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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think what we pay the cleaner is none of this woman's business!

174 replies

Silverst0rm · 27/07/2017 18:19

Someone I know from the school recommended the cleaner she has to me as the lady was looking for more hours and our previous cleaner had left. When the lady came for the "interview", there must have been some misunderstanding because of the language barrier, so she came on a day I was actually out. DH was home, but he doesn't really know what's going on. So he said she could do 10 hours per week (he was right there as that was what the last cleaner did). When he asked her how much per hour, she said £12.50, but DH apparently said we might as well round it up to £15 because it's easier to work in round numbers.

Anyway she's been coming for a few weeks now and she's lovely, so all good.

Just now, I bumped into the friend in the shop and she just started on me - what am I "playing at", etc. At first I thought she was joking, but no she wasn't. She said I have messed up her arrangement with no consultation because now the cleaning lady wants £15 per hour from her and she only gives her £11.50!

WIBU? I can see it might be a bit irritating, but was there any need to be rude to me in a shop over something like this?

OP posts:
Original poster
Silverst0rm · 27/07/2017 20:01

£7.50 per hour for care workers! That's really bad.

If you think about it, domestic cleaning is a quite physical job. A lot of time probably gets wasted travelling between houses. Plus no holiday or sick pay (unless you're with an agency, I suppose).

OP posts:
TheSnowFairy · 27/07/2017 20:06

I would have been very pissed off with my DH had he done that. What on earth does he do that he couldn't be faffed sorting the original pay - as pp have said, you are paying way more than she asked for.

Original poster
Silverst0rm · 27/07/2017 20:10

Well I can't be that cross with DH really because he didn't know I'd organised a cleaner, but she came so he had to deal with it. He thought that was what the ones in his offices get.

OP posts:
Fluffypinkpyjamas · 27/07/2017 20:13

User493 Biscuit

NewPapaGuinea · 27/07/2017 20:21

If anything the cleaner should be grateful for such a lucrative job. Baffled as why £15 is easier to calculate than £12.50 though with these things called calculators.

OCSockOrphanage · 27/07/2017 20:22

Care workers struggle to get more than NMW, but they care for your parents and mine once they are too decrepit to manage for themselves. I do not begrudge the £11 ph we (the family) pay per hour to keep DMIL in her own home where things are familiar and normal, as we are six hours drive away. When she cannot cope at all in her own home, we shall have to move her close by. She will see her family more; whether she will hoist it in is debatable. I am uncomfortable with the trade off, but not sure there is a better option. I have the horrors about the whole thing, ever since the care worker opened the door to show me what the latter stages of dementia really look like. Seriously, I couldn't inflict that horror on a cockroach. But I don't have a useful scaleable answer at the societal level.

FUNM · 27/07/2017 20:24

£15 an hour cash in hand - nice gig if you can get it :)

peachgreen · 27/07/2017 20:27

£150 a week on a cleaner! Goodness. How the other half live. Grin

Nothing wrong with £15 an hour though. We pay that in Belfast. London is the only place I've ever found cheap cleaners.

bingolittle · 27/07/2017 20:30

£15 seems a lot to me - but that's completely irrelevant.

Cleaner is not BU to ask her other clients for that much - either they'll pay it or they won't. Depends on market. I kind of admire her balls! She may price herself out of the market, though, if she refuses to work for less.

Your friend was definitely BU to have a go at you about it. You're only one client and you don't have awesome magical wage-raising powers across the whole region. (Otherwise I'd be begging you to employ a care worker next!) What you pay your cleaner is none of her business.

MyLittlePickleBoo · 27/07/2017 20:33

Good on your OH, OP.

Aren't we, as a society, meant to encourage the trickling down of wealth from those who can easily afford to those who can't?

I'm sure the cleaner isn't exactly rolling in it and probably really appreciates the extra money.

Lots of claws and green eyes on MN tonight!

dadshere · 27/07/2017 20:36

£15 p/h is amazing. You can pay your cleaner whatever you like, it is between you and them. That said, are you paying cash in hand? Getting an invoice? Pension? Holiday pay? ........

rainbowpie · 27/07/2017 20:39

I'm in the wrong job....

joannegrady90 · 27/07/2017 20:39

Think I'm in the wrong job 😂

Seriously £12.50 would of been a dentist offer.

joannegrady90 · 27/07/2017 20:39

#decent offer!

Cocklodger · 27/07/2017 20:42

£15ph isn't that much, particularly when the cleaner is only doing 10hrs a week, that's £150 a week and once she's paid her costs eg insurance travel materials if applicable put aside money for ni and tax she'll probably have £100-125 left anyway.
In any case, I don't think she's going to have many clients if op is paying too much as no one else will pay it

5BlueHydrangea · 27/07/2017 20:43

I'm a qualified nurse with many years experience and get paid less than that...
Quite shocked but up to you.

iamyourequal · 27/07/2017 20:49

Baffled as why £15 is easier to calculate than £12.50 though with these things called calculators.
I'd be baffled as to why anyone might need a calculator to work out £12.50 x 10 !"

Ellisandra · 27/07/2017 20:54

Your husband is just odd if he rounded up because 10x 12.50 was too much of a challenge for him!

But if he rounded up because that's what he considers fair to pay, there that's his business.

The cleaner isn't wrong to put her rates up - that's her business, literally.

Your friend is wrong to be rude to you.

Your friend is not at all wrong to feel annoyed herself though, if her cleaning cost goes up directly because she helped a friend a little bit AND helped out the cleaner A LOT. At 10 hours a week, you could easily be providing 25-30% of her cleaning income, so it was a great introduction.

If £15 is the going rate then regardless of the intro, cleaner should up her rate. If it's £12.50 then I don't think she should increase the rate to your mutual friend beyond that in view of the introduction. But also because of £12.50 is the going rate, then the cleaner won't make more money with someone else, so sticking with her rate to your friend isn't putting her income down.

In your friend's position I'd be pissed off that my intro and your generosity would cost me money! But I'd check local rates and tell the cleaner the max I'd pay in line with that, then let her go if she was pricing herself out.

onceandneveragain · 27/07/2017 21:10

I too couldn't care less if £15 was a fair/appropriate wage, and, if you can afford it and she is doing a good job then everyone involved seems to be satisfied, but am Grin at someone earning enough to pay a cleaner £150 per week but finding it too hard/too much of a faff to calculate £12.50 x 10. You are literally paying her more than £1200 more per year for no reason other than because DH couldn't handle arithmetic so basic children in infant school manage it.

Most people don't have that sort of money to just chuck away, which is probably why your friend was so bemused.

Not sure about your comment that your friend was underpaying her though - presumably your friend also asked how much the cleaner's rates were and cleaner told her £11.50, so that's what she paid! If the cleaner had said £15 then your friend would have paid that (or got a cheaper cleaner). Paying people the amount they quote isn't underpaying them, even if they could get more elsewhere! Similarly £15 isn't that cleaner's 'going rate,' if you ask her what her going rate is and she says £2.50 cheaper.

Original poster
Silverst0rm · 27/07/2017 21:12

I think if someone is in your house 10 hours a week, I'd rather they felt the terms were reasonable. They're more likely to do a good job if not feeling resentful.

Our last cleaner was amazing. She never took a day sickin two years! She had an accounting degree from her home country and has actually gone to work in DH's company recently in this kind of role because he was looking for her type of skill set. Her English was perfect though and she was in her early 30s. We were giving her £14 p/h, but DH didn't know that. I used to give her £40 per day to cat sit and she would live in our house if we were on holiday.

OP posts:
SandyDenny · 27/07/2017 21:15

I don't understand your dh's logic - how can he work out 10 x th15 but not 10 x 12.50.

I've never heard of anyone offering someone more at an interview than they'd asked for and cleaners round me unless they are through an agency would get around £10

SandyDenny · 27/07/2017 21:15

I don't understand your dh's logic - how can he work out 10 x th15 but not 10 x 12.50.

I've never heard of anyone offering someone more at an interview than they'd asked for and cleaners round me unless they are through an agency would get around £10

AccrualIntentions · 27/07/2017 21:16

It's none of her business, if you're happy with what you're paying that's fine.

My cleaner must be cheap as chips, we pay £10 and hour and she's great Smile

Original poster
Silverst0rm · 27/07/2017 21:17

Yes,when you put it like that it does add up to a fair bit extra per year, so I can see how my friend (if she still is Confused) could feel from that perspective.

OP posts:
caffeinestream · 27/07/2017 21:22

DH's mathematics aside, what you pay the cleaner is your business.

I don't think £15 an hour is too much for someone who is self-employed, and is presumably (even if it is cash in hand), paying their own petrol between jobs (driving back/forth for a 2 hour job is less viable than for an 8/9 hour working day) and paying for their own equipment and cleaning stuff.