To set some traps for the cleaner?

[Dothetwist]

Not thinking the wire abd bucket kind...

I have never had an experience with a cleaner before, she starts tomorrow morning

I was wondering how people manage to gain trust in someone coming in to their house, I've given her a key and asked it to be posted back through each time..

Wibu to set some little traps? Like a dirt patch somewhere i would expect to be cleaned or a £10er somewhere?

Stealthpolarbear - just seen your question.

Some homeowners occasionally don;t want their delicate surfaces wet mopped, such as hardwood or laminate flooring. We have an option for them of 'vacuumed and mopped or just vacuumed according to client's spec' within our service list. The cleaner should add the information to your client notes she holds and then when she checks her notes before she attends your home she can clearly see not to wet mop stealth's floors.

If she only has a few homes yet she will not need the notes she will remember. I can remember what all 70 of our clients individual spec are but the cleaning staff can't and I don't expect them to, they need the notes on the profiles.

I think as long as the spec is laid out at the same time as she sets her price for the job all is well. In this case it is less work you are asking for not more so I doubt she'd be at an alteration even if she's already priced the job.

If you increase the scope of the work at any time after, always remember it's a business and not for free, just ask 'how much for xxxxx' and she can tell you her prices.

I think one of the most common complaints from cleaning business owners is clients increasing the scope of the work after the event of the sale of service therefore making the job no longer viable at the same price. I always encourage an honest communication about this and a price increase before ditching the client, it seems most things like this can be resolved when it's been an honest misunderstanding.

Ok thanks. It's a bit simpler than that, we don't own a mop and I don't want one. No space to store them. I clean the floors with a cloth but wouldn't expect her to. Tbh if she hoovers them they'll be mostly clean and then when they bother me ill clean them. They're not at all precious!

Oh I see, does she not bring her own equipment? (I'm not critisising her, please don't think I am, I've heard some cleaners just sell their labour and nothing more and that's absolutely fine too and her service can be less expensive then!)

No you're right not to ask her to do floors by hand we don't allow our staff to clean on their hands and knees at all as it's too much wear and tear on their knees and can lead to joint problems later in life.

We would be lost without the equipment and supplies we bring, we couldn't cope, clients never have anything we need!

Would she really lug a mop and bucket all the way here? She is driving not walking
I'm working at home on her first day so suppose we can discuss all this. Usually dh hoovers and it looks fine, every now and again it needs a proper scrub

Ask her Stealth

We take mops buckets vacuums a bag full of various chemicals and brushes and other and a huge bag of various fresh cloths to every client and each team does about three or four clients every day, that's a lot of lugging but we always have everything we need all clean and on hand and that makes for an excellent job done each time.

I think if she starts bringing it she will get addicted to being equipped, it will do her a favour, I be she will bring more and more until she is a 'fully-equipped service'.

Oops no commas in my last post , sorry pedants - atrocious!

Wow. I don't think she's bringing all that (and you've reminded me I need to change the hoover bag). I shall see on Thursday!

My goodness, some people really do have nothing better to worry about, don't they

She will do a great job for the first few weeks, they often slack off after the initial period. I have had several cleaners over the years, all of them eventually slacked off and only did a half-arsed job, one of them stole from me.

Please do bear in mind whilst judging her wish that in your cleaner's first week(s) they're likely to be much slower whilst getting your house up to their standards. You can tell them you'd rather they rushed through to complete the whole house, but they'll probably be itching to clean the windows or deep clean something you haven't even noticed. I find just letting them get on with it and seeing how I feel after a few weeks is the best policy. I had a new cleaner start this week, and even though it was only a week since the previous cleaner left (and I'd considered her good and she only left to change career), the new cleaner still found loads that needed bringing up to her standards. The bits she'd focused on gleamed, the others were whisked over and will gleam next week.

Don't judge too quickly. And if your house is clean enough that you need to think about leaving crumbs especially (there are always plenty naturally occurring in my house!) then don't be too offended if she finds your supposedly-clean house needs a lot of work to reach her standards.

That's a valid point Million - when we start new clients we will not take a client who is not willing to have our 'inital clean' to get things up-together first, and we still need this first deep clean whether they have had other cleaners in or they think it's clean themselves or not.

Our initial cleans take a team of cleaners a few hours (some take a team of two cleaners the best part of all day) and then we can maintain the house with regular cleans within a normal time-frame after that.

I've just got a cleaner. I get home and am just grateful I don't have to clean. Don't need to set traps to see how well she has cleaned, as I have eyes. Some things aren't done particularly thoroughly as I can only afford 2 hours a week so she obviously can't get everything done! Last week I asked her to focus on the bathroom and came home to a sparkling bathroom.

I did imagine from the title a hole in your hallway covered with leaves type of thing haha

I'd leave it until you actually suspect something before setting traps

spend your time cleaning your own bloody house rather than spending the time setting traps for someone to earn a decent living.

I don't know who some people think they are.

YABU. The measure of her work is how well she cleans your house, not her ability to foil your sneaky traps.

I can sort of see why people do it, the money anyway. There are dishonest people out there and you hope your cleaner won't be one of them but if you're letting someone come and go in your house unsupervised it's quite a vulnerable position to put yourself in.

YABU. What a horrible thing to think of. If you don't want someone new in your home then don't get a cleaner.

I'm another who's now paranoid that my cleaners may have thought that my leaving piles of cash about was a test. DH just empties his pockets places, and I collect interesting-looking coins (like the olympic 50p's, etc.), and so generally stick them somewhere on a shelf until I get around to sorting. We also once had a giant wad of about £300 as DH was traveling and the B&B told him they did cash only, so he went to a machine to pay for his whole trip, and when he got back they told him the reservation had actually already paid by CC. He just plopped that down by the phone.

I've never seen any gone missing! Although I've hoovered up a 20p on occasion myself

honey - I'm confused about the review pay bit -- I've always assumed the cleaners would tell us if they were going to increase rates. I was using their service, for which they told me how much it cost, not saying, "here, do this for that amount".

Feeling bad now as our last cleaner sent around a notice saying he wasn't cleaning outside his town anymore (we were the next town over), as he found he wasn't able to recoup the petrol costs. I thought that maybe we should offer to pay more, as we really liked him, but I didn't want to question his decision about his own business! Wonder if we could have kept him? Haven't yet found someone that has managed to (1) return phone calls and (2) to come when they said for an estimate, and keeping up with the housework is fairly negatively impacting my health at the moment. Probably too late to go to him and offer more money - it's been nearly 6 months.

Dangly that's a good policy. I asked for an initial 'deep clean' as 6 months of a toddler, a dog, me being heavily pregnant and then a newborn have taken its toll. I wanted it to be at a basic level of cleanliness so the weekly cleans would be 'top ups'.

Also confused on the 'review pay and increase annually'. Our cleaner came round and quoted us a price, which we pay. It would be weird to offer them more than that wouldn't it? I guess their prices increase regularly, and therefore we'll pay the increased price.

We take mops buckets vacuums a bag full of various chemicals and brushes and other and a huge bag of various fresh cloths to every client and each team does about three or four clients every day, that's a lot of lugging but we always have everything we need all clean and on hand and that makes for an excellent job done each time.

This is certainly not typical. Most agency's supply a cleaner's time. The client supplied ALL products.

Yeah, our cleaners used to tell us when we needed a new mop or new cleaning supplies. And I always had to empty the hoover bags, which was annoying, as I often didn't realise they were full (wish someone had mentioned).

so confused on the 'review pay and increase annually'

They are NOT your employee to do this with. They are selling you a service (cleaning) for which they are setting the price.

It is good practice to get a 'deep clean' first then regular cleaning.
Also good practice to leave some cash for Christmas if your cleaner is doing a good job and you want to keep them.

eah, our cleaners used to tell us when we needed a new mop or new cleaning supplies. And I always had to empty the hoover bags, which was annoying, as I often didn't realise they were full (wish someone had mentioned).

+1

Our cleaner leaves out empty products so I know when they need replacing. But she doesn't change the hoover bag so I have to remember to check it ever so often. Would rather she left the hoover out when it needed changing even if she didn't change it her self.

I have had several periods as a cleaner. I grew up in a home where we had a series of cleaners throughout my childhood and after. My mother (who at one stage had a daily every morning, and a different daily for the afternoons) never had a cleaner who stole, failed to clean or was in any way disreputable. (She is retired now, so does all the cleaning herself, plus there are no longer 4 adults and 3 children in the house - just her and dad, in case anyone was wondering...) She employed trustworthy people in the beginning, checked their references and assumed they were getting on with their jobs, as evidenced by a clean home.

I have had people leave me "traps": they make me chortle. They also meant employers needed to find a new cleaner afterwards - if you trust me enough to allow me to be in your home without you, with a key I can replicate and give out to all my burglar friends, but leave piles of crumbs or notes around, I am afraid you are far too stupid for me to want to work for you. And cleaners are harder to find than jobs for cleaners :-)

On another note, I was once a weekly cleaner for a rather grand elderly couple (I also used to take care of their gundogs whilst they were away, skin rabbits for them and do the weeding, but that's another story): when they had weekend guests, their guests would invariably leave me a tip of a fiver by the bed. I pocketed them on my Thursday afternoons, and was grateful indeed that they had acknowledged the care and attention I had made to getting their rooms ready to welcome them.