AIBU to tell her to fuck off if she can't afford it?

[cleanerlondon1]

So I’m advertising on the next door app for my cleaning services, and this woman decides to send me a long message saying ‘how dare I charge £13 an hour, when the going rate is £8-9 ‘ ‘ people can’t afford it, and I’m being unfair’.

I just feel like there’s millions of cleaners out there advertising, and if she can find one she can afford she should go for that. Why send me a message complaining about the price? I could understand if it was £50 an hour or something like that. I even offered her a discount and said I’d do it for £10 an hour for her first clean, but no she wanted it under a tenner

I’m in East London btw, and I know people here charge £12-13 an hour.

Our cleaners charge £12, minimum clean time of 3 hours (we're rural so travelling time) and currently have a 4 month waiting list.

There are people like this who have fuck all better to do that email strangers and complain about something.

I pay my cleaner £10 an hour and feel it’s cheap at the price. I am in Shropshire and the rate here is £10-£15 an hour.

I wouldn’t engage with her but I would report her bullying to the moderators tbh.

Ah, the daily "report them" response.
As the OP hs already replied to the woman graciously she is clearly looking to keep the peace & her own developing relationship.

The woman was having a rant at a stranger, & is unlikely to ever become a good customer. OP - close this down & maintain your own dignity along the lines of:

"Thank you for making contact & I am sorry the hourly rate does not suit you. Other feedback indicates that the service is priced fairly, so should your requirements chamge in future, do let me know."

And disengage.
Then have a big gin & a swear about the silly bitch. She was just taking a bad day out on you. Best of luck with your business!

Ignore her. If you want to charge £50 an hour, go for it.
If some clients are happy to pay the price, why wouldn't you charge £50?

WHO would willingly stay on minimum wage if they are offered a pay rise?

I can understand how frustrating it can be if someone offers a much lower rate in anything. I see it every day, companies offering such a low rate I KNOW they are losing money. It kills the competition, and it's not sustainable, but ultimately it's legal, so we just have to fight to show we deserve our much higher rate.

Charging more? Blimey, nothing to do with anyone. Charge £300 an hour if you want! (it's not going to be successful but you can try!)

Blimey do you reckon she sends similar messages to M &S and Waitrose shaming them for the cost of their ready meals or maybe BA and Virgin Air about the cost of first class because it's not fair and everyone should have the opportunity?

Ignore her OP. I pay my cleaner £10.50 an hour and I know I'm doing well. She was charging £9.50but after a while I insisted on giving her a pay increase as I felt I was ripping her off.

Tell her that shes perfectly free to hire whoever she likes but she will have to pay the price they charge. Then ignore all further messages. Do not offer a discount

As tempting as the "fuck off" would be to me, the poster who wrote this is right!

"Thank you for making contact & I am sorry the hourly rate does not suit you. Other feedback indicates that the service is priced fairly, so should your requirements chamge in future, do let me know."

Just ignore, you always get these kind of people, if they can’t afford the service you are offering then they can go somewhere else, don’t try and win her over.

I have had similar messages when I used to make birthday/wedding cakes, would get CF write saying “I’m looking for a cheap birthday cake for my dd.....”, I would tell them to go to Tesco’s if they want a cheap cake as I’m not a charity and don’t work for nothing.

A woman undervaluing ‘women’s work’.
Sigh!

if she reacts like this she is the type om guessing to slur you company on social media so i would do the smile to keep the upper hand thing.maybe suggest a different firm and she will soon see who bobby bullshitting who.

My cleaner charges £15 per hour. I’ve not seen any that charge £10 or under. This is the SW. I’d expect cleaners to charge more in London.

Tell her you’re pricing out certain types and it’s working well so far

I’m sure she wouldn’t message Waitrose demanding to ask why they charge more than Tesco, she shouldn’t be rude to you for charging more than she’s found other cleaners charging.

When you offer a discount to someone who is hesitant they see one thing- a giant MUG tattoo on your head. They see you are desperate for the business and easy to manipulate.

Decide on your rate and don’t get out of bed for anything less than that. You pick and choose what jobs you do. A client presents themselves to you and you decide if you want to do work for them. If people quibble, you ignore them. There are always more clients. Believe me. If you find you aren’t getting any work run a “special offer” open to all new clients. Like a first clean at a reduced cost or existing clients can refer a friend and get a free clean or whatever. But don’t ever reduce your rate because someone who wants your business asks you to.

I’ve had that nonsense over the years (run a doggy daycare/holiday business). I often get approached by strangers when I’m out with my dogs and asked if I’m S1 the dog sitter and asked about my services.

On one such occasion I was stopped by a woman who was very interested. She was standing chatting to another woman, who she had only just met. I was constantly harangued by the other women, during our conversation, because “ why are you so expensive? You’re far more expensive that kennels! Kennels are only £9 (that’ll be the shit one, not far from me) You’re nearly twice as much! Why are you so expensive? That’s not right!” And on and on and on.

Until I finally told her I would be happy to charge her the same, but she’d have to wait until I had the kennel built out the back. “What do you mean? You said they stay in the house!”
Me: If you want to pay kennel prices, then book a kennel. My dogs sleep on sofas, get the run of the garden, mud/dog room, open plan kitchen/dinner, including sleeping on the large corner sofa, fresh chicken cooked every morning, salmon on occasion, a purpose built pond with water fountain, walks on THIS beach and other parks, etc” She walked off and the other lady took a fit of laughing.

My short answer these days is, you get what you pay for!

Tell her you’re pricing out certain types and it’s working well so far

OMG! I love that. adds to list of responses

I pay my cleaner 15 pounds an hour in (rural) Surrey, she is worth it. Cleaning is hard work.

YANBU

Why on Earth did you even waste your time replying and offering to do it for £10 for the first hour? Even if you are absolutely desperate, would you want to be working for a person like that? I would have told her that there are plenty of people whose income bracket allows them to be able to afford a £13/hr cleaner and if she isn’t in that income bracket that’s not your problem.

Just ignore her, either she's used to being exploited or she is highly exploitative. London living wage is recommended to be minimum £10.55 an hour and that is for employed, not self-employed who have to also budget for their leave and any time sick. Hope you get some good new clients.

An earlier response of “sorry I can’t help at this time” will do. If you’re good you’ll have plenty who’ll pay. Cleaners are like gold dust as someone said

You will never win her over, even if you replace everything in her house for brand new stuff. She will still complain.

Block and ignore. She's a moron.

Cleaning all around our county (Cheshire) is £15-20 per hour.

The only people doing it cheaper are not serious, ie not insured and 'just a bit of pocket money' types.

If you're doing it all above board it would never pay to do something on a self employed basis for less than £10-£11 per hour and even those are bargain basement prices.

Your charge is quite normal for the London area, pay no attention to anyone else. She might be an elderly person who had the same cleaner for many years, who didn't put the rate up.

OP for future reference if you get any similar complaints/requests to reduce your rate have a stock response of “hi, thanks for getting in touch, my rate is £x per hour, availability is limited so advance booking is recommended. Let me know if I can help. Cleaner.”

I have a friend who runs a cleaning business who has several different rates but none are as low as £8 ph. Lowest is £12 but for that the client supplies everything to do the job. Then they have other rates to supply standard stuff themselves and even higher if you want ecological cleaning materials used.
Anyone doing it for £8 would be being exploited and won’t have insurance.