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AIBU?

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Original poster

To be shocked by this post on my local mums Facebook group? !

62 replies

YoMommasMomma · 04/09/2016 12:50

"Does this exist? I am looking for a cleaner that works per job and not per hour. So, until I am 100% satisfied I can ask her to re clean a room say even 10 times (or more). Same for Windows etc. Or do they all work per hour only? Please let me know. Thanks."

Would someone really ask their cleaner to keep re cleaning a room until they were happy?! Sounds a bit like they actually want a servant, not a cleaner.

OP posts:
VeryBitchyRestingFace · 04/09/2016 13:13

Assuming she's paying £1,000 per "job/day", I'd happily stay and clean and reclean her pad all day long.

Send her my way, OP!

JudyCoolibar · 04/09/2016 13:13

Tell her you'll do it for £20K per job, cash up front.

VeryBitchyRestingFace · 04/09/2016 13:17

Hmmm, Judy drives a harder deal than moi. Maybe I need to up my prices. Confused

Obsidian77 · 04/09/2016 13:17

I'm pretty sure she'll find she's not her own worst critic...what an obnoxious mindset.

someonestolemynick · 04/09/2016 13:19

I would actually love to pay a cleaner like this. Not because I can ask them to re-do stuff again and again but because it would remove all ambiguity.
I would say what I needed cleaned, ask them how long they think they would need and calculate the fee based on that. Then there won't be anymore "my cleans left 30min early problems".

Doesn't stop this woman from being a bit of a slave driver.

WicksEnd · 04/09/2016 13:26

You've had a NC fail OP.
She sounds like a dream......Confused

cdtaylornats · 04/09/2016 13:28

My sisters a dressmaker and that's precisely how she works, if the client isn't happy then they don't pay.

Lonecatwithkitten · 04/09/2016 13:37

I pay for the job to clean my house my cleaner says zones times it takes her 1.5 hours and sometimes 3 hours, but I don't ask her to redo stuff. I may ask her to do it differently next time.

KC225 · 04/09/2016 13:37

I would love to have had the balls to say that to some of the tradesmen I have employed over the years though

Witchend · 04/09/2016 14:07

It perhaps depends on the type of person she is though.
If it was my dad you could clean for a week and he'd still be pointing out the invisible mark on top of the door frame.
He'd never ask though as he trusts no one to get to his,standard.

If it's someone who's had a series of cleaners who clearly are skimping, and wants to pay over the odds so she can have the option of saying "can you go over the corners,again" because her previous ones would have said "no I have done my hours" (when they'd clearly been sitting playing Candy Crush with the hoover going to add verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative)
And she's prepared to say upfront exactly what is needed without adding to it.
Then it may be a good and reasonable deal.

Trifleorbust · 04/09/2016 14:21

That is shocking.

DanglyEarOrnaments · 04/09/2016 14:22

We are a mid-sized cleaning company and we charge per job, the same as the franchise Molly Maid do. It seems to be fairly common way of charging for cleaning houses, it's either this 'flat rate per job' way or the 'hourly rate' way. Those are the two business models you can go with as a cleaning service.

This business model can only work if you can see the house and talk about for the scope of the work when you set your price. The homeowner must make clear the amount of work she is ordering at the time you are setting the price for the job. You can only book additional work to that which has been agreed to at a later if the cleaning service can then price this in accordingly. Otherwise your price will just get smaller and smaller as the extra work is added in for free, then you are no longer viable and have to withdraw services and replace the client.

This person would need to say upfront how many times she will want the areas cleaned in order to enable the cleaner to be able to set her price for this work and I just don't see how that can be possible because how will she know when she is going to be saying 'ok that's enough now'? Does she even know? So how does she know the scope of the work she is ordering?

Also all additional work needs to be scheduled in advance of any clean with this model since your next client would be shortchanged if you were to spend all your time cleaning for free at the previous clients house. You need to book and pay for the work ordered in advance for it to be added into the schedule with a 'flat rate per job' service.

What she is suggesting is just not do-able.

Is it a wind-up?

GabsAlot · 04/09/2016 14:23

isnt there minimum wage to consider or is this type of work exempt

KP86 · 04/09/2016 14:24

I would love to pay our cleaners for the job. We use an agency and have different people almost every time and some race through, doing a fab job in 1.5 hours and others take their sweet time and 2.5hrs later have done 80%, and certainly none of the finishing touches.

The fast and good cleaners are rewarded with a higher hourly rate and get to leave sooner (eg. if you pay £20 for what is expected to be a 2 hour job for a reasonable person - not fast and not slow) and the slower ones have to stay until they are finished. I'm not advocating paying below minimum wage, but if the reason is because someone is deliberately slow, I don't see why I should have to pay extra or not get the work done.

Trifleorbust · 04/09/2016 14:29

I have no problem with the idea of paying per job per se, but the 'as many times as I want it done' thing is very unreasonable. There is a point at which you as the client would be being very fussy and wasting the worker's time.

DanglyEarOrnaments · 04/09/2016 14:35

Gabs there's no minimum wage because cleaners are self-employed and not employees.

The good news is there is far too much demand for domestic cleaning than you could ever supply so you can name your price to a certain degree. To that end, this lady will never get any cleaner interested in having her as a client, she would have broken our terms and conditions before we even started with her - far too much of a red flag, we've not taken on certain clients for far less than that!!

OVienna · 04/09/2016 14:36

I feel like these days, every day, I am encountering or hearing about a new and interesting sort of shit-headery. This is my one for today.

Mummyoflittledragon · 04/09/2016 14:37

Has this woman got a nice house? If so, she can have the number of my former cleaner that I just sacked. She really pushed the boundaries and this could be a perfect solution - she would take so long to do the cleaning she'd simply end up moving in (as my former cleaner joked several times about doing in my house). Then she could spend copious amounts of time chatting to the house owner, on Facebook and watching downloads on her phone instead of working. The home owner could feed her and her pay could be pocket money. Win win. And as a plus she'd never be late or be a no show or do nothing instead of cleaning because she'd have a whole week to do the work in.

BuntyFigglesworthSpiffington · 04/09/2016 14:50

Ugh, ugh, and ugh again.

She sounds like a toerag who just wants to lord the fact that she's the boss over some poor low paid sod.

SheSparkles · 04/09/2016 14:55

I wonder if it's a friend of mine-she went through 4 cleaners in 3 months as no one did the job to her impossible standards 🙄

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 04/09/2016 14:56

She has unreasonable expectations.
No issue in paying per job, but expecting to be able to ask the cleaner to do it again and again? no.
She sounds like some hideous old matron or housekeeper, bullying the new nurse/ housemaid to "keep doing it til you get it right or no rations for you!"

Atenco · 04/09/2016 15:33

Well if that is her advertisement looking for a cleaner I doubt she'll get many takers.

I think pay per job is ok as long as you pay and if you don't like the job that was done, you look elsewhere, at least that is what I do when I farm out my professional work.

TattyDevine · 04/09/2016 15:42

In some ways I see where she is coming from, though she has phrased it terribly.

My cleaners have always worked on an hourly basis and without fail all have become complacent, doing less and less in the time and leaving early, which can take weeks to detect if you aren't home all the time. The last agency lot left 15 minutes early when I busted them by coming home early which is a whole hour as there were 4 of them.

So in many ways I'd love to book a clean for my house and if it's no done properly call them back to do what they quoted for and I paid for.

I don't actually mean calling back again and again to an impossibly high standard though...id just like them to do what they agreed.

It's even harder to get the job done on an hourly rate because they'd say they ran out of time when they'd left early.

It's very frustrating because it's not cheap, particularly agency rates.

HopelesslydevotedtoGu · 04/09/2016 15:46

ask her to re clean a room say even 10 times (or more)

Gosh, I've always thought that if you clean something once it's clean, I can't imagine two cleans let alone ten... either I'm a slattern or she is a dragon (probably both Grin)

HopelesslydevotedtoGu · 04/09/2016 15:48

You can obviously advertise 'per job', eg £X for a 2 bed flat, but if you don't like the results your only option is to find a new cleaner, not to stand over them asking for a tenth scrub of the floors