Cleaner- are my expectations too high?

[Angryattrackandtrace]

I had to let my (brilliant) cleaner go after she’s left my front door unlocked for a third time.

I have a new cleaner. I’ve had a few teething problems and honestly I’m not sure if my last cleaner was just great (except not securing my house!) or if my expectations are unreasonable.

So; she wasn’t mopping the bathrooms, or if she was it wasnt being done so properly as it wasn’t actually removing water marks.. so I replaced the mop and asked/ mentioned it needed doing.

She doesn’t move anything, at all, to clean so behind the toilet brush the floor was mucky (just cleaned upto the brush and pushed it to the wall), there was fluff/ dust / muck behind the paper waste bin and the pedi stool fan.

There was an empty bag left beside the spare bed today (forgot to move it) so that side of the bed wasn’t hoovered.

It seems very petty now. I can’t decide whether to have a word again (this fills me with dread) or just thank her for her services and look for someone new?

Not sure if it’s relevant but we live in the north, 2/3 bed (one isn’t actually big enough for a bed!) and they are usually here for an hour so are getting £22.50 and hour, use my appliances and products.

You pay them £45.00 to clean your entire house and they only stay for an hour?

They should be ashamed of their dishonesty.

Please get rid.

I'm in London and I pay 36 pounds for one woman to do a 3 hour clean of a fairly large 3 bed. It's not immaculate after but she definitely spends 3 hours and the floors are all polished.

I feel so much better after this thread! I felt like such an old witch…

Now I just need to have the conversation.. I think I might say thanks for their time but I don’t think we are a good match. Then say if they wanted more feedback then I’m happy to give it and they just need to ask.. as I don’t want to Put the boot in but then they have the option of getting feedback if they so choose.

Good luck and please don’t back down, even if they promise to “mend their ways”

If you’re on a local Facebook group, you could ask for recommendations.

Pay the new cleaner by the hour which should then give you a fairer deal.

[quote Angryattrackandtrace]@catfunk I don’t actually pay them for an hour, I pay them the quoted £45.. they chose to do it in an hour. But I don’t feel they are really doing the job they quoted.[/quote]
My amazing cleaner charges £45 for 3 hours fortnightly

She does use my products but then I get to choose them.

My 4 bed detached (1 room she's not doing at present - it's a dumping ground) is immaculate when she leaves. (I do have it very tidy first)

Get rid and get a decent one.

£22.50 an hour?? Good grief! I charge £12 an hour and I worry in overpriced at that! Definitely not good enough for that wage, you'd get me for nearly 2 hours for the same money and I DO move stuff!

I get £13 an hour and do a massive house! I need a raise I think!

(if you're in reasonable distance of Hartlepool, I'm looking for more work 😁😂)

Wow. That is crap of them for a very decent wage. They aren't even using any consumables.

Bin them off and get someone based on a recommendation.

I think you are overpaying per hour but that an hour isn't long enough. £12-15 but 2 hours should do it. I'm northern too. Pay £15 per hr for 2.5 hrs 4bed 2 bath.

I had a cleaner many years ago - she was my friend’s Mum. She and her hubby came and made a morning of it - he cleaned downstairs while she cleaned upstairs. Once they had done that, they had a cuppa and watched This Morning for a while then the lady did some ironing as she had time to spare! They also had a ‘deep clean rota’ for dusting skirting boards, cleaning windows, fridge etc. I was gutted when they retired - the lady recommended her sister who from the outset didn’t do a great job, the final straw came when my neighbour mentioned that she regularly left after 1.5 hours when she was paid for four.

since then, I have tried several times to get a new cleaner, all my efforts have been unsuccessful. Last year, I had one company who did an ok job, said she would contact me when she could look at her diary but didn’t. Tried a second one who came once, did a good job so I booked her to come back but she didn’t turn up and I’ve never heard from her since.

incidentally, I ensured that the house was tidy as it pointless paying someone to pick up after us and cleaned the loos as it felt like the right thing to do. On reflection and through discussion with friends, it appears that many cleaners (in my area at least) do an average cleaning job but use vast amounts of air/fabric freshener to give the illusion of a thorough job - this also left my hard floors extremely slippery. I have now gone back to my own poor efforts at cleaning! 🤣🤣