To ask, if you have a cleaner...

[JamesBeBlunt]

How often do they come and what do they do in your home?

No, but I wish... I might if I didn't live in a small village, where everybody would know, and word of my hideous untidiness would spread faster than fire...

Oh I forgot dusting and table glass cleaning also!

Every 3 weeks, it’s a team of 4-5 and it takes them about 1.5 hours. We don’t have them clean the home offices, so we stay in those rooms while they clean. It used to be every 2 weeks, but we found it didn’t make a huge difference to stretch it to 3 and it is not a big cost savings over the course of a year. They are doing the deep cleaning. I’ve got a roomba to do a regular touch up of the floors and obviously clean up kitchen messes as the occur.

Usually, bloody lockdown has buggered that up too.

Once a week, 3 hours - kitchen, bathroom, additional toilet, living room and hall.

How does the pay work in practice? Are you employing directly or are they self employed/working through a company? Thanks

Mine has a limited company. So all tax etc are done through that.

We have a key locker (mostly because dh locks himself out a lot). She has a code for that and in normal times comes and goes without seeing us. In covid times she will only come in if no more than one person in the house, and then if I stay in the study throughout. I have a “day out” to DH’s study so mine gets cleaned 😈

I put cash in a candlestick more logical than it sounds I promise! I don't have any control over who turns up, when they turn up or even if they will turn up so I'm not their employer. They are responsible for their own tax affairs.

If you do get one be really specific with what you want them to do. Not just 'clean the bathroom' but tell them exactly what you want them to do!

2x a week for 3 hours
Cleans whole house
Does 1 extra job a week eg cleans fridge/changes bed

Large house, two teenagers, two dogs and me. She comes once a week (currently every other week) for four hours and does bathrooms, vacuums floors and steam cleans them, and kitchen, and dusts. She empties bathroom waste baskets. She does not do our bedrooms or touch bed linen. She is very thorough but a bit slow, evenbthough she is always moving and doesn't take a break. I had one amazing cleaner who also worked in a hotel- she did everything and found time to pick flowers from the garden, clean out cupboards and fold the toilet paper into a little V. But she was a bit unreliable and just dissappeared one day.

Are cleaners allowed in England at the moment? Where I live, it's not allowed, as it's not essential

I have one cleaner twice a week for 2 hours each time, Tuesday and Friday. Tuesday she cleans child's room, polishes his mirrored wardrobe doors, hoover, damp dust and changes his sheets and duvet. Cleans his bathroom, loo, wash basin and bath, changes bath mat. Brings down dirty laundry. Hoover's landing and down the stairs, hall, lounge, dining room. Steam mops hall, lounge and dining room. Cleans kitchen, wipes over cooker top, counters, Hoover's 2 cats beds, bleached sink, steam mops kitchen floor. Cleans down stairs cloakroom, loo, basin and mirror and steam mop floor.

Friday cleans child's room, cleans and shines up light switches and foot handles, Hoover's, cleand his bathroom, loo, basin and batj. Hoover's hall and form stairs, wipes over banisters, clean hall mirror, Hoover's lounge, polishes wooden units, coffee table and wooden TV unit. Steam mops hall and lounge. Hoover dining room, steam mop polish find my table, clean kitchen wipe over cooker top and counters, hoover cat beds, steam mop floor. Downstairs cloakroom, loo, basin, mirror, dye mop floor. She often wipes over doors, handles, puts clean towels out, sprays around air freshener, and once s week Hoover's up to roof extension and cleans adult sons shower room and brings their recycling down. She sometimes does an extra half an hour and cleans inside of either lounge or fining room windows.

My cleaner is self employed. She only cleans for me so is under tax threshold. I pay her cash into her bank account. I also let her take a holiday in our French house and you guessed it house shines when we go over after her.

In normal circumstances 4 x per week for the morning.

It’s a bit up and down at the moment as DH and I are working from home and the 4 DC are online schooling.

Usually she:

Tidies - although we’re a pretty tidy “everything in its place house”
Unloads/loads dishwashers
Cleans ovens
Dusts
Polishes wood furniture
Cleans inside of windows
Hoovers
Mops
Empties bins/recycling
Changes beds
Laundry and ironing
Cleans silver
Removes/rearranges old flowers
Cleans fridge/cupboards

She’s very good.

@notanothertakeaway

Are cleaners allowed in England at the moment? Where I live, it's not allowed, as it's not essential

Mine isn’t coming. Not sure if allowed or not: she has a primary school aged child so has to stop if the school is shut.

I can’t imagine needing a cleaner in a 4 bed house. I clean after I use each room and the kids clean their own rooms and bathroom. I work full time and still manage it

Twice weekly. Two cleaners for two hours a time.
They do whatever they think needs doing and are very flexible.
They’ll do extra jobs if I ask and are happy doing all sorts of things from swapping daily laundry around to packing up weekly laundry for collection. From emptying dishwasher to throwing old flowers away.
Anything reasonable. They’ve even occasionally watered the tubs in the garden.

Ours are still coming, in PPE. From our POV they're essential, I'm disabled and do works long hours as a key worker (he's a gp).

They clean our room, en suite, bathroom, hall, stairs, landing, lounge and kitchen. All floor surfaces mopped or steam cleaned or hovered. Dusting, scrub surfaces, clean cooker and sink. Bathrooms deep cleaned. Takes 2 of them about 90 mins. Wouldn't be without them and would have them twice a week if I could! It's what I spend my PIP on!

Mine comes every 2 weeks. She hoovers and mops all floors, wipes down all the surfaces, cleans the bathrooms, does a bit of light tidying.

Mine comes twice a week (although I sometimes ask her to do more if the house is particularly messy or we're having people round) she's wonderful, my true saviour. She hoovers, polishes, mops, does the bedding, cleans the kitchen, bathroom, all bedrooms etc. She has a key, gate opener and the alarm code (we got our security company to setup a separate code for her so you can see when she has come and go etc)
I don't know how we ever did without her!

I had a fabulous cleaner. Usually 2 and a half hours every week. She would dust, sweep, mop and Hoover each room, change my bed linen and clean the bathroom and kitchen. She cleaned the windows and baseboards every couple of weeks. She was £14 an hour and worth every penny. It was my favourite day of the week and for months it was a friday so I'd come home to a gorgeous house.

I no longer have a cleaner and I spent all Saturday morning, 4 long hours cleaning our apartment which is smaller than our house. I miss her.

@pinkstripeycat

It’s not really about need is it? Most people pay for lots of things that they don’t actually need.

I used to have a cleaner but as I work from home I found her really intrusive and chatty. I was paying for her to clean a 5 bed 3 bathroom house but she used to refuse to clean the 3 teen boys rooms as they weren't particularly tidy. She used to comment a lot and criticise. I made excuses and got rid of her.

If I got another I think it would be downstairs rooms and bathrooms only. No bedrooms.

Yes three hours a week and have second one that does six hours every two weeks.

They do, well everything in terms of cleaning top to bottom. I'd never go back to doing it myself, ever. I run a Business and any spare time is much more productive as opposed to cleaning the house. And I hate cleaning anyway and I hate dirty houses so for me it's a necessary expense