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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Cleaners arriving when they want to, not when agreed

43 replies

Carrotcakefiend · 27/05/2021 12:27

AIBU?

we use a cleaning agency and have cleaners come once a week. Usually the same 2 but not always, so they can't have their own key (agency policy, we have to let them in). Their cleaning is great. But, we are given a time slot by text each week, which the cleaners don't stick to at all. the agency has strict policies on charging for rearranging/cancelling a week, or the cleaner coming and you're not in... So I'm being held hostage at home one day a week by this agency who refuse to stick to a timeslot within 8am and 8pm. Today, they're 5 hours early! It's also annoying as I WFH in training, and sometimes they have no choice but to hoover while I'm talking to clients who have paid. AIBU to be annoyed by this, and by the agency who just shrug their shoulders when I complained??

OP posts:
StillCoughingandLaughing · 27/05/2021 12:28

Never use them again.

ChangePart1 · 27/05/2021 12:29

YANBU, I wouldn’t stand for that whatsoever. Find a new cleaner or agency.

SnarkyBag · 27/05/2021 12:29

Change cleaners?

LetTheBirdsSing · 27/05/2021 12:29

YANBU but if your complaints to the agency are falling on deaf ears then I think you have no choice but to vote with your feet and find a new cleaning agency.

8dpwoah · 27/05/2021 12:30

Definitely not. Get rid, nobody should be giving such poor customer service in a market that has plenty of options for the client to chose from.

DifferentHair · 27/05/2021 12:30

Yeah change agencies for sure. That's ridiculous

Redruby82 · 27/05/2021 12:34

Find someone else! I wouldn't stand for this! I used to run a cleaning business and we would never have done this! I would expect the same time slot each week, understandably things happen but you should be notified. 5 hrs early! Unbelievable!

HollowTalk · 27/05/2021 12:50

Stop using them and write a review saying why.

Blankspace101 · 27/05/2021 12:50

This is awful. I’d tell them I’m speaking to clients and ask them to come back at the proposed time.

Nanny0gg · 27/05/2021 12:52

Of course you're unreasonable! Why are you putting up with it?

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 27/05/2021 13:10

I would change to a different agency / company.

I had no end of problems with a cleaner who came through an agency, where she wasn’t employed by them but they took a fee (for pretty much adding nothing to the situation!)

Use a company now who employ their cleaners and they are fabulous.

RaspberryThief · 27/05/2021 13:14

Five HOURS early?! I would have told them to come back later. And if it happened again, switched company immediately. Life is too short to pay for a service like that.

KeyboardWorriers · 27/05/2021 13:18

Yanbu. I let my cleaner come when suits her each week (so she can fit around her children) but she always tells me the time she will come in advance and she has a key so I don't need to wait in.

What you are getting sounds impossible!

Sometimesfraught82 · 27/05/2021 13:20

How odd OP

Are you really asking if you’re unreasonable to accept a service you’re paying for to adhere to agreed times?

3scape · 27/05/2021 13:21

Why on earth would you part with money for something that disruptive?

Sometimesfraught82 · 27/05/2021 13:22

I would never use an agency
I have a lovely relationship with my cleaner, who was a recommendation.
Every penny I pay... goes in her pocket

Ans the best bit... I don’t need to be in when she cleans as she has a key

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 27/05/2021 13:24

Just to add, the company I use has a key - they give it to whoever is coming to my house that day at their “morning meeting” before all the cleaners go out on their jobs.

And I get told what time they are coming too.

AryaStarkWolf · 27/05/2021 13:26

YANBU, find a new agency

FetchezLaVache · 27/05/2021 13:28

@Sometimesfraught82

I would never use an agency I have a lovely relationship with my cleaner, who was a recommendation. Every penny I pay... goes in her pocket

Ans the best bit... I don’t need to be in when she cleans as she has a key

This^^
Sometimesfraught82 · 27/05/2021 13:30

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

Just to add, the company I use has a key - they give it to whoever is coming to my house that day at their “morning meeting” before all the cleaners go out on their jobs.

And I get told what time they are coming too.

So a stranger has a key to your property? Not sure how I’d feel about that! Well o do actually - no way!
Cocomarine · 27/05/2021 13:35

You’re not unreasonable to not like their terms.
You are unreasonable to complain about arrival times varying when it is on their terms though.
And as for having no choice but to have them hoovering when you’re training a paying client on line?! Of course you have a choice. You tell them not to hoover. I would never book you again. In fact, I’d end the session and tell you to refund me, if I had my session interrupted by hoover noise.
You are more unreasonable over that, than they are over their times!

FeatheredHope · 27/05/2021 13:37

Fuck that. Get new cleaners!

mammmamia · 27/05/2021 13:39

Can’t believe you have to ask this - don’t put up with a service you’re paying for and aren’t happy with!

Shoxfordian · 27/05/2021 13:41

Use a new agency
Yabu to say you’re being held hostage when you’re the customer so you can decide where you get your services from

Anotherlovelybitofsquirrel · 27/05/2021 13:46

Ours comes at exactly the time we agreed. Every week. Find new cleaners.