Do you have a cleaner?

[massagegirl]

And if so what do they do and how long does it take them? I just got a cleaner for the first time as have new baby and I'm finding it really hard to keep on top of it all so decided to get someone once a fortnight.
We live in quite a small cottage, 2 and half bedrooms, small lounge, dining room, kitchen, bathroom. She came today for the first time. 2 and half hours and has only cleaned the kitchen and bathroom and not touched anywhere else. I feel quite disappointed, it was quite big decision to get a cleaner and I was looking forward to coming into a clean house. I don't have overly high expectations but I guess I didn't expect that I'll now have to hoover and dust everywhere she hasn't touched. So what is it reasonable to expect? If this is what I should expect after 2 and half hours then I think I might change my mind about having a cleaner. We don't have money to burn but I was looking for a little more work/life/cleaning/baby balance.

Didn't you discuss what she would do before you hired her?

It takes my cleaner 4 hours to do our whole house - kitchen, bathroom, downstairs cloak, 3 bedrooms, living and dining room are one big room.
In two hours she does the kitchen and bathroom and runs the hoover round the bedrooms quickly.

You need to discuss your expectations with her. How much are you paying out of interest?

Did you discuss with her what you wanted to do in that time?

We have a 3 bed terrace, and a cleaner who does 2 hrs a week. She does the en-suite and main bathrooms, hoovers the carpeted stairs, and cleans the kitchen floor. But that's cos thats what we asked her to do. Every so often we'll ask for something different eg blinds, that doesnt need doing every week.

My cleaner used to clean two bathrooms, two bedrooms, living room, dining room, hall , stairs , landing , downstairs loo and the kitchen floor in 2 and a half hours. I did the rest myself.

The first ever day she came it did take longer and I paid her extra even though she didn't ask for it but after the initial deep clean it was fine. I must say I would have been very unhappy with how little seems to have been done by your cleaner.

I don't have a cleaner now by did when my kids were little. We had a 3 bed semi then and our cleaner did it all in 3 hours. Not proper spring cleaning, but vac, polish etc in all rooms, and kit and bathroom cleaned, floors mopped etc.

I think you need to talk to you cleaner about your expectations and she (or he!) needs to tell you what they can realistically do.. If you are not getting what you expected and/or need it might be best to try and find someone else.

Mine does a quick run round the whole house. She's ace.

Mine does our 3 bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, living room & downstairs loo in 3 hours. We also have a 4th bedroom that is not used much (for guests) which she will do a quick once over of if I ask her.

When she first started though she did an extra hour each week for about 6 weeks to really deep clean everything. Maybe she is starting off by doing that?

As others have said I think maybe you should have a brief chat with her about what you need/what she can do & see if you can reach an agreement. Unless you are really mucky I think she is being a bit lazy.

I have a 4 bed house and my cleaner does 2.5 hours per week to do all of it. I would say that I do tidy up before she comes, if I don't the standard is not as good because she is also tidying / can't clean so easily around the mess. The first few times they come it does take longer as they are getting used to the house and on top of the existing dust and dirt.

So it doesn't sound like your cleaner has done much really but if your kitchen and bathroom were untidy / very dirty then it may just be that it takes a few visits to get on top of things. I'd ask her and say you'd hoped she'd be able to do the whole house in the time. She may suggest a one off through clean followed by regular shorter cleans.

thorough not through

She spends four hours, hoovers everywhere, mops downstairs, cleans bathrooms, cleans hob, cleans kitchen sides, sometimes cleans fridge.

It's a big house so I don't expect her to also dust everywhere.

I did a similar clean last weekend and it took the same amount of time btw...

Ours is a bit of a godsend. In two hours, she does a 'normal' clean of the kitchen, downstairs loo and bathroom, plus a Hoover of the rest of the house and normally a bit of a 'special', i.e. clean the oven, deeper clean of one of the other rooms. I genuinely don't know how she does it. She comes once a fortnight and we pay her £20. She did come highly recommended, and we had to go on awaiting list to get her once a fortnight (originally she could only fit us in once a month).

To mitigate all that slightly, there are only two of us and I do prep the house a bit so that we don't look slovenly!! it's true that the house doesn't sparkle as if it has had a spring clean, but it's enough that I'm never embarrassed if we can't be arsedto do anything between her visits and get unexpected visitors!

I don't have a cleaner but I was a cleaner.

In 2 1/2 hours I would have cleaned the kitchen and bathroom, cleaned the dining table/polished it if its wooden and hoovered the whole house. But I would have asked you what you wanted done before starting the first time anyway.

Hiya i don't have a cleaner but i am one while also being 28+
For a local business (treble an average 3 bed house for floor space) in three hours and to a relatively high standard i manage
4 bathroom's shower,bath, sink, glass, toilets, kitchen dishwasher,counters, polish, hoover, mop and dry floors, laundry, dishwasher, fireplaces
The building is never in a "state" but isn't exactly clean when i get there either

If i was you i would get a new cleaner and state beforehand that you expect XYZ to be done with a realistic time scale and other odd jobs you would like done if there is spare time before they leave

£10 ph buy the owners choice i would have done it for less

Its taking a bit longer these days so adding an extra 30min but i'm not charging as its not my employers fault i'm pregnant and need a sit down halfway through :)

I didn't discuss beforehand as on the company website it said what they did. I left the hoover out and showed her where new hoover bags were. Asked if it was possible to change the sheets on our bed and left the clean sheets. I had done a big tidy up before she came. Kitchen and bathroom were not messy but needed a clean. I suppose I had higher expectations as friends living in similar size houses really like having a cleaner!

My house same size as yours ie 2 beds, kitchen, bathroom, sitting room. My cleaner comes for 2 hrs a week. Sweeps/mops all floors, hovers carpets, cleans bath/shower plus all surfaces, dusts, tidies, plumps cushions and folds any blankets etc. I wouldn't ask mine to change sheets and tbh that is a little time consuming. I pay £10/hr.

Possibly you could make allowances for the first week ie getting to know the rooms etc, but I would expect the whole house to be done the following week in 2 hrs. Do you clean in between though? I am a slattern so a 2 hr clean a week is enough to tide us over until the following week. If you weren't cleaning the week between then I would imagine the place would be harder to clean.

Mine does 2.5 hours every other week and in this time she does the following

clean kitchen
clean bathroom
hoover all carpets
steam mop all hard floors
all dusting

I try and make sure the floors are clear for her, but she will pick up and put away any small items left out.

It's a 5 bed house though, so not small (but very tatty as we bought it derelict and are slowly - veeerrryyy slooowwwly - doing it up!)

similar sized house to you, she does two hours at £8/hr on a weekly basis

it's not a deep clean, and i hoover once or twice between anyway as stuff seems to collect on the rugs, but she concentrates on the bathroom and kitchen with a quick dust and hoover of the other rooms

i don't get her to change sheets or iron - i don't mind doing those things and would rather she concentrated on the cleaning that i hate

massagegirl

Just a thought - I once had agency cleaners, allegedly for 2.5 hours at a time who didn't get much done. It transpired after my first invoice that the agency was sending 2 cleaners - ie, 1.25 hours each and taking off their travelling time - 20 min each way each, allowing only 35 minutes in the house (each). My neighbour told me after 3 weeks that they were actually only in the house for max 20 minutes. I paid first invoice and cancelled the contract.

Totally depends doesn't it?

Our cleaner can do a 'run round' the flat and change bed sheets in 2h and that's one bedroom, one bathroom, kitchen living room and dining area.

However that is a wipe, dust hover type thing. If I want something more akin to my kind if 'deep clean' it takes an hour at least just to do one small bathroom.

Mine comes for less than 2 hours. In that time she hoovers and dusts whole house, mops hard floors, cleans kitchen and bathrooms. We have 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms over 3 floors (so two.flights of stairs to hoover). She works like a demon!

Sounds like yours should do more in the time...

We have a 3 bed semi and our cleaner does 3 hours a week at £9.50 an hour which covers a whole house clean. She also does a huge basket of ironing for us each week. If I have any little jobs I need doing that week i.e change bed sheets, get marks off the walls, deep clean oven she will do that as well

You need to tell her what you want her to do. She will get more efficient as she learns her way round too.

whois I was about to say the same thing.

My cleaner does all the mirrors, the window insides either upstairs or downstairs, wipes all the skirtings, gets any cobwebs down, moves the sofas and the beds and does behind them - every time she comes.

I can run the hoover round the middle of the floor myself!

My cleaner comes for 3 hours each week and she does the whole house...3 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs and hall, lounge, kitchen, dining room and downstairs toilet downstairs. And hoovers/mops floors throughout.

When she first started though we agreed that she would do a really thorough clean including skirtings, windows inside and outside, and worked on some mouldy patches so came for 4 hours and just did downstairs and then the following week she did 4 hours just upstairs. After that we dropped down to 3 hours.

I'd rather have a good independent cleaner than an agency, provided she or he comes with good references.

And yes you need to make a list of what needs doing and discuss it with her/him.