my cleaner has quit - says my house is difficult to clean! embarrassed

[allaboutthatsass]

So I've had a cleaner for 3 hours pw for the past year. She cleans our 3 bed detached and does our ironing. All agreed when she was hired.

Sometimes she comes alone, sometimes she comes with 2 staff (and they might finish in an hour).

She's now quit, saying my house is just too much for her. She says I have too much ironing to be done in 3 hours and that I'm not doing anything in between her visits.

I work full time as does my husband (in fact he has two jobs, a sunday is the only day I see more than an hour or two of him a day whilst awake). Our DD is 9.

I've never been houseproud, I admit, and I'm crap at ironing BUT my house is not tidy. There is zero clutter. I do my laundry daily, I make the beds, put stuff in the dishwasher, open windows for fresh air, I really try my best with the little time I have.

I'm very embarrassed that she thinks my house is too much work. My mother and sister tell me I'm a lazy shit (they are both a bit aggie and kim) but my friends say my house is a normal family house so I don't know if AIBU or my cleaner is?

I hired her to help me but seemingly my house is that bad she doesn't want the money...

we have a mutual friend and according to this friend if I want her back then she wants more money to do my house due to the amount of work she feels needs done every week. I pay £30 for 3 hours a week. I have recently had a drop in pay so not really keen on paying more.

Can anyone help me with advice on managing housework without a cleaner on such little time?

Oh and in addition to my full time job, I'm also a distance learning uni student as of September, so even less time!

You're welcome :) I do my cleaning when the kids have gone to bed too. I do my big clean on a Sunday night from 9/10 and have been known to climb into bed at three in the morning. I love coming down to a lovely clean house in the morning.

It's not even other priorities, I seriously couldn't work all day then do additional housework in the evening, I can just about manage to cook and do the dishwasher, sort stuff out for the next day, if I had to start cleaning bathrooms, I'd be exhausted. I know, I did it for 10 years and I felt awful and behind in cleaning the whole time. Now I have a cleaner, three hours a week, it's brilliant, that's one whole morning/afternoon session where I don't have to clean on a weekend, where I get to rest/shop/be with the kids/do extra work, it's fab.

Everyone is right though, the three hours need to be spent cleaning. My cleaner is superhuman in her ability to clean and even she takes the three hours to do the whole house, sometimes she irons the odd shirt if she has 15 min left over, but certainly not a whole week of washing. I found listing the jobs on a printed sheet (essential and 'occasional/as and when') made it much easier, she does all the essential each week and the other stuff if she has time.

Well I spend time with my family too and I clean so it can be done. I usually do it when kids have gone to bed. I love cleaning my home so not being a martyr.

I wasn't judging op either, I asked a question.

An hour, half hour each would be no bother at all surely.

Can't understand cleanliness martyrs. It doesn't make someone a better person because they mop their kitchen floor every night or bleach their entire bathroom every day. If that's what works for you, that's fine. But don't judge those with other priorities

I think you're missing rhe point. The point these posters are making is that stuff needs to be done in between visits and how long it takes and that these things keep your house up to a certain standard which lessen the weekly clean requirements.

The op actually counts opening the windows as doing stuff. It's not. We all know it's not. We all know washing rhe clothes takes a fraction of the time it takes to iron it. Who counts making rhe bed in the morning or loading the dishwasher as doing stuff between cleaner visits? It's like she thinks, well at least she doesn't have to do the dishes too.

The cleaner isn't after a pay rise, it's what she says, too much is being expected. The fact the op can't afford more and doesn't have the time does not mean the cleaner should do all the extra work for her for free.

I'd also add everyone knows that when a friend says " your house is a normal family house" its code for its a shit tip. they aren't saying " don't be daft, your house is always clean and tidy, don't know what she's on about"

But don't judge those with other priorities

Did you miss the point of the thread? Nobody cares how much the OP cleans, the issue here is that she expects someone else to do a whole weeks cleaning, plus ironing, in 3 hours. The person who is telling her it can't be done, and the OP is complaining about it!

I don't get shy she quit and didn't just say"I can;t do all this in 3 hours, you need to increase hours or reduce scope e.g. no ironing"

She probably did say that, as OP tells us she cannot afford to increase hours.

@Bluntness100 I don't disagree that OP is in the wrong re: the cleaner (and I said as much a few pages back) - it's just all the people being morally outraged that everyone doesn't spend hours and hours a week cleaning their house that's driving me mad. I think people have gone beyond helping OP to figure out ways to make her house easier to clean and just moved on to a bit of a competition to see who does the most cleaning!

@MyheartbelongstoG It's great that you enjoy cleaning. I do too! (though if I can't imagine spending my Saturday night cleaning from 9pm to 3am, and DH would be pretty cross if I did!) But for someone who doesn't enjoy cleaning, spending an hour a night doing it IS too much. I agree that if you don't want to do it you need to pay your cleaner for enough hours to get the job done. But it doesn't make you a better person because you do it yourself. And I'm sorry, but saying "What do you actually do when you and partner get home every evening?" IS judgy. Just because someone isn't doing housework every night doesn't mean they're not doing anything of worth!

Don't have her iron. Waste of her time. She can get so much more cleaning done!
10 an hour is cheap.
Just don't wear clothes that need ironing. Do you tumble dry? My tumble dried clothes come out crease free.

We have 4dcs so bathroom needs bleaching daily

Thats a good point - your bathroom will get as dirty in 1 day as mine does in 6!

@itstoolateforthisbollox I wasn't addressing OP's post - I was addressing the people who are going on about how much they clean and acting like it makes them morally superior. Sorry, I should have been clearer. I've already said that OP is wrong to expect her cleaner to do so much in such a short space of time, but it was back on page 3 or something!

@itstoolateforthisbollox but then she could have reduced the scope. Better to have 3 hours cleaning and do the ironing yourself than to have nothing! Well I think so anyway :-)

I think expecting anyone to clean a 3 bedroom house occupied by people in 3 hours AND do stacks of ironing is too much
Absolutely.

OP - If I were you I would ask the cleaner to CLEAN for 3 hours a week and not expect her to IRON in that time.

If you can't do your own ironing, send it out to an ironing service.

I feel sorry for your cleaner but I don't know why she accepted this arrangement in the first place.

The only thing that I can think of is that it started out as just ironing a few things and now you are giving her massive piles of ironing.

Me and dh work full time, dh also his a side business outside his full time business as well plus we run a football team, and have 2 children.

On average week we work 60-80 hours each plus the extra non work activities.

ds2 has anaphylactic allergies.

I'm sorry but there is no excuse for a house not being tidy and clean, where a cleaner can't handle the mess.

I don't iron weekly as we iron as we go, howeverbdie to ds's allergies everything has to be tumbled dried, so mostly they come out ironed anyway.

However I have to hoover, mop and dust every single day as well as clean the kitchen surfaces everyday with antibacterial. (Ds2 utensils are washed and stored separately due to his food allergies as well as we can't have cross contamination)

Ds bedding needs defrosted and frozen weekly due to dust mite allergy)

I'm not super woman or trying to be a martyer, it just has to be done, so we do it, you make time for the things that are important to you, and ds2 health is priority to be safe in his own home.

I am not a Cleaning Marty either and I'm not judging . I enjoy cleaning of an evening and it's like relaxing time for me . I was just giving my personal opinion and a couple of tips to op !

Personally I think it's disgusting if you don't do anything in between cleaners visits as most jobs like bleaching and cleaning kitchen and bathroom need done daily for hygiene purposes . Sorry but I feel sorry for he cleaner if she was having to clean your skid marks from toilet or do piles of ironing and dishes because you were to lazy to do anything in between and deem it "her job" !

Sure @Cuckingfunt1981. You weren't judging.

4 bed house with 3 bathrooms and 2 living rooms. Our cleaner easily cleans in 3 hours. Never iron (just hang laundry to dry on the airer with hangers and it drys flat), I tidy daily and hoover once or twice in between weekly cleans. Also daily wipe down in kitchen every evening.

@HaudYerWheeshtBawbag Given your DS's allergies, you're in a very different situation to most, to be fair.

you make time for the things that are important to you I completely agree - but for some people, cleaning every night ISN'T important to them and that's okay. It's okay to not mop your kitchen floor every night. It's okay to not bleach the bathroom every day. It's okay to hoover once a fortnight. And it's okay to get a cleaner instead of doing these things yourself!

Again, I'm not saying that OP is right - she obviously needs to pay her cleaner for more time to do all the things she wants her to do - but I'm addressing those posts which seem to be suggesting that she's disgusting and lazy for not wanting to clean herself!

I don't get shy she quit and didn't just say"I can;t do all this in 3 hours, you need to increase hours or reduce scope e.g. no ironing

That's what I was thinking, but I had a cleaner who did this - we came home one evening expecting the house to be cleaned and she'd just left a note saying "your house is too dirty to clean in 2 hours". We would have happily increased the hours if she'd asked but just throwing your hands up and going "I don't know how these people expect me to do this in this time, I quit" is just daft. It's like, so I have to clean the day before so that the cleaner finds the house in the exact state of uncleanliness that she can clean to perfection in the time we agreed 6 months ago? Fuck that. We got another cleaner who was more communicative and less passive-aggressive ("I'll do what I can in 2 hours and if I can never get it finished I'll ask you for more hours) and it worked great.

My cleaner does my two bed flat in three hours. It would take her another three hours to get through my ironing pile.

I have the converse at the moment... I want my cleaner to do an extra hour so she can take more time over things and she is refusing saying she can do it all in the current time "you just tell me what you want doing, I do it, no problem, no more time".

She gets a MASSIVE christmas bonus.

@itstoolateforthisbollox but then she could have reduced the scope. Better to have 3 hours cleaning and do the ironing yourself than to have nothing! Well I think so anyway :-)

OP doesn't want to do that. She wants the cleaner to do 5 or 6 hours of work in 3 hours. My guess would be that the cleaner has been saying for a while that it can't be done and OP is refusing to budge, hence the quitting.

Your cleaner seems awfully underpaid considering she cleans a whole house and irons a stack of clothes in 3 hours. I'm not surprised she quit - she'd get double that elsewhere!

I really don't understand why people do so much ironing its bad for the environment and the clothes - do minimal, fold and put away other stuff and let her get on with cleaning - have a clear the floor evening do before she comes so at least stuff is off the floor and where its supposed to be