourly wage so much they would be better off on the dole? Would you be better off on the dole than teaching?

I find it horrific and very depressing than £8-£10 is considered expensive in London. You lot really do think that the people doing the jobs you can't be arsed to are fucking scum don't you. How dare they try and charge a living wage.

For all the private school and I'm so hard done by being a higher rate taxpayer threads this is one that is really deluded and therefore nasty. The people that clean up your filth are nothing to you, you're only interested in how they must be ripping you off.

[legoplayingmumsunite]

I pay £34 a week, but that is through an agency and I get several cleaners here together do the cleaning. I actually was quoted more than double that by another agency which did shock me.

The reason why a customer might pay a cleaner what appears to be the same amount as a teacher receives in a salary is one simple word: overheads. The cleaner needs cleaning materials, a uniform, insurance, transport between jobs (car insurance for business purposes being more expensive than that for a teacher driving to work), administration costs, a pension, NI etc etc. What business only charges enough to cover salaries? I am happy to pay more for an agency because I know the staff are well treated, they are guaranteed a certain number of hours work each week, are insured and have holiday pay and sick pay.

[LibraryBook]

I gave up with the agency I used to use as they sent me a different pair of cleaners each week. They didn't speak English and I don't speak Portuguese (they were all Brazilians) which made asking them to do things or leaving a note was impossible and because they changed each week there was no way of establishing any sort of routine. It is much less frustrating to get off your arse and do it yourself.

I paid £11 an hour for each cleaner (£44 a week) and they used my cleaning materials and hoover and mop etc.

[VerySmallSqueak]

lego the holiday and sick pay is a very valid point.

[themaltesefalcon]

I'm with you, Opalite.

Not a stupid question and good on you for challenging the received wisdom, which is that doctors (who have evidently had the resources, time, opportunity and natural ability to go through med school) should receive many multiples of times the wages of a cleaner, who almost certainly would not, hand on heart, be scrubbing millionaire shit out of a toilet if she had been lucky enough to have had all the four things mentioned about.

It's wrong and it's the sort of thing that eventually leads to revolutions.

[themaltesefalcon]

Nice post, MilkyBarButtons.

[SauceForTheGander]

I don't think Londoners should pay under £10 an hour for their cleaners. Travel, cost of living is much more than the national average. I'm all for the minimum salary being higher in London to account for travel and living costs.

I paid £12 in London for a brilliant cleaner. I pay £10 an hour now I'm out of the city.

[YoureBeingASillyBilly]

Im a cleaner (not in london or SE) and i charge £10phr. I use all my own products and i honestly cannot afford to do it for any less than that. ALL of my clients are rural with a minimum of 15 minute journey to get there from my house in town so i have to get enough to cover my diesel and cleaning products. Take that out, plus tax (for those earning enough)and NI and you really are not left with very much for your time. One person called me 'greedy' for not wanting to do 3 x 1 hour cleans for her a week 10 miles away. I have a minimum slot of 2 hours otherwise it just isnt worth my while.

[YoureBeingASillyBilly]

Fwiw- a cleaner friend had one job that paid £100 for 4 hours per week of cleaning because it involved dusting a lot of very delicate and expensive ornaments. Some people are willing to pay a lot for something others would not.

[Trying2bMindful]

That is outrageous. I pay a lovely lady £10 an hour in London. She does a few hours on a Monday and a Thursday and I could not be happier.

For the price you have been quoted are they gold plating everything on the way out?!

I've only heard of that level of pricing for a once/twice yearly spring clean.... But they brought a team of cleaners.

[YoureBeingASillyBilly]

Well said milkybarbuttons.

[CynicalandSmug]

Don't forget the cleaners with expertise in forensics, and the poor souls who do scene of crime deep cleans. Euuuuuuuwwww. They really deserve a walloping lump of pay.

[IHeartKingThistle]

This is really interesting and I do feel like I understand it a lot better now. I didn't mean to start a debate by comparing fees and I certainly didn't mean to belittle cleaners or suggest that they are unskilled.

However, I'm a tutor, not currently a teacher - so I also travel to students, work evenings, have no sick pay or holiday pay, have to pay for materials (bloody printer ink!) and each hour of tutoring comes with (unpaid!) preparation to do and assessment to do afterwards, not to mention accountability and paperwork. So not quite the same as comparing a cleaner with a teacher. I'm not complaining!

I think it's a really valid point that we need to pay people enough to do these jobs, but I still think that there needs to be an incentive to get a degree with all the debt that that entails. I didn't finish paying off my student loan until I was 30, married, with a baby and a mortgage - if I had been able to earn the same salary doing a job that required no qualifications, would I have bothered to do the degree? I'm not in it for me money, but even so, in that scenario we'd have a severe teacher shortage on our hands pretty quickly, I think. I suppose it needs to be balanced out somehow.

I'm not being antagonistic - it is a really interesting (and thorny!) issue.

[QuintessentialShadows]

My cleaner, not agency, is 8.50 per hour. London.

[Opalite]

I really don't think you'd be able to earn the same salary as a cleaner
Being a mobile cleaner nothing is really guaranteed, maybe you'd get enough hours to live off but maybe you wouldn't.

[QuintessentialShadows]

This reminds me, she has not had a pay hike in nearly 3 years. So maybe it is time I talk to her about that. She is also our regular baby sitter and very reliable.