Aibu or my cleaner?

[LC01]

So, to set the scene and to not drip feed. I've had my new cleaner a few weeks now, I have a large house, so I have a 3 hour clean and pay £15 PH. She provides all equipment and products and has insurance etc., previous cleaners all got the job done in time.

Anyhow, last week we had guests, So I mentioned to my cleaner not to bother with guest room as it had their bags and stuff in there and I had already cleaned that room. I left to pick up my daughter and when I got back she had already gone. She started at 1.30, we had a quick chat for 10 mins. I got back just before 4.15 and she was no where to be seen, packed her Hoover, bucket, mop and her bags of cleaning stuff and driven off - so must have finished 5 mins or so before that. That night I got a text from her to say she didn't do the office as I had a few personal papers and my laptop out on the desk, so she completely left room. By the way, My house is always very tidy, nothing to tidy, just cleaning to do.

Anyhow, this week I had to go to a meeting so left a note: 'Hi *, if you get time please could you give the utility room a quick clean? If you don't get time don't worry, but noticed you finished a little earlier last week so if you get 5 mins left that would be great. Many thanks.'

She's never cleaned the utility room as I said when I showed her around, if you don't get time, don't worry about it.

I get a text whilst I'm in my meeting at 1.50 saying 'Hi , apologies I have put your keys through the door and won't be able to do your clean for you....sorry for the inconvenience...*'

I know she went into the house, as the post was in the kitchen next to note. I text her back when I left my meeting to ask if I'd done anything wrong, but she's not responded.

Was I being unreasonable to leave the note?

Sorry for the long message.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. She was crap, you called her on it, and she scarpered. Win win.

I can't imagine cleaning a large house in 3 hours. Just how large? 3 bathrooms, huge rooms, massive kitchen?? In my view 3 hours would not be enough so there would always be more to do?

£15 is a good rate and deserves impeccable time keeping and trust. Hope you find the right person. Can you ask around?

She's a slacker. 3 hours pay is for 3 hours' work. If she didn't have enough work to fill the 3 hours then she needs to say that and not take 3 hours' pay. Or else find more cleaning to do.

Allo - four bedrooms, small living room, dining room, office, kitchen (not big), conservatory, play room, one bathroom, one ensuite and downstairs loo. I always tell my cleaner they don't to clean our small guest room each week, as it doesn't get used much.

I try to be flexible as I don't want to take the piss and expect them to do too much.

LC You sound like a really reasonable employer. I think she was embarrassed to have been caught out. A friend I had once asked her cleaner to use a particular polish and the cleaner took umbrage and left! Good luck anyway

Maybe she left early because you said to leave the guest room, so she did, offices are hard ones, as you had stuff out on the desk, but she could have done the floor and bins. I am not a clockwatcher, as i believe it demotivates staff, but if she got all the original jobs done, then she prob felt a bit miffed that one week she is relieved of cleaning one room, so went early but has to then make up the time the following week. I think cleaners are like gold dust at the moment, and alot of them now work per itemised job than the traditional hourly rate. Alot of them do set a minimum call out of 3hrs, so will still charge that anyway just for turning up. I think trust has been broken though as you were asking her to leave one room, but not clear at the time you wanted her to make up the time the following week, your text though polite, is a bit condescending There may be lots of reasons why she ditched you as a customer, it could even be the travelling schedule.

OP wasn't asking her to make up the time the following week. OP had noticed cleaner had left early so asked for the utility room to be given a quick clean the next week instead of leaving early again. Perfectly reasonable request.

I don't think you handled her leaving early very well. Your message was PA. but at the sane time, she did leave early and a little more effort ie doing utility on occasion and she should have done office.

neither unreasonable.

i live in london and the going rate around here is 12.50. don't know where you live, but 15 sounds like a good rate and i would expect a good service i.e. staying as long as you're paying her for. that's basic rule no. 1 really.

she is also entitled to fuck off and go and short change someone else.

You didn't handle this well OP. I agree with Getting ^^. Saying to her that you noticed she'd left early & had to make up the time is uncalled for. It's like you're tracking her every minute- did you also make a mental note of how long she spoke to you so that had to be taken as unworked minutes/seconds ?

You need to trust someone who works i n your home & you've demonstrated a lack of trust. I wouldn't want to work for someone with your attitude and I'd have popped the keys back with a note.

That said, £15 is generous (more like £12/13 per hour round here with householder supplying their own products)

A good cleaner is quite hard to come by.

YWNBU to want her to use her initiative and the time to clean a different space but you have probably come across as high-handed and PA in your text, unfortunately, and she probably thought, "here we go again" especially after mentioning the previous client who she felt had unreasonable expectations. She was well within her rights to decide that you were not the right client for her, for whatever reason.

You are both in the right. You are entitled to ask your cleaner to do something, and she has the right to decline to provide her services. She probably felt that you were picking on her, being slightly mean by pointing out that she left five minutes early and wanted her to make the time back. People don't like having their faults pointed out. I imagine she got to your house, saw the note and thought "fuck this for a game of soldiers" - this is her right, she was not unreasonable in her behaviour, and neither were you.

Oh god, I have just clocked that you left her a note in the house - it wasn't a text. She had already sent you a message to explain why she had not been able to clean your study, which you had apparently accepted as reasonable. I'd have been well pissed off too, tbh.

I think yanbu to want the three hours you are paying for.

My cleaner is paid for three hours but usually does 2hrs 45mins. I can cope with that as she cleans well and cleaners are hard to find round here.

However she has now started bringing someone with her sometimes. I looked on our alarm to see whether she had brought the assistant do whether she was here 3 or 1.5hrs. Turns out she was here 1hr and 5 mins so I effectively lost out on 2x25 mins so nearly an hour.

How can I approach this as I don't want to lose her nor do I want to pay for something I'm not getting. She has had recent personal problems so I was thinking of saying something along the lines of I know you've had a lot on your mind but I noticed you were only here just over an hour last week, I'm sure you probably didn't even notice but can you just check you do the full time this week please?

Problem is the one time I have had to approach this before she stunned me by flat out denying it . Which would be a tactic if I didn't have an alarm with individual user codes so can very easily check, and she knows that.

Sorry to hop on your thread OP but any advice would be very welcome please.

AGiraffe That's really not on for your cleaner to have left so early. I don't think there is any way to deal with it other than being straightforward about it. I'd tell her that you noticed that she left early and that you don't mind as a one off but in future could she make sure that she works for the full time and that she should let you know if she can't find other things to clean.

The other way to deal with it is to do nothing but let it annoy you forever more. 😂

Giraffe, are you paying for the time, or the job being done?

If they were only there for an hour and a bit, on that occasion, but everything was done to your satisfaction, because they had absolutely bust a gut and got through it at a rate that would be unsustainable to maintain on your own for 3 hours - surely no problem?

I am paying for the time not the job. She came to me quoting an hourly rate. I know she also pays her new assistant less than I pay her so makes money on that too.

I am not sure if it is relevant but she initially said she wanted to introduce me to the assistant a couple of weeks ago in case she helped her occasionally but she (the assistant) would not normally be doing my house. Which is why I looked at the alarm out of curiosity as I was out last week.

There were a couple of things that weren't done that could have been. Not everything is done every week anyway which I am generally fine about as she tends to know when certain things need doing. I don't mind that if time doesn't allow for something but leaving early and still not doing everything I am not happy about.

I would say most of my cleaners have regularly left 15 mins early. Yes it's totally wrong but seems it's common practice now.

I now have one who doesn't like fixed hours as what needs to be done varies depending on who's at home. But annoyingly when we were on holiday and I specifically asked her to do 6 hrs, she handed me a bill for 11 saying she wanted to do extra and make the house nice for our arrival home! I won't be doing that again!!

Yes 15 mins isn't ideal but I accept that. It was 2x25 mins early that I thought was taking the piss.

The bulk of discussion on this whole thread is, to me, the best reason to sell cleaning services within the 'per job' model rather than 'per hour'.

Time to complete the full service can be so variable and different cleaners are capable of different speeds to perform the same service level.

A long time ago (over ten years now). When i was a solo cleaner, i used the 'per hour' model and it was ok but as soon as i started growing my business and employing people within my business as has happened with Agiraffe's cleaning service, i soon found that other cleaners varied in time to complete similar jobs and thus decided the 'per job' model was far more 'doable' going forward, it all just workd better without having to guess how long an individual will take and pricing accordingly only to have another individual take longer or less time and muck up the pricing.

With a 'per job' price ALL of our cleaners are trained to complete a set service level plus any additional services the client requested and these services are priced the same per job no matter who attends the home or how fast or slow they are to complete the tasks we promised.

People are willing to pay a lot for a great service level so it's worth getting it right for customers. Pricing on time just confuses the main issue which is a great standard quality of service, which really is the key to a good service level and customer satisfaction without all this whole 'that one took this long and this one takes that long to complete my house' when the focus should really be on results and what has been achieved in whatever timeframe.

I've always paid per hour and never had a problem with time keeping but I make it very clear when I interview that I don't like poor time keeping. I would say something about a cleaner who regularly left 15 minutes early. I don't understand why you wouldn't? 🤔 If you pay for three hours work then it's not unreasonable to get three hours work.

You could almost argue that it's unfair not to let a cleaner know if they are doing something that you don't like. Surely it's better to tell them rather than silently resenting them.

The 15 mins I don't like but can take on the chin for what is generally a good service when there is a distinct lack of good cleaners around here. It's just the 50mins total that rankles so I think I will have to say something. I just hate the potential confrontation and being typically British would rather not!

I grew up in a house where my one of my parents cleaned houses for a living. Quite often she would take me along (when I was a little older) to help out - this house was cleaned and the customer still got her hours, but of course because it was two of us we would finish the clean earlier. Sometimes this raised a question and it would always be explained that I was with her and that was why. We never had a problem.You sound very reasonable so if she chose to leave purely because of that note - than she IBU.

But as others have said - it may be she had other problems, that being said it was not on to leave without notice.