To think £85 a week is extortionate

[Pollypanda]

For a cleaner.

My house is not large, it’s a new build 4 bed with 2 bathrooms and a downstairs loo. We would only need 2 of the bedrooms cleaned as the others are largely unused.

I have been quoted £85 a week for a basic house clean (2 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, kitchen, living room and stairs)

AIBU to think this is obscenely high? I was expecting about 40-50.

For context I live in the south, but not London or the south east.

I was quoted £135 by a local company for weekly clean of my house. linked semi. 4 beds, bathroom, en-suite, sitting room, kitchen, conservatory and downstairs loo. It's a small fairly modern house. I managed to keep my expression frozen into a rigid smile until they left. I then took on a local lady who is brilliant and does it all perfectly for £30 a week and even does cupboards and inside of fridge on rotation. I'm in Cheshire.

So no one on mumsnet agrees with paying the minimum wage or the real living wage as you all seem to be patting yourselves on the back for paying £9/10 per hour.

Let me break it down.

Your cleaners, most of whom are self employed, probably can only fit in 6 hours cleaning a day. So if they are paid £10 per hour, this is £60 per day, although with travelling time in between jobs, they are probably working 7.5 hours a day. So effectively they are earning £8 per hour, which is only just over minimum wage and well below the real living wage.

They then have to pay their own petrol and car running costs, insure their car for business use, and pay for business insurance as well. This costs near on £7 per day.

This is turn decreases their hourly rate to £7.06 per hour (£60 - £7. = £53 / 7.5). Which is way less than the legal minimum wage.

Then when you don’t want them, cancel last minute or go on holiday, they don’t actually get anything. No holiday pay, sick pay etc.

So basically you are all joyous that you are paying your cleaners less than minimum wage and are supportive of the fact that they don’t get sick pay or holiday pay?

I don’t know how agencies work, but if it’s a cleaning company, they will employ their staff, and therefore pay holiday and sick pay etc, and pay the staff for travelling time and if a client cancels etc and treat their staff much better than you all do.

And you should get a much better clean from a cleaning company. The reason being when you pay more you get a better service. This is not disrespecting self employed cleaners but:

A) if you were paid less than minimum wage, would you go all out to impress?
B) cleaners who work for a company will work faster as they are more motivated and are trained.

Time wise a kitchen dependant on size will take an hour plus, depending on how dirty it is (when was the last time you took your plugs out and cleaned them) and bathrooms a minimum of 20 minutes including cleaning plugs and shower screens.

So the price you were quoted for 3 bathrooms, kitchen, 2bedrooms and living areas, sounds very reasonable to me.

Think about this next time you are looking around for the cheapest cleaner.

Flumpybear you pay £28 for 4 people for 1 hour??? So £7 per person per hour............

PooBear Couldn't agree more. I think after Brexit there is going to be a national disaster because half of the cleaners in the NW come from EE. They are willing to work for less than minimum wage because it's a wage rate which is way higher than their wage back in EE.

Also, 2-3 hours to clean a family home isn't clean IMO. I expect a family home, even if tidy, to take at least 7-8 hours a week. When I clean floors I move furniture etc every single week.

I pay £12 ph in London. Slightly higher than average but she’s reliable and trustworthy as we’re at work.
It’s for 4 hours. £85 is ridiculous.
We are in a 3 bed new build too w bathroom, shower room and loo.,

Pollypanda please see my post. It’s not acceptable to pay a cleaner who doesn’t get sick pay or holiday pay, an effective rate that is lower than national minimum wage. Don’t be that person who pays their cleaner £10 per hour and pats them self on the back for it. Because that’s not what the cleaner will earn. £85 sounds more than reasonable if the company is ethical and employs their own staff. You won’t spot the owner driving in around a top of the range car don’t worry! Employing staff properly which mumsnet doesn’t seem to understand , is expensive. Xxx

Thank you Want2bSupermum someone who knows what they are talking about! I couldn’t agree more. Cleaning takes time and is hard work when properly done!

I'm just outside Glasgow and its about £11-£12 an hour here for a regular cleaner.

Our cleaner does 3 hours, we have a 5 bed, 3 bathroom house but she does only 3 bedrooms each week, the master and the two small kids. I tell her not to bother with DD1 (15)'s room as its always a tip anyway, so she has to hoover it herself when she eventually tidies. Every so often I get her to stay for an extra hour to do a bit extra and she does the spare bedroom then.

Hissstory 👏👏👏 totally agree!

Wow , sounds outrageous, I pay £11 per hour for 2 hours per week.

Are most people wanting a deep clean on a weekly basis, plugs cleaned furniture moved?

I would expect to pay £40 to a SE cleaner for a good job and £60 for a top job - it is at least a 4-hour job if it's going to be done properly.

I knew this would be molly maid! They quoted me £70 to clean a tiny 2 bed house! No chance!!!!

glasgow I expect furniture to be moved, the floor to be vacuumed, washed and the furniture moved back once finished cleaning. I expect windows cleaned inside and out once a month, oven wiped out each week, oven pulled out once a month etc.

That's keeping a home clean. A cleaner coming in for 2-3 hours is just not going to be able to do more than a surface clean.

Glasgowbound if you don’t do it weekly or fortnightly it builds up. Plugs after 2 weeks are disgusting.

Yes I expect plugs and light switches to be cleaned weekly...with a bleach product during flu season. It helps cut down on the number of colds which seem to keep circulating. I also use different cloths for different rooms and for the bathroom I have a cloth for the room and a separate one for the toilet area. They don't mix.

We’re in a V up market northern town and pay £50 for a fortnightly clean of 2 bed, 2 reception plus kitchen, large family bath and hallways. We use a large agency and they do a decent job.

oooh blimey: uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.mollymaid.co.uk

I have worked as a professional cleaner. If I really had to, and assuming it wasn't in a grim mess when I got to it, I could do a surface clean in a bathroom in 15-20 minutes and get it looking loads better than most people could in that time... but it absolutely would be a "surface clean"... why pay someone for that or to whizz around your kitchen at breakneck speed and leave it looking superficially nicer but not hygienically clean? Once I'd built up a loyal clientele I couldn't be arsed with those who wanted that sort of cheap quick fix.... and I worked fast (kept me in very good physical shape).

Want2bSupermum you are so up my street! How many times have you heard about cleaners who use 2 cloths per job and the same one in the kitchen that has been used in the bathroom yuk! I’ve heard this so many times!

mirialis exactly! 2/3 hours to do a family house 😂😂😂

Much better getting someone independent rather than an agency. You get a personal service from someone who has been recommended by friends and tailors what they do to the needs of your family.

when businesses dont want a job, they quote a ridiculously high price rather than turn it down

@81Byerley You sound amazing, I bet everybody you worked for thanked their lucky stars!