To refuse to pay for 12 hours of cleaning

[Lightningboltblue]

I am disputing an invoice from a house cleaner. For reference I have used the same company twice, at my mums address and had a rough idea what I should be charged. I’m based in Notts and they charge £22 PH for a deep clean.

They are claiming that it took two cleaners 6 hours each to deep clean my home (it DEFINITELY wasn't 12 hours worth of cleaning dirty haha).

Firstly, they weren’t there for 6 hours. There is no way they could have been there any longer than 4 hours due to the time I left for work and DH came home. Secondly, I didn’t request two cleaners so didn’t agree to 2 x the hourly rate.

Where do I stand with payment of the invoice? I am of course happy to pay for the work that I asked for but I’m not happy to pay double when I didn’t request two cleaners

I would give the company the benefit of the doubt and assume they just made a mistake on the invoice.
If a genuine error, they should be happy to correct it. If they argue, then I would get mad and remind them that I’ll only pay them the amount I think I owe, and nothing more.

Do you have a ring door bell to confirm the times?

I would say you agreed 6 hours and got 3 with two cleaners. No cleaner would agree 12 hours for a two bed property lol. A lot of people book cleaners as a one off to do the jobs they don't want to and then refuse to pay sating it wasn't done good enough, it's a trick my friend who runs a cleaning company often tells me about.

12 hours is ridiculous. Yupik said the house is a 2 bed and is tidy.

I don’t understand why you didn’t agree an estimate to begin with especially with a new cleaner.

you pay for "man hours"

I have a 2-bed, 880 sq ft house. I paid 320 for a deep clean when I moved into my house and 360 when I moved out before it was let. Two different companies. I had 3 cleaners for 4 hours both occasions, so pretty similar to you. My house also wasn’t “dirty” - it was actually empty for both cleans. No furniture or anything.

12 hours at £22 p/h is £264 so doesn’t feel that crazy to me. I don’t think you should feel ripped off.

The mistake you both (cleaning company and you) made was not confirming a price beforehand. Usually a clean is a set thing, not done on hours.

But the bottom line is that if they didn’t work the hours they have put on the invoice, they shouldn’t be charging for them.

I think YABU as you did not specify any contractual terms. “deep clean” is relative and subjective. In addition, you can’t directly compare your house to your mums “as the same size” because size is least important factor- everyone has different living standards, the more people living in a home the dirtier it gets and pets can also make a huge difference. In addition, when was her last deep clean? Many good companies have given staff 5-10% wage increases due to the cost of living crisis. In addition, the cost of cleaning supplies have gone up markedly. So what she paid even 6mos ago will be even less relevant.

You cannot complain about 2 cleaners instead of 1 as there were no contractual terms.

You can query the 6hrs given the timing you mentioned. The 6 hrs likely includes drive time to and from your house which is allowable as the cleaners do get paid for this time as well as time in your home. So that accounts for 1 of the 2hr discrepancy you noted, so you could knock off 2hrs (1hr x 2 cleaners) or £44 off the bill.

£22 x 12 = £264 which is a reasonable price for a whole house deep clean imho. But as I say, you can knock that down £220 given the time discrepancy. But you certainly are not “paying double” so should expect the deep clean for half price.

*down to £220

I used to use a cleaning firm, sometimes they would send 1 cleaner at £15 pound an hour and she would stay for 2 hours and my bill would be £30. Other times they would send 2 cleaners who would stay for 1 hour and my bill would still be £30.

Whether it is 1 or 2 cleaners that shouldn't be a problem, but the fact they said in total it was 12 hours is extremely excessive and I would 100% dispute that. Even 8 hours for a deep clean of a property that size is too much.

I would definitely query the invoice given it's the same company doing the same work for a house of the same size, but they are trying to charge 3x the amount!

I'd start by saying I think there must be a mistake with my invoice as the deep clean I arranged for x address which is the same size as mine took 4 hours.

Hopefully just an error.

You couldn't do a deep clean in an empty house in 4 hours. I think you're underestimating the work involved.

Just because a house is the same size, doesn’t mean it is the same work to clean it! Especially if not empty and have to clean around furniture and possessions/clutter.

I just googled what a deep clean includes. And now I want one! They're incredibly thorough and include things that I haven't done to my house in several years/ever!

Seriously though, surely there should be a discussion prior to booking, about what is going to be included and how much time it will take. Did you not even ask, OP?

I think you're in a difficult position as you didn't get a quote up-front. I organised a deep clean a few months ago and the company asked me to send them a video of the house. From that they priced it at 4 hours (£20ph) so £80 in total.

It's obviously a bit late now but I would always get a quote up front in order to avoid any yucky surprises.

Agree it doesn’t matter if they sent one cleaner or two. The only thing you need to agree is how many hours cleaning was done. Two cleaners should take half the time

You can raise a dispute and negotiate a bill. However, if you said to me, 'I’ll only pay them the amount I think I owe'.

Then we'd be going to court to teach you a lesson. Cheeky, that's insane.😂

Yes do this.

Lol. I think it’s you and the quoted poster who are the ones being dim here.

Poster says she had used the company before so can roughly estimate how long it will take one person to deep clean her house. She clearly expected the clean to take ONE PERSON less than six hours to do, so if two people were cleaning, that should be no more than three hours in total, not TWO cleaners taking 6 hours in total.

It sounds like the company might be taking the piss as they banked on OP never having used them before and not knowing how long a deep clean should roughly take.

As OP and her DH are clearly living in the house, there’s no way a deep clean would take 12 hours to do! Maybe if they were cleaning up after tenants, it’s more likely.

She also states that they couldn’t have been there for the 6 hours stated between her leaving and her DH arriving back. Therefore, they’re lying about how long they spent in her property.

@Lightningboltblue I would pay what you feel is reasonable explaining the above and see where they go from there.

The 6 hrs likely includes drive time to and from your house which is allowable as the cleaners do get paid for this time as well as time in your home.

Rubbish!! Of course you don't pay cleaners for their time travelling to your property. The job starts when they arrive at the property and start cleaning, and ends when they stop cleaning and leave the property!
Honestly some PPs are strange...

It’s not “rubbish”. Most cleaners charge a flat rate per job, but it does in fact include paying their employees for travel time. If they’re going to go the most unusual route of quoting a price/hr, then again it’s going to include travel time. I have two close friends who run cleaning businesses and trust me, travel time is in the price one way or another. Or would you rather abuse employees by making travel between job sites unpaid? (Which is also a violation of current U.K. employment law btw).

I run a small housekeeping company. We do not charge for time to drive to the property. We routinely use multiple cleaners, but I do make that clear to the client - for example, estimate of 4 hours cleaning for 1 person or 2 hours for 2 people, both prices would be £60.

I absolutely agree that a) deep cleans take a lot longer than people think they do and b) people often think their houses are clean when they are on the surface but not when you start moving furniture etc.

at the same time, 12 hours for a two bed is nuts. I would expect 5/6 tbh, and I’d be charging £100/120!

As OP and her DH are clearly living in the house, there’s no way a deep clean would take 12 hours to do! Maybe if they were cleaning up after tenants, it’s more likely.

Why so? Do you think only tenants are filthy pigs?

Poster says she had used the company before so can roughly estimate how long it will take one person to deep clean her house. She clearly expected the clean to take ONE PERSON less than six hours to do

Nowhere has OP said how many hours she expected it to take @FatBettyintheCoop . She simply thinks that she's paid double because two corners were involved. And that simply isn't the case.

Two CLEANERS. Ffs, autocorrect

Both cleaners need paying so of course it doubles the cost 😂