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.

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

Snort!!!

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

Fuck me, you need to toughen up, lady.

Esp if you’re going to be self employed (I speak from experience). Do not engage with such ppl in any way.

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

Tempting

The nuclear option, perhaps, but tempting all the same ...

“Thanks for the feedback” is surely the only response.

I mean, if some people are charging £8, then why doesn’t she ask them instead of harassing you?

OP you really need to toughen up, customers like that will never be happy, the more you try to please them the more they just keep wanting. If you continue to try and please customers like that you will end up burnt out and not liking your customers anymore.

£8 per hour!! She is taking the piss, I was earning that cleaning, employed, 5 years ago. If you are providing your own cleaning supplies £13 per hour is very good.

East London too and I pay my cleaner £40 for three hours - £8/£9 is extremely little in my opinion

I pay more than that, tell her to get lost you can charge whatever you want, customers decide if they want to pay

I pay £13p/h for my lovely cleaner, we are in Clapton.
Incidentally she is off for five weeks in the summer so if you are free OP please message me!!!

£12.50 an hour in S Bucks.
She's being a CF and trying her luck.
Glad you sussed her out.

If she could really get a cleaner for £8, then she wouldn't be bothering you.
I get this sort of thing all the time. My response is always "Oh, that sounds like a really great deal, you should go for it!".

Wow, she sounds loopy. YANBU, just ignore her.

Definitely toughen up, OP. I pay £13.50 p/h in Wales and it's worth every penny to me. I've hired cleaners for 5 years and never seen anyone at £8 - lowest was £10 and that was because it was a side job for the lady, who has a part-time salaried job too. I've been in a position where I couldn't afford a cleaner, and with executive functioning/MH difficulties, it sucked. But that wasn't the fault or problem of the local cleaning companies and I certainly wouldn't have sent them such horrible messages. Stick to your guns - a good cleaner is worth their weight in gold. I couldn't manage without mine.

I was paying £14 an hour and tbh she wasn’t even very good! By the time you factor in costs I can’t imagine you would be on minimum wage charging £8 an hour

Min wage is £8.21 per hour, add in the fact you're self employed and how much that costs you per hour (no hol pay or other statutory benefits).

You'll need to travel between jobs, ie this time that customers are not paying for on the job still needs to be costed in. Plus the cost of your fuel.

Cost of supplies and equipment!

Once you figure out all of that you'll see that you need to be looking at £15 per hour ish to make it work out the same as an employed job at min wage.

Loads of people charge that and upwards in my area.

Don't let anyone run your business but you!

Op just ignore her and don't clean for her I'd bet she'll either be difficult and say the cleaning wasn't done properly and refuse to pay or she'll go round badmouthing tell her clearly my company is not for you so look elsewhere and block her. You'll come across cheeky fuckers like again I'm sure. When I was working as a nanny in london this lady explained the job was a nanny share (two families share the nanny and each pays the wages) it was two babies under 6 months and two older children 4 and 5 years old. I explained my hourly rate was £10 per hour after tax which is more than reasonable ( I know nanny's who charge way more £12 ph up) and the woman had the cheek to say £8 ph cos we take care of tax and insurance like it was a favour to me and said the older 2 will be at school so its easier. Erm no because that means I have to do full nursery duties for the babies who were 3 1/2 and 4 months old cheeky fuckers always try and take the piss whenever they can. Stand firm and ignore this cheeky fucker

Ask her how she thinks you cover the costs of
Insurance
Products
Transport to each job
Pay yourself a wage
Make a profit for your business
Labour
....

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”

I think I'd pretend to be a dog to stay with you, s1naid.

IGNORE.

Anything else will just continue a pointless conversation.

Of course you can charge what you like! She isn't obliged to use your cleaning services. Unfortunately, some people think they are the social police and feel obliged to comment on everything.

Agree with all previous comments about:-
Travelling time
Insurance
Holiday pay
Sick pay

Once these are taken into account if you worked for her rates you’d be earning way under min wage.

If, however, she’s like this from the start, I can’t see her ever getting any better. £13 sounds like a bargain in London.

Wow I'm in north Scotland and a good cleaner here is £15 per hour and they are all fully booked. She's deranged. Don't get involved - you can't argue with Stupid.

Five years ago (Southern England) I was charging £10 per hour. I'd probably be charging £13-£14 now. Let her find a cheaper cleaner, she might not find the quality!

Oh tell her to jog on. Cheeky mare.

Tempting to send her a link to the cleaning supplies page of the Tesco website... but in reality, ignore her. And stop letting people manipulate you into giving discounts. If you’re going to offer a discounted trial clean, make it a firm policy and advertise it as such, maybe offsetting the discount against future sessions being booked or something.