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

[Nishky]

That is very very expensive surely

[fannyfireworks]

u forgot pension milky

I agree. We pay 10 poun

[Opalite]

Dried semen and bottles of piss were something I experienced surprisingly regularly as a mobile cleaner. A large percentage of the work I did was cleaning really, really disgusting homes. I still have a habit of really shallow breathing which is something I developed while cleaning extremely smelly places! Many of my customers didn't seem to understand that I was there to clean, not pick this or that up from the shop or make them a cup of tea (although I don't think I ever refused!) I noticed this mainly with older men. Most of them weren't like that though but I think it really does say something about how the job can be viewed.
I was self employed and would do 'special offers' that were just over minimum wage, I was desperate for the money. Even with good advertising and happy customers, I never had enough hours

[IHeartKingThistle]

Opalite I was talking hypothetically!

And of course I meant 'the money' not 'me money'.

[Joiningthegang]

£10 here - nr cambridge

[Opalite]

I know you were IHeartKingThistle I'm just trying to put it into perspective a bit

[ProfPlumSpeaking]

Iheart perhaps you are undercharging as a tutor? £30+ per hour for someone good is the going rate here in London. Could you make it £20 for 40 mins or £30 for an hour? Otherwise, can you take a group - say a holiday revision course?

[worsestershiresauce]

I pay my cleaner £15phr plus a holiday bonus. She is worth every penny, as not only is she a lovely person, she works very hard, and is very proactive. If she has a bit of time left after doing the usual areas, she'll pick another room and give it a spring clean, or do some windows.

As with any job you get what you pay for.

[oldgrandmama]

I pay £35 for three hours (pretty well Central London).

[IHeartKingThistle]

Thanks Prof. I'm an experienced teacher but just starting out as a tutor, so I'm hoping to put my fees up next year when hopefully I'll be able to say I get results!

[ProfPlumSpeaking]

Well don't undersell yourself :-) Women do that a lot.

[LessMissAbs]

Hourly rate for part time lecturers at university level is approx. double that for a cleaner in the same city, who have similar issues with not earning while travelling to work or being paid to work for a full day, etc. My personal experience only. I would have thought a degree educated professional was worth more than double a cleaner (not denigrating cleaners) and wonder who is going to pay the cleaners.

[QuintessentialShadows]

We paid our sons tutor £40 per hour, for literacy and numeracy leading up to 11+. It was really worth it. She was a retired school teacher and had a deep understanding of the curriculum and what was expected of children. She really teased out a deep understanding of maths which has enabled him to tackle any mathematical problem thrown at him with confidence and enthusiasm. A skill worth paying more for than a cleaner. (London)

[samandi]

Maybe a bit on the steep side, but I would pay £15 ph for a decent cleaner and I'm not in an expensive area. I'm quite shocked at some of the attitudes here, do people not realise all the expenses, travel time etc. that cleaners have? Cleaning is dirty and hard (and potentially dangerous) work and I certainly wouldn't be doing it for £8, let alone £6 as one poster said, that's not even minimum wage!

[wigglesrock]

I'm a cleaner and have cleaned both privately in houses & commercially for businesses.

I wouldn't charge that personally but I'm sure agencies would work it out along those lines.

If posters think they'd be better off as a cleaner - give it a go and then you can deal with the shite (& I mean literally )

Just have at some old MN threads : do I really need to pay my cleaner for holidays?
Why does my cleaner need 3 hours to clean my house when I'm sure I could do in the shake of a lamb's tail

My cleaner is pregnant - how selfish, how will I cope?

Money has gone missing from my house, it must be the cleaner.

This is the general gist. I'm very good at my job, I am punctual, I don't take the piss, I do as we've agreed, I don't use my phone, I didn't MN, I worked hard for my allocated shifts. Is there a reason I should maximize my wages or should I just be happy with what someone else deems acceptable to pay me because I don't have qualifications. I did go to University & spent 2 years pissing about - not a worthwhile use of anyone's time.

[vj32]

We have just started paying £10.80 per hour - SE. We provide cleaning products.

However I don't think this is a bad deal. The house is not very clean or tidy so not an easy place to clean. DS is 2.5 and generally creates havoc where ever he goes. I now am struggling to clean up after him because of pregnancy and illness, hence paying someone else to do it. Removing the Wheatabix based handprints on the bathroom wall and door handles are just one of many interesting jobs the cleaner will have to do this week. Well worth £10.80 per hour to me not to do it if it allows me to rest and stay fitter and at work for longer.

[Objection]

I love how hysterical Mumsnet can get sometimes.

[vj32]

The cleaner vs tutor thing is interesting.
I am (was) a teacher. Until my sons get to or beyond GCSE level I can't see myself needing to employ a tutor because if they needed it, I could do that myself.
What I can't physically do at the moment is clean the house. Yes that's only temporary, but still. To use a comparison, I can't do any DIY really other than basic decorating. It took me several hours once to change a plug. DH also struggles just to put up shelves that don't fall down. So we have to call in favours or pay someone else to do all those jobs.

The value is not in the level of education required, its in how much you need the skill. People rarely need a lecturer. You need a heating engineer when your boiler fails even though that is a 'lower level' skill.

[QuintessentialShadows]

"You need a heating engineer when your boiler fails even though that is a 'lower level' skill."

And you dont pay £8.50 or £10 per hour for your plumber or electrician. It is more like £85 per hour plus vat.

[whatever5]

An well known cleaning agency tried charging me that amount seven years ago. I wondered if anyone actually paid that amount or whether they were just trying it on. I bet the people doing the actual work (i.e. the cleaners) don't get paid much.

[legoplayingmumsunite]

"You need a heating engineer when your boiler fails even though that is a 'lower level' skill."

I'm not quite sure that I'd consider a plumber to have 'lower skills' than a teacher to be perfectly honest. They both require several years training and the quoted salary ranges are fairly similar (according to the national careers service).

[PublicEnemyNumeroUno]

tI'm a cleaner and I charge £9 per hour, up in the Lake District. I have to grave A LOT to get to my jobs (up to an hour each way) so I have a policy about minimum booking time, luckily my clients who are so far away often want 5-6 hours one day per week.

I also know that I could seriously hike up my prices if I wanted and my clients would still pay, because Im very good at what I do. I use my own cleaning products but use their equipment (hoover etc) but I do a lot of extras too, eg last week when I'd finished one clients general clean and had time to kill I emptied all her kitchen cupboards and fridge, cleaned them out and arranged everything in nice neat order. She was absolutely over the moon.

[PublicEnemyNumeroUno]

Grave = travel

[samandi]

I wouldn't consider a plumber a lower skill level than a teacher either!

[QuintessentialShadows]

Just a question to the cleaners among you:

For Christmas, would you prefer a Boots voucher, or a John Lewis Voucher? And what amount would you feel appropriate?

[frostyfingers]

My DH is a plumber and is often asked "how much" when he quotes for a job - quite a few customers seem to think that it's work that anyone can do, (which they can when they've had the training!) He then explains the value of the stock he has to carry, the cost of belonging to trade bodies such as Oftec, insurance, van etc and then they get it. It's not belittling the job per se, just an ignorance of what is involved.