AIBU? Cleaner and her child

[Ladyof2022]

I have a cleaner because I am elderly and physically disabled. Current one is about 30 with a child aged four. She answered my advert for someone to clean for 4 hours once a fortnight. She told me she has a 4 year old but his dad has him all day every Friday, so we agreed she would work for me on that day.

She's only worked for me four times. One day she came in for an additional "one-hour special clean" at my request. She asked if it was OK to bring her four year old. I said yes as I did not want to seem unreasonable and she was doing me a favour.

However, I was not happy on three counts. Firstly found it distracting as I was trying to study something academic and I could hear them talking to each other during most of the hour and kept losing my concentration.

Secondly I did not realise how much time she would spend not cleaning but talking to him, sorting him out, explaining something to him, getting him something to amuse him, picking something up for him, telling him not to touch this or that, introducing him to my cat, etc, etc, during all of which of course she was not doing any cleaning.

She also took him to my loo (for a poo, she said) which took her about 5 minutes. I guess altogether seeing to him took up about 1/4 of the time she was here - say 15 minutes of the hour. However, when her hour was up she got her bag and her son and came to me for the full hour's money. After she left, I noticed she had not done all of the tasks we agreed on. I felt a bit irritated that I had paid her an hour for 45 minutes work but I said nothing.

Now she is asking if she can bring him for the whole 4-hour sessions. I want to say absolutely not as I feel she could easily spend 1 hour of it focussed on him and only 3 hrs cleaning and she won't get it all done and she might miss things because she's distracted by having to keep an eye on him, but she'll expect the whole 4 hours pay.

Am I being unreasonable, being mean to a poor single mum?

or

Am I NOT being unreasonable, as she taking the piss expecting me to pay her to look after her own kid?

Honestly op this is why we use an agency. I could write a page of similar stories about individual cleaners. I will never every employ one again. Use an agency keeps it professional and at arms length. Any issues you deal with them . Learned this from Dh friends very posh mother!

Whereas many of us have had wonderful cleaners for years and years without any issue and without having to pay a management fee on top of the cleaning fee. That extra £4 or £5 an hour can make the difference between being able to afford having a cleaner or not.

@Ladyof2022

That Cf cleaner will just gradually work through all her potential clients and give herself a reputation.

Nobody wants to pay her full rate for 50% job /50% entertaining her young DCs.

No one will want to employ a cleaner who thinks it's her childcare time as well !

I'm really good friends with my housekeeper shes worked for us for a decade she has adult children but if she had a 4 year old i would absolutely say no unless I'd requested extra like you did but I'd pay a certain amount for a list not an amount of time, as a mum of 4 I know for a fact it would take almost double the time and bringing a child to your employers house for 4 hours uninvited is very unprofessional..

Thanks for the further replies; I am still reading them.

Got my old cleaner back! Told her about the one expecting to bring the 2 kids and her jaw hit the floor.

Hopefully I can keep hold of her, though I fear she is looking for full time employment now she's booted out the useless spouse, but I can enjoy her services whilst she is choosing to do this for a living.

Haha you missed my post further down the thread -- she asked to bring TWO children with her, and when I said no she called me "inflexible" and resigned.

My house is on three storeys and I guess she would have expected to leave the kids under my supervision on the ground floor (where I am trying to write a book) whilst she's upstairs for two hours.

Incredibly my cleaner has just asked to do the same! It was a short conversation starting and ending with no way in not so many words. I am not having five dc here every day she is here over the whole summer( Inc my own) no chance.

We price tested and our agency cleaners are barely more expensive than individuals.

When we employed individuals we had the following /bringing along random family members (Dh home Ill and most surprised to find a large polish man sitting on our sofa)/drinking all our spirits/disappearing for weeks on end/long rambling mad letters about how she loved us/explaining that they couldn’t work next week as “going on a bender” etc. Never again!

Oh goodness that sounds horrendous ms I would not stand for that. Agency is good, the come and go (not so much of a relationship) and seem to manage sickness/time off much better. We have a housekeeper and cleaner. Cleaner is flaky and see post above can be cheeky. Housekeeper is well established like part of the family, trust her implicitly and couldn’t be without her.
It is worth finding and taking times to find the right person op.

Still laughing at the company of a 4 year old being a privilege😂

I had sort of the opposite problem - employed a cleaner when I first had DS and she spent so much of her allotted hours cooing over DS that she didn’t get all the cleaning done!

FIVE? Blimey!