AIBU or cleaners?

[Moominmummyzzz]

Background: We have been using a cleaning company to clean our house for the last three years. We had seven different people and all of them (bar one) left the company. The last five months, the owners (age 72, 73) have started doing the job. We employ them to come to the house two hours twice a week (4 hours a week in total). They have also done a deep clean of the house (8 hrs) in April. We pay £12.50 per hour so around £200-225 a month.

DH and I have a toddler and we both work full time. I mainly work night duties. DH and I are really knackered as we have no family nearby to help us. We have someone to help us clean our house for our mental well being.

Since the owners have taken the role, I have noticed the following

• cancelling the job at the last minute (like texting at 12:00 to say they cant come in for 12:00 noon job)
• charging us for days they did not turn to work (this happened twice but did not question it for goodwill as we have used them for three years)
• last week owner/cleaner was to do a two hour clean but she left after an hour but still charged us for the full two hours.

The owner/cleaners were suppose to come yesterday but they didn't turn up. We got this email from her today:

_
Dear Moominmummyzzz,

I have given the cleaning of your home considerable thought, and no matter how I try I can no longer contend with the state we find your home in each time we come.

I really do not want to offend you but when we spoke last you asked me to be honest, are efforts are in vane, the constant wiping of the sofa which is covered in dried on food, picking up stuff from the floors, clearing food and cereal bowls, clearing food and various other things.

Putting washing in the baskets picking up toys and various other things from the bath.

My staff and I are not servants having to clear up behind people.

You are a young couple and there is no reason why you cannot pick things up so we are able to clean, you have the capabilities of making your home a well kept and pleasant place to bring your little toddler up in.

Please take all this on board as being constructive. You are really nice people and I have enjoyed knowing you.

I put your key back through the door yesterday I hope you have found it . If I can be of any help please let me know.

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I'm just confused at this. It sounds like we're disgusting pigs but we are just a real tired couple with a small child. AIBU?

We employ a cleaner. She used to do some ironing, but being a functioning adult she simply said she didn't have time on "our morning" once we had 2 dcs & a messier house to do everything. Dh now does the ironing. Our dcs are older now & we put the recycling out before our friend comes to clean. Dc know to pick up before then & put away. This makes it easier for her to clean. But if they didn't, she'd reprioritise. Not send a shitty email

I am guessing that 4 hours per week with only 2 adults in the house was a very easy gig for them. They had got used to your house not taking long. Then when you had your child they were going to have to earn their money which they didnt fancy doing.

£12.50/hour seems quite a high charge. £8.00/hour is normal where I am. Look for a new cleaner. Agree the standard you will leave the house in. They will tell you a rate and off you go.

YANBU.

They are there to pick up after you if that's what you need and are prepared to pay for. If they think that makes them "servants" that's their problem.

Get a new cleaner, and discuss the situation straightforwardly with them. Tell them your working circumstances, and say that you'd like them to spend one hour of the two of each session doing general tidying, and one hour of cleaning. Or whatever you decide between you is going to work. Treat your cleaner as the expert professional and discuss what you need & agree on a trial period.

I always get everything off the floor before my cleaner comes, but I don't have small children. My sister with 4 children, had a daily cleaner when they were little and expected: washing done & put away if there was a load, cleaning up after toddlers, and so on (there was a nanny as well). Basically, household staff to help her family. Nothing wrong with that as long as you're clear about what you want, and agree to pay for it.

And PS, her email was judgemental & making your way of living a moral issue. It must have hurt. She WBU.

I am bemused by this, never having had a cleaner. Surely you pay them to clean, and that includes wiping the sofa? The family are out at work all day, and the cleaners have 4 hours a week there, you have to wonder how dirty / untidy it can possibly be? Why isn't tidying included in a cleaning service? Surely if the house is very untidy then you have to accept that there will be less time for actual cleaning, but I still think it is perfectly reasonable to have some toys picked up and the breakfast dishes washed - you're paying these people to clean your house and if these are the jobs that need to be done then they should do it. If the company don't want this client, they should just say so, not send a horrible email criticising them. The whole point of having a cleaning service is that you don't want / can't manage it yourself.

We always make it clear to the cleaners that picking up and tidying is what is actually more necessary than the 'cleaning'. The ones who advertise as housekeepers seem to be the best/happiest at doing all this.

In the interests of honest feedback i would respond.

'Thank you for your email. We were also thinking of ending this contract after giving you 'service' lots of thought. I don't want to offend you but your unreliability is very unprofessional, as is charging money for a service you have not delivered.

Calling at the time you are expected to say you are now not coming is very short notice and not acceptable from a service provider, as is deducting money when you haven't provided any service at all.

You are business owners and you have the capability of providing a service which you have not been.

Please take this on board as being constructive.

Thank you for returning our key. If i can be of any further service please let me know.'

Some people (cleaners and employers alike) believe that a cleaner is just there to clean. Personally, I employ a cleaner to tidy up and clean. I do the basics, but once a week, I have a cleaner come and put the house to rights - and that includes making beds, putting toys in toyboxes etc.

Any cleaner that didn't want to tidy wouldn't be suitable for me - and it looks like your cleaners aren't suitable for you - plus they charged highly, for work that sometimes wasn't even done, and weren't reliable.

You need to find new cleaners that will do what you want.

I used to clean when I was a uni student, and I think leaving dirty dishes to be cleaned is unacceptable, and degrading for the cleaner to have to do. I only ever had one client like this - a real Lady Muck in every sense of the word - she had spent some time abroad as an expat and was used to having servants. When she asked me to handwash some of her clothes and to clean her shoes was the day I told her to shove off. Most of the clients left surfaces clear, no skiddies in the loo, and nothing particularly unpleasant to clean. They were busy people, but people who respected me as a human being doing a job, not as a lower life form who should clean up their (literal) muck.

By the way, I didn't mind tidying the odd toy off the floor. I wouldn't do muck though - skiddies in the loo, old food caked on dishes, changing bedsheets with period blood and semen stains etc - all of which my delightful Lady Muck client left for me :-/

I do nights so I know the zombie feeling but surely at the end of a day you tidy up? Even if I'm at work DH tidied the toys and clears up when our children are in bed. It's a never ending process but it's part of having DC.

I used to be a PT cleaner. One house I cleaned was always knee-deep in dirty clothing and wet towels on the floor and 3-4 days' worth of washing up stacked congealing in the sink (no dishwasher). Think cold fat and rancid milk. I was only employed for 2 hours twice a week and spent the first hour washing up and picking up clothes. The owners had the cheek to ask me to be 'more ruthless' with the cleaning but I didn't have enough time. This was a big 4-storey 6 bed London house. The teen sons' attitude was 'you are are female and here to clean up after me'. I found it quite soul destroying that anyone could be that dirty and lazy. It just wasn't worth the effort for the pay - I was a cleaner not a housemaid. I soon left them to it, and found much nicer people to work for who appreciated what can be done in the time allocated.

I think are a little YABU OP. But their communication is muddled and rude. You need to get a contract in place when you hire your next cleaner so that both parties know what is to be expected.

OP I really feel for you.
Whilst the clutter etc may have made it hard to clean the email was uneccessay. All they had to do was say they no longer wanted the job.

The clutter issue is why I no longer have a cleaner. I found actually having a cleaner (when I worked) was more stressful as I ended up running round like a headless chicken before she was due to come. It didn't help that she reminded me of my mum and I felt judged!

The las t straw was coming home from holiday to find she had taken ALL the toy boxes out of the living room (some lived under the coffee table) and put them in my son's room. This was to show us how lovely our living room would be as a child free zone. My son has an ASC. it was not a 'lovely' suprise for us. It caused fucking hours of anxiety.

Have a rethink and a tidy and get new cleaners.

I am messy, I have a fab cleaner that tidies and cleans for 2 hours a week.. They charge £15 per hour, more than average but a good job.

I don't leave food on the sofa nor expect her to pick up dirty clothes, tbh it sounds like they are exasperated by you. Be honest with yourself about how you are living.

The only issue I have with note is that it is addressed to you and not your DH too, he is equally capable of emptying cereal dishes and wiping food off the sofa.

my cleaner always tidied and there's a lot of tidying to be done here! 3 autistic boys and one frazzled mother. But she got more hours to do it so no beef from her. She left now as she has finally got a job in her sector (she was Russian and very educated) but is still prepared to clean on weekends.

I haven't got a replacement because I'm tired of dealing with lazy prima Donna cleaners :(

Jeff, wow!! the person you employed to clean decided that instead of doing that, they'd move toy boxes, to repurpose your rooms in your actual home!!!!!!

We have had lots of cleaners who really seem to like the re-arranging and de-cluttering aspect rather than the cleaning. Ones who say they didn't have time to hoover or mop the floor but then you find all the shampoo bottles arranged on a display shelf etc. We had to continually say, shove it all in a box, pile it on the bed etc. My kids just knock all the bottles off within seconds anyway. The priorities are the floors, kitchen and bathrooms. Everything else is just decoration.

People really can't understand how messy your house is with tiny children.

Also cleaners who hide everything so the surfaces are all clear and you can't find anything. The things are where they are for a convenience reason, i don't care if it looks nice. It's a case of battlefield triage!

Oh yes.
She was a lovely lady but she just could not understand our attitude that the children lived in the house and the living room was just that. The room we lived in.
She also asked me why I wanted a cleaner and why I didn't do it myself. When I said about work stress and wanting to spend my free time with the children she looked genuinely puzzled.
She was mostly fab. Would put washing out on the line if I set the machine off, remade the bed if I left sheets out and stripped it before leaving and ironed.
I just couldn't handle the stress.
I have come to the conclusion that if I ever have another cleaner I will pay extra for tidying!

I think you need to consider, hard, why someone who cleans for a living would feel it necessary to send that email to you, specifically referencing the environment for your toddler.
I would be utterly mortified to receive this and consider it a serious kick up the arse to realise that having cleaners twice a week does not erase the need to actually clean up and tidy after myself too. All working parents are busy and tired, they don't all leave clothes lying on the floor and congealed food everywhere for days on end between cleans. Rank.

The email is rude but some of the stuff they mention is grim. I worked as a nanny/housekeeper years ago, I did everything including all laundry. The worst bit was peeling the liners from my employers pants before I could put them in the machine. Every single time.

It's the implied judgement in the letter that is really nasty - that as a young couple there's something wrong with you if you don't tidy. Yeah, I daresay the couple could find time to tidy, out of their free time, which could be more or less depending on working hours and commutes - but it's a business opportunity, to say to them "give us more hours, then we can tidy and clean for you." It sounds like they don't actually want more hours though, that they can hardly take care of the business they currently have - and I wonder if, having employed others (and perhaps not paid particularly well) for years they are having a bit of cognitive dissonance now as they discover that cleaning is a bit harder than they thought? Specially with the cancelled appointments/not doing the full hours etc.

Also if there's anyone in London looking for an efficient cleaner who doesn't mind tidying a bit of mess, I can PM you my old cleaner's number. She was awesome, and the only reason she doesn't clean for us any more is because we live in another country!

If you think there is a chance your depressed do go to the drs. Depression can make you feel a lot more tired and make quick simple things feel like big tasks.

Working nights then looking after toddler in the day is shit. I don't envy you having to do that.

Rather than nursery a housekeeper nanny may actually be better for you. I have a friend who does it and the going rate here is 200-300 a week (for mon -fri full time) depending on how long their day is. You may be able to find someone who'll do just mornings for less. A housekeeper nanny will take care of toddler, tidy up and do housework, which could allow you a lie in to catch up on sleep from your night shift, as well as making the house cleaner and tidier for when you start your day.

If I can be of any help please let me know.

Do ask for a refund for the no-shows and recent occasion where shorter hours were worked.

Sounds like the cleaners may well have additional reasons for declining to clean your house (wanting to reduce their workload, perhaps).

The letter dispenses unnecessary judgement and advice. So long as both parties are flexible in terms of what can be achieved during the 4 hours, no reason why an arrangement could not have worked.