To not put the heating on for the cleaner?

[Falcon1]

It's 13 degrees today and feels very mild. I work from home and I'm perfectly comfortable. I don't like being too hot and we only put the heating on if it drops below 16 in the house. It's about 18 currently.

Anyway, just had an arsey message from the cleaning company saying my cleaner has complained about the cold and that all clients must ensure their houses are heated to at least 22 degrees whilst the cleaners are there.

AIBU to think this is ridiculous? I'm in the bloody house myself! Surely if I'm comfortable sitting at my desk, the cleaner (who is being active) should be able to cope?

IMO 16c is too low and if the thermostat is in a poor location it is quite possible some parts of the house are lower than that. I would personally want someone in my house cleaning to not be cold
but saying that 22c is ridiculous.
Surely you should have a conversation with company and compromise.

Heating houses to fulfil unrealistic expectations of what the ambient temperature should be in winter, is a contributor to climate change. Suggest to your cleaner that she wears a cardigan. It might be her workplace, but it's your home.

I have our heating on 24 in the morning and evening, I certainly wouldn't be comfortable cleaning in this heat. I do find 18 an uncomfortable temperature to just sit still in but I recon it's fine for cleaning and certainly not as cold as I imagine some people have their houses.

Houses don’t cool off with no heating on, in winter. Sure my dear. wink
They don't drop that much unless the windows are all open or its unusually cold.

If the OP is saying her house was 18 and her thermostat would kick in at 16 then that's not a house that's plummeting to freezing temperatures (put it this way it was 10 degrees in my area today and most people weren't exactly dressed for the depths of winter when outside)

Bottom line is she still has zero obligation to heat her house around the preferences of someone else. The cleaner needs to dress appropriately.

Get your valve fixed!

Stick the heating on half an hour before the cleaner comes, leave it on for an hour (at whatever temp on the thermostat keeps it on all that time). Should be nice n toasty, then surely she’ll keep warm once she gets moving?

Is she good at her job? If so it’s probably worth it to keep her.

Totally agree. I hate it when clients have heating on. Would never moan about it.

holly fuckles people, you all need to live here

my house is between 35-40 degrees

your all moaning that 19-22 is to hot,the bog standard temp for this house is 22 and thats dead of winter
3 reason for this

1 the previous tenants insulated the loft majorly(im talking 5 or 6 feet of padding up there)it even on the rafters, the walls are filled with expandable stuff that fills cracks in

2 ive naked disabled children that dont sleep that ive got to keep the air warm for so its on all hours

3 i live on top of a mountain surrounding by other bare mountains on all sides and it gets bloody cold and dark here,im welsh valleys

as your there as well i would be telling them your not willing to sit there uncomfortable just for someone else,if you were out of the house then maybe

'Eh, they're mad. Cleaning is a physical job if you're doing it properly and you are warm"

And I will repeat again. I do clean properly but I am a naturally cold person so even when I'm cleaning I get cold! FFS, fed up of saying this.
Maybe it's because I do it for a living and my body has become used to all the strenuous work, so when people who sit around all day do it once a week their body needs to work harder? Or maybe I'm just a cold person? But I do get cold when I'm cleaning in a cold house.
I'm also cold when running if I don't have the right gear on.

'The cleaner needs to dress appropriately'
Oh sod off! I don't want to wear thermals, a wooly jumper, hat, scarf and gloves to clean. It would hinder me and make me uncomfortable.

Just put your heating on for a hour.

My dh works all day in a chilled warehouse, it's fridge temperature around 5 degrees, he wears a fleece and says it's quite nice to work in when you are moving about and busy.

Is she from the Philippines? I live in a hot country and currently employ a Filipino housekeeper. I know for a fact that she would be genuinely really worried for her health if she had to work below 20 degrees - she associates those sorts of temperatures with illness. She also won’t do the ironing after having had wet hands as she believes the juxtaposition of heat with cold can cause illness. These are deep-seated beliefs that won’t change.

To sum up, give her some consideration and consider making it a bit warmer for her.

It’s 9 years since I left the UK and I’ve fully acclimated to heat - the idea of being inside a British house with heating set to less than 20 fills me with horror! People have different life experiences and therefore different expectations. I think you should try and help her a little.

Exactly looobyloo
I wasn't lazy, or crap at my job or from another country.
I just like to be warm when I'm working, as does my cleaner who I've had for three years, and who has become one of my closest friends.

We're not experts on their policy, the cleaning company are. If they say it's policy, we should probably believe them.

A policy which you can have no control over or enforce is not a viable policy. There is absolutely no way they can make their clients heat their houses to 22C to accommodate their employees.

'The cleaner needs to dress appropriately'
Oh sod off! I don't want to wear thermals, a wooly jumper, hat, scarf and gloves to clean. It would hinder me and make me uncomfortable
Which is fine in your house, but that doesn't give you the right to tell others how to heat their homes.

Like I say, I have Raynaud's and run lukewarm, so am far some someone who runs hot, but the whole "im so so cold and would have to wear all these bulky layers that get in the way" is daft.

Thin thermal layers aren't bulky and don't get in the way. Somehow I manage to have less bulky clothing on going hiking than some former colleagues wear whilst making a fuss about the temperature of the staff room.

People should dress for the situation they're in and can't reasonably expect the world to cater to their personal preferences. For every person who says "sod off because I don't want to wear additional layers when the temperature is cooler than I'd like" there's another who says "sod off because I run hot and think you should all be subjected to gale force air conditioning to suit me". Both are ridiculous.

You are providing a.place of work for someone and should compromise on this. You may be comfortable but your cleaner is not. Putting the heating on to warm the house in the period she is there is reasonable. Don't take out your irritation at the start email on the cleaner, she didn't send it.

Why on earth wouldn’t you put on the hearing for the cleaner if she’s cold?

Even heating!

I dont think she doing a very good job, becasue when your clean you should be hot, and at that temperature at your house should be just warm anyway, lol she ain't doing no work

@LolaSmiles no it doesn't but surely I have the right to a warm house when I'm working in it?
So I'm expected.to wear thermals when cleaning rather than my rather well off clients popping the heating on for a hour or even half an hour just o warm the house up.

"People should dress for the situation they're in"
I'm cleaning pigging houses not on an expedition to the Antarctic! I have houses that are hot and I wear a t shirt but I much prefer that to cold and having to wear thermals.
Anyway I am self employed.and feel if the client doesn't look after my needs I can leave.

I'm a soft northerner!

@Falcon1 does your cleaner do a good job?
Quite a few posters seem to thinks she's lazy and not working hard enough because she's cold.

Still no one mentioned the fact that in spring, autumn, or even summer over here it is regularly less than 22 outside and people don’t have their heating on in the houses or wear thermals when they go outside.

22 outside has people complaining it’s too hot in the summer .

I am convinced it’s partly physiological. The same people who set their hearing to 22 or 24 in the winter because they are the cold are the ones who set the work air con to 18 in summer and complain they are hot.

Legally it has to not be below 16

Legally it has to not be below 16

Nonsense. The “recommendation” for Manual work is 13c.

As previously mentioned millions of people in this country work in temperatures way below that every day. Even indoors. A window fitter working in December is going to get cold even inside. Likewise a heating engineer putting the heating system in a house. Lab technicians. People in computer server rooms. People in shops. People in warehouses. Literally millions of people doing thousands of jobs.

That’s before you look at people who work outdoors

UANBU

I think we can all argue over whether it's an appropriate or inappropriate temperature for a cleaner to work in.

But surely the kind thing to do is to just put your heating on as she obviously has felt cold enough to ask her manager to ask you (which suggests she obviously has struggled with it to quite an extent, and wasn't just a bit chilly).

Do you really want her to be cold whilst she's cleaning your home? It doesn't matter if it's reasonable or not, just be a nice person and put the heating on for her.

Looobyloo
Given a lightweight thermal top is the exact same weight as a normal strap top/t shirt, I find the idea that it's such an imposition and like dressing for the Antarctic to be a bit silly.

In any given day I teach in multiple classrooms. One has such faulty heating there's space heaters in for bad days, others are heat boxes before you add in 32 students. I dress for the day I have ahead of me and adjust as appropriate. Same in my previous jobs where I went to multiple sites. People who visit different offices will also adjust accordingly.
Even within workplaces, people have different preferences and so somewhere that everyone can adjust for is generally reasonable (except for the moaning minnies who love a good whine about windows, people using doors as ways to enter/leave rooms, the heating, the air con etc).

It's a fairly standard part of working life.

Someone in the workplace who thinks the world should cater to their preferences is annoying and rude. I don't see how it's any different to the cleaner going to someone's house and telling them to heat their house to her chosen number because her preference is more important than the homeowner.

I think you may be right Hurdygurdy24. Some of colleagues I've worked with who make a song and dance at the slightest hint of autumn are the same people who couldn't possibly manage in the sweltering heat. Of course, neither are extrene weather in any way. It's just a good topic to whine about.