Cleaner's increase

[PearlclutchersInc]

My cleaner has just text me to say that her charges are going up by 35% to £15 an hour. I supply all the cleaning materials, its a 2 bed flat for which she cleans only one 1 bed and the rest - its new(ish) and she gets 3 hours to dot. There's 2 adults, one cat and we tidy up before she comes. She's not exactly over-worked

Eh? AIBU to ask how she arrives at that.

I feel really quite peeved. Don't see my employer giving me a 30-odd% rise any time soon. Happy to hear other views.

Apologies OP for derailing your thread

£15 an hour is pretty standard for cleaners

Instead of thinking of it being a big jump, appreciate you have probably been underpaying her for a while!

Me too - so many cleaners in my area are looking for work right now. There are several posts a day from cleaners on the nextdoor website looking for work. Unsurprisingly the ones charging £14+ seem to post more than the ones charging £12. The ones charging £12/hour are usually walking distance from the job.

People are cutting back and using cleaners either for less hours or less frequently. Whilst I sympathise that of course the cleaner living costs have gone up those drastically increasing their rates are shooting themselves in the foot because for most it's a luxury that people are more likely to cut back on to save a few £.

Where in the country are you OP? That will help answer if £15 is reasonable or not.

Mine went from £15 to £17.50.

it’s hard going atm. Maybe look elsewhere if it’s too much for you.

In the past few years, every time I've had a new cleaner the rate has gone up, so from £10 (in SW) to £12.50 to £15. I've just let my current cleaner go because we are all home all day and so whilst the house isn't pristine, it's fine and I don't want to pay £45 a week for not that much difference. Trying to get everyone to stay out of the cleaner's way in the school holidays/study leave/working from home is a giant pain. She was quite upset, I think there's a lot of work about though, but the rising cost did factor in my decision making as just as her costs are going up so is my electricity and food. I might have a cleaner again once we are all working out of the home if I feel it's really grubby.

Starting to think I need a job as a cleaner if people think £15 an hour is cheap...

£15 normal where I live

I told my cleaner I was increasing her hourly rate to £15. It was only £12.50 and she’s fab.

Times are tough, she’s a good cleaner and I wanted to show her I value her.

It also depends where you are in the country, I think cleaners in London were charging £15 quite a few years ago, whereas round here it was much cheaper and has only gone up. My cleaner also didn't bring her own supplies and in the end I've decided to live with a slightly dirtier house and save nearly £200 a month.

Seeing as the minimum wage is nowhere near enough for people to be able to live on, with the huge cost of living prices/inflation, we would all be better off lobbying for everyone to receive better wages, not thinking people should reduce them! (Especially for care workers as mentioned in this thread).

It shouldn't be a race to the bottom, Grapes of Wrath style, how little can I get away with paying my cleaner. I prefer to look at how the fuck can the government vote for their own pay rises whilst boasting about being able to give their cost of living "grants" to charity as they have multiple homes while the people cleaning their multiple homes or caring for their relatives are on £9.50 an hour.

Punch upwards, not downwards.

Or everyone paying her for cleaning will realise it's the easiest way for THEM to save for their new gas/elect bill etc.

I think self employed like cleaners/hairdressers need to be careful. You could put your prices up £5-£10 per client and just ONE client leaving as it's now 'too pricey" will lose that increase in one swoop.

People don't seriously see having a cleaner as normal/day to day? It's a luxury. If i could afford one, it would be the first thing to go if I was trying to save.

£15 is the going rate here, I'd expect it to be up by a few more £ now.

Webuilt I totally agree

Sounds reasonable to me. How long have you been paying her the lower rate? It's quite common for cleaners to put their prices up in bigger jumps as most people don't increase their rates annually.

You'd be travelling between jobs in unpaid time, and using your own petrol. You wouldn't get holiday or sickness pay, nor any employers' pension contributions. You'd need to find your own work and possibly pay to advertise, and you're unlikely to be able to jigsaw enough jobs, close enough in location, to make an eight hour day (or even six hour day) out of it. So I wouldn't rush to swap jobs.

£10 was the rate 10-15 years ago. It's £15+ now.

How did you get away with £10 an hour!

I tjink I'm.in the wrong job....NHS employee on 10.19.an hour maybe I should be a cleaner

that depends whether you get paid holidays and sick pay and any other benefits. You might be surprised how tricky it is to earn £15ph and end up with £10ph in her back pocket after deductions and sudden loss of work/instability. She’s is unlikely to have made much money during the last two years as those of us who are self employed didn’t get much financial support if at all if we had to stop working (I know the NHS was a totally different case in terms of workload during that time obviously!).

Good for her. That's the going rate and you've been underpaying her.

Many people don’t think this far or understand what it’s like for self-employed people.

I'd love to be able to tell my employer that I'm getting a 35% pay rise! I suspect they would tell me to jog on and find someone else willing to do my job for the current rate of pay.

£15 per hour not unreasonable. 3 hours for tidy 2 bed flat is ridiculous. I used to clean in my 20s and cleaned a 2 bed flat in an hour.

£15 an hour is reasonable in my view. 3 hours to do that amount of cleaning is not. I took a cleaning job for a while a few years ago and there is no way it would have taken that long - 3 hours is what we used to get time wise for much bigger houses.

That's what I thought

Get off your arse and do it yourself, then.