AIBU to wonder why housekeepers get paid more then cleaners?

[Starryskiesinthesky]

Reading about how cleaners shouldnt expect to tidy up before cleaning it said that housekeepers get paid more. I was just wondering why you would be paid for more tidying than cleaning? To me it seems easier so wondered if there is more to it? Thanks.

Wouldn’t a housekeeper both tidy and clean? Plus do cooking and general household admin tasks too?

Christ knows

I'll never find out, unfortunately

Housekeepers do more than cleaners. Depending on the particular family they work for they order in food, arrange repairs, tidy, arrange for gardeners/decorators, arrange childcare, help with eating, cooking childcare etc

Housekeeper does the administration and planning etc

I think the terms are fairly interchangeable and don’t really have fixed definitions or job specs

I’ve taken ‘housekeeper’ to mean someone that works daily or most days in the house, rather than cleans and tidies

We live in a fairly affluent area and our Nextdoor site is mostly people asking for cleaners or housekeepers

People asking for cleaners tend to be wanting someone to come in for 3 hours once a week

People asking for housekeepers tend to be looking for someone to come in 4 or 5 days a week, do the cleaning plus maybe some cooking and errands like collecting dry cleaning and walking dogs

Pay rates are broadly the same - around £14/hr with some outliers

I'd think a housekeeper is simply doing more hours and on a set salary. A housekeeper would be expected to organise the house; think tidying, cleaning, cooking, laundry, ironing, putting away clothes, running errands, shopping, organising household maintenance and repairs.

I've worked as a cleaner and I don't mind tidying up. However, I charge by the hour and time slots are agreed beforehand, so if I spend an hour putting away toys or washing up, I'm going to either spend less time cleaning or charge an extra hour.

I also don't know how people want their house organised. I don't always know where everything should be tidied away to, which kitchen cupboards are used for what or it's sometimes confusing who's clothes are who's.

Most cleaners will accommodate some housekeeping tasks though. I've incorporated ironing, laundry, bed making into my role; charged at the same hourly rate but obviously it's going to take far longer.

Housekeepers do more than clean/tidy. Usually laundry, cooking (often shopping too), often school runs and some childcare too. Some are more like PAs.

I actually think tidying is far harder than cleaning, so don't agree on that point.

Tidy homes are a joy to clean compared to trying to sort out another person's clutter and wondering where the hell to put it. Most family homes have some general mess and chaos, I don't think cleaners are expecting show homes. It's easy to pick up a few towels, put some cups in the sink etc.

Housekeepers run a house. It's way more involved, responsible and complicated a job than just popping in and cleaning only fir a few hours.

Thanks everyone. Sounds like having a housekeeper is a real luxury! Interesting that people are saying that they get paid similarly because the suggestion I saw on another thread was that you shouldnt be expecting a cleaner to tidy before cleaning and if you wanted them to tidy you should be paying more and having a housekeeper.

As smileyclaire said I just thought if you left the house messy then the cleaner would have to spend time they would have spent cleaning on the tidying and therefore would do less cleaning.

Here cleaners charge £15 per hour so I was wondering how much a housekeeper would charge.

Housekeepers do more organising/mental load type stuff. We've had cleaners before and they literally came in and wiped surfaces/vacuumed carpets and mopped floors in a pre-tidied house.

Our next door neighbour has a housekeeper for 3 hours daily and as well as cleaning she tidies (has to know where everything is kept including toddler toys and clothes), checks the fridge for our of date stuff and clears it out, does the bins and, recycling, liaises with other third party outsourcing (ironing and dry cleaning gets collected and delivered back, knives are sent out to be sharpened etc). She also works her way around deep cleaning areas and specific tasks like waxing wood furniture and checking through toddler clothes to separate what is outgrown etc.

I am jealous! What I need is something in between a cleaner and housekeeper. I used to get so fed up with explaining that I didn't want them to clean stuff that already looked clean but look around and see what really needed doing. There was some stuff I told them NOT to do like empty bins (we'd do this the night before as didn't want them to waste valuable cleaning time) or mop the wooden floors (they aren't meant to be regularly wetted). The stuff I really noticed would be a sticky child handprint not wiped off a window, coffee table not polished, bathroom floor not swept/mopped (left with hair, dust, toothpaste smear in situ). the things that catch your eye when you walk into a room. Despite repeating this many times to the agency (i was never in during the cleans)I would still come home to all the obvious stuff missed, mopped wooden floors and wiped kitchen worktops. The last one really riled me as we clean down the kitchen everyday after cooking so (a) they didn't need doing and (b) they are marble/chrome and if they aren't dried after wiping they look smeared and horrible - actually looked worse! They also emptied the bins (not replacing the liners) despite them having one or two items in. So wasteful and actually created more work as is realise only after my kids had been lobbing sticky crap into an unlined bin, arggh!

We stopped having them during a house renovation but really need cleaner again now (both work long hours). Am putting it off as I don't want to go back to the same place. Maybe I'll see if next doors housekeeper has any spare slots!

Thanks everyone. Sounds like having a housekeeper is a real luxury! Interesting that people are saying that they get paid similarly because the suggestion I saw on another thread was that you shouldnt be expecting a cleaner to tidy before cleaning and if you wanted them to tidy you should be paying more and having a housekeeper.

It's not necessarily that housekeepers earn more per hour, it's that you typically employ them for more hours than you do a cleaner.

So a cleaner might come for two hours a day, twice a week, but a housekeeper is more likely to be there 30 hours a week, doing everything from cleaning and tidying, to the food shop, to organising appointments, cleaning up after breakfast and making beds etc.

I’m looking for work after a couple of years as a SAHM and seriously considering a housekeeper. Your next door neighbour’s is exactly the sort of thing I’m after - those are literally the jobs I need doing. Good to see it’s a ‘thing’

Sorry, that should have mentioned @honeylulu

Yes, agree a housekeeper would do far more of the mental load and work would be far more varied - it might include cleaning but also cooking, shopping, tidying/organising and other chores or oversight of other people doing chores like window cleaning, gardening, diy etc.

I think housekeepers are often likely to work for one or at most, 2 families at a time as the hours are also longer.

Around here, nanny/housekeeper is not an unusual position. Someone who perhaps has kids in holidays and after school but actually starts work at 12;00 and does some light cleaning, cooking, shopping etc. with an actual cleaner who comes in separately for a few hours of “deep cleaning” weekly.

I have a housekeeper, she comes 10-2 four days per week. She does the tidying, the cleaning, changing beds and towels, laundry, ironing, food shop, food prep, dog walking…. I do pay her slightly more than I used to pay my cleaners but that’s because she does so much more plus she works 16 hours per week.

We have a cleaner/housekeeper. The difference (for us at least) is that with a cleaner I'd pretty much expect them to do the same thing on each visit unless specifically asked to do differently. We needed someone self organising who looks for what needs doing and sorts it - tidying the fridge or kitchen cupboards out, deep cleaning on their own schedule, looking at the blinds and cleaning them, sticking the sheets on to wash and then putting them in the tumble dryer when washed, folding and putting away the clean sheets etc etc. Really, I want them to say 'today I'll be pulling the sofas out and giving the floor a good scrub then leather polishing the sofas' rather than me having to have thought about it

All as PP have said. They are two different roles. Housekeepers generally work far more hours per week for the same home and do more than cleaning, they will organise as well.

Housekeepers are considered as employee and cleaners are more likely to be self employed

I had a housekeeper who did everything from cleaning to cooking to food shopping. She also arranged things like dry cleaning, a gardener and food shop deliveries. She'd sort through clothes if needed to mend/charity shop them and rotate from each season. She also made beds, did laundry, lit candles and opened curtains etc. For her other clients she collected kids from school, made all snacks and drinks and did homework with the kids.

Our cleaner deep cleans and does minimal tidying, but no organisation or household chores. Some cleaners do ironing and bed making but it's not their sole purpose.

My cleaner is paid £16 per hour, the housekeeper was paid £18 (their own rates)

I'm feeling a bit defensive about the criticism of cleaners on this thread, probably because I'm a cleaner

Fair enough, it's annoying if agency cleaners are ignoring specific requests but wanting a cleaner to randomly deep clean areas of the house without being asked is problematic.

I wouldn't start clearing out and reorganising kitchen cupboards for example, without being asked.. I wouldn't take it upon myself to strip and wash bedsheets without being asked to incorporate that into a routine. It feels like overstepping, I'm conscious it's not my house.

I also learnt my lesson after spending a long time cleaning the inside and out of the glass doors in the kitchen, only for a window cleaner to turn up at the end of my shift, so that was time wasted!

My customers just text me or leave a note if they want something "off list", for example silver polishing or a sofa cleaned.
I would advise trying a self employed cleaner, on recommendation, rather than agency staff CMOTdibbler

@SmileyClare we do have self employed cleaners - our last one retired after 10 years with us during lockdown 1, and it was when we were advertising for a replacement that we were advised that we wanted to look for a cleaner/housekeeper, precisely because I don't want to think about stuff and she knows the scope of all the things in the house that is in her responsibility area and is empowered to make her own decisions about what gets done when

Sorry, CMOTdibbler my recommendation was for honeylulu who was complaining about her agency cleaners, my mistake!

Yes I agree, a housekeeper sounds more suitable for your needs.
It's a shame your long standing cleaner has retired and you have to build up that working "relationship" again. It takes me a few weeks to get into rhythm and routine with a new client, get familiar with their house and their preferences.

We have a nanny housekeeper who does 3-4 hours of housekeeping and then 3 hours of childcare per day

The main difference between her and our old cleaner is that I don’t need to leave lists of what needs doing

Our old cleaner would do pretty much most things but as instructed, so I would let her know which beds needed changing, or if I wanted a specific room to get extra attention

Our housekeeper manages her own workload
She has things to get done each week but it’s up to her which days all the towels get washed or when the stairs get hoovered

About once a month, she will get all the clothes out of my drawers and put them back folded Marie Kondo style, and also sorts through DCs clothes to take out things that are getting too small

She is amazing, I don’t know what we would do without her!

We had a housekeeper when the children were younger for 12 hours a week. One "quick clean" then a full day but 12-8, as the children came back at 3:30. She did all the ironing and cooked a meal for everyone on her full day as well as cleaning. She also picked the rabbit up from the vets, picked up dry cleaning, posted letters.Yes a luxury it was bliss.