OK, bit of background:
Have recently gone back to work 3 days a week. One of the conditions I gave for increasing my hours from 2 to 3 days was employment of cleaner (used to spend 3rd day doing housework, realised it was rather stupid when earning potential far outweighed cost of cleaner).
Have not been able to find cleaner as yet(only been back at work 3 days a week for 1 month). House has slowly turned into pit of clutter and filth, held feebly at bay in kitchen but elsewhere...erm... Kim & Aggie would not be impressed. Urgent need for cleaner currently in abeyance as we now need to tidy away clutter so that potential cleaner can actually clean, iykwim.
So.....SIL offers to clean for us - she needs money, as still being messed around by a-hole ex, her house always seems immaculate, OH (her brother) says yes, she comes around today for first session. I have told her to fling all clutter into dining room and concentrate on living room, kitchen and downstairs bathroom. We discussed what I wanted doing and one thing I specifically said was can you clean the handprints off the doorframes in the hall.
I spent an hour last night and a frantic half-hour I didn't really have this morning decluttering the living room and kitchen so that she could just go straight in and dust/clean all the surfaces.
She rings me, tells me she's spent 5 hours cleaning, but hasn't had a chance to do the kitchen as 'there was too much to do'. I tell her not to worry, that is fine. I have had a pig of a day at work, am incredibly tired, dd is playing up both at nursery and at home atm, think, ooh, goody, nice clean house to come home to (pit of filth in dining room/kitchen notwithstanding!).
So...... the hall carpet has been hoovered. The sink, loo, and inside of bath have been cleaned, the floor of bathroom has been mopped. Up to halfway up the stairs has been hoovered. Toys have been put in toybox, old newspapers have been piled in the porch (?). Hoover has been applied to living room carpet.
The remaining clutter in the hall and living room has been put onto the KITCHEN TABLE, piled up so perilously that half of it has fallen onto the floor (either that or it got dumped on the floor in the first place). No dusting appears to have been done on the cleared surfaces, nor on the skirting boards, the windowsills, fireplace, bookcases etc etc etc. Cobwebs still in bathroom. Shower screen still caked in limescale. HALL DOORS STILL COVERED IN FINGERMARKS.
Now, while I'm not expecting miracles, part of me does think WTF WAS SHE DOING FOR FIVE F-ING HOURS????? Jesus wept....
And, because all the sites we've looked at quoted between £10 and £15 an hour for cleaning, OH agreed we'd pay her £12 an hour.
I really, REALLY, resent giving her £60 for this. I'm going to, this once, because it was agreed, but I also want to tell her that it is not up to my standards (sorry, but if I'm paying £12 an hour, I expect the place to be clean!) and if she wants to continue this arrangement then her wages have to be renegotiated. Feel certain this is going to cause a horrible row, but I am soooooo upset and pissed off by what I came home to - on my day off it took me 6 hours to clean the house but it was f-ing well DEEP cleaned and it was every f-ing room in the house, not just the bathroom, lounge and hallway done half-arsedly!
I feel like crying, I feel sick because I really don't want to have this conversation, in fact I know it's not a good idea because I'm so steaming angry, but she rang me to ask what I thought in a very 'haven't I done well' tone, and I had to say I'd call her back because I was feeding dd (not a complete lie) so now I'm just sick....
Aaaaaaaaaargh. With big hairy knobs on.