to want a cleaner who sees what needs doing and does it?

[Council]

Because that's what I'd like. Someone who cleans it as if it was her own home. Oh, the kitchen window's a bit smeared I'll do that this week. Those door handles haven't been polished for a while I'll put them top of the list next week, there's a hand print on that wall, I'll wipe it off.

My cleaner is very reliable, turns up regularly and does a decent enough job of the basic hoovering and dusting but doesn't do any of those extras that I'd see as part of the regular cleaning, unless I specifically ask.

i.e. shes happy and has time to clean the inside of a couple of windows each week but will only do it if I leave a note explaining which ones need doing.

Is it unreasonable to want a cleaner who knows how to clean and does it (assuming I pay her enough hours) rather than needing specific instructions for every little thing? i.e. someone who takes a bit of pride/responsibility for keeping thing nice even though she doesn't live here.

We're not dirty or untidy people, we're not here much during the week and we don't do clutter/ornaments. It's not a hard house to clean and I'm seriously thinking of taking it back myself if I've got to do all the thinking for her anyway.

I use to cleaning in care home .
One senior liked xxx done and told about it
One senior liked yyy done and told me so
And another liked zzz done and said so
So what you need to say I like
Xxx done every week . Dh likes you and my kids like zzz .
Just tell what need to clean

DH managed to squirt red candle wax onto the dining room ceiling. No I don't know how he managed it either.
But my point is that the cleaner has still, 6 weeks later, failed to take the
initiative and do something about it. Simply deplorable.

I can clean like that in the houses I have time to, I do a walkthrough as I collect the rubbish/crockery/laundry and assess the rooms. However the one that asks me to use my initiative, also wants me to be done in under 2.5 hours and I just don't have the head space to see a smear or a speck.

The thing is that noticing what needs doing is an extra job in itself. You live in the house all week so you see things that need doing. A cleaner who is there for a few hours only would have to walk round looking for marks. And that would take extra time. Yes there might be the odd thing they'd notice in passing but a lot of what you've noticed they probably wouldn't see unless they look specifically.

Cross posted with Pikmin!

Ah minipie said it better, yes, like the mental load talked about on here.

The thing is, if she uses her initiative to you x this week you are still going
to wonder why she hasn’t done y, as priorities are subjective.

Do as a previous poster suggested make a rolling plan which covers everything you want cleaned and ask her to follow it.

Why did your dh not try to fix the red wax? Surely the cleaner is there to do routine tasks, not so that you can take zero responsibility for accidents in your home?

For 15 pounds an hour and two or three hours at a time, as opposed to a whole day of work, yes it's unreasonable to expect your cleaner to do the thinking. You seem to know what you want, so you can write her a detailed list.
You just need to read a few threads on the topic here to see that people have quite different expectations of their cleaners; there is no standard modus operandi.
It's very poor management (and very common*) to refuse to give detailed instructions, then complain afterwards that the job hasn't been done the way you assumed it would be.

• "common" as in widespread or usual, not common as in downmarket.

Even I wouldn't expect a cleaner to notice and deal with wax on the ceiling and I'd be furious if DH did that and just left it. I'm not talking about her clearing up after our accidents, just daily/weekly grime.

I'm sure the wax on the ceiling post was Eth having a laugh

Merry, the wax is real! And still there.

Should I dump DH? Or the cleaner? It was extra-marital candle wax (I was away) so it's probably DH for the chop. But what do you think?

If you've left red wax on your ceiling for 6 weeks, the red dye will have fucked the ceiling. You'll have to paint the whole thing red.

OP It's so easy to scribble down a few extra tasks you've noticed around the house that need doing. It would take seconds.
This is such a Non Problem, it's actually absurd.

My cleaner does - in fact she cleans stuff I'd never notice, and she's delighted if I say to just focus on the sitting room and dining room (for instance) and give it a deep clean.
I love her, and she's worked for us for 7 years now

OP is right though. Giving a cleaner more time does not necessarily lead to them doing those jobs (I have never had one who would wipe finger marks off doors or light switches unless expressly asked for example).

The answer is a checklist with 30 minutes of each visit allocated to those additional items.

ILostit, for such a nice person (I mean, you're on Mumsnet, so you must be nice) you have truly evil thoughts.
A red ceiling. I love it.

OP, I agree. I do leave a note if there are specific things I have noticed, but it irritates me that I have to write down that the kitchen cupboard doors are getting grubby or there are cobwebs in the corners that need dusting.

TBH it's one of the reasons why I'm thinking of getting rid of my cleaners altogether.

I've worked as a cleaner and it's very difficult trying not to overstep the mark. The fact is, it's not your house.

You may notice windows look grubby, but no point cleaning them if a window cleaner has been booked for the next day?
You see a pile of laundry. Should you put that away, does the customer want it ironing or is it left it out to pack/donate to charity?

Books on a shelf are dusty- should you spent half an hour doing that task or would the customer prefer you spent longer polishing the silver or wiping down doors?

It gets easier once you become more familiar with a customer and their preferences but everyone is different. It is far far easier and more practical to stick with cleaning set areas and a (changeable) list of any extra tasks.

It's so easy to write a list. It's hardly a crippling mental load.

Of course if a cleaner isn't taking any pride in making the house look tidy and clean that's a different issue.

Ethyl I'm taking no responsibility for any issues incurred in painting the proposed red ceiling, or for how hideous it may look.

I think Yabu. If you don't tell her how is she supposed to know that you want x done more than whatever else she would be doing with that time? If you want everything doing then you need to pay for more hours. I think it's a bit dramatic to say you might as well do the couple of hours cleaning yourself because you have to spend 30 seconds telling your cleaner what you want doing!

You'll have to use a primer before you repainted the ceiling. The paint won't go over the waxy residue....

Yanbu.

This is why I stopped having cleaners, because I still had to clean! It was pointless.

Now among other jobs I do cleaning for one person. And I do look out for what needsdoing as extras. I do windows, wash doors, clean kickboards, do a big descale of bathroom or kitchen, that kind of thing, on top of the basic clean. In two hours a week. It's totally doable but I think cleaners can't be bothered usually.

Do it yourself if you think could do it so much better. Lazy.

YABU

When I was still with DD's dad and she was little we had a cleaner who came to our 2 bedroom apartment twice a week for 2 hours each time when I was at work.

When she started we devised a rota so that for an hour of each visit she would do the same regular tasks - kitchen/bathroom and mopping (we lived in Spain so floors were all marble, no carpets). The other hour would be bedrooms (changing the sheets, remaking the beds and putting the dirty stuff in the washer/mopping and general cleaning in both bedrooms) or living room (surfaces/mopping/straightening up) and deep cleaning of one room on a rotating basis so every room got a deeper clean at least once every other week on top of the regular surface cleaning

If she ever had any time left there was always a list of little "extra" tasks that weren't top priority but were a bonus if she could get them done - wiping down doors, taking the books off the bookshelf and giving it a good wipe down/dust, taking rugs to the terrace to shake them out, wiping down the ceiling fans, wiping out kitchen cupboards, wiping down light switches, bringing in and folding any dry laundry (we line dried everything in Spain as it usually dried within an hour or two on a sunny day, so if our cleaner showed up and everything was dry she would bring it in, fold it and leave it on the side in the utility room), straighten up and plump the cushions on the couch etc.

I would never have expected her to just know which of those things I wanted her to do, which is why we devised a list and she'd just do whichever she had time for (and try to do different ones each time) and if there were specific things I wanted her to do or other extra tasks not on the list, then I'd leave a note (eg "the cats have been sleeping on DD's window ledge during the day and have been leaving dirty marks, I know it's not "bedrooms day" but please give the windowsill a quick wipe down at some point. Thanks!")