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've never done a deep clean that took 12 hours, especially on a 2 bed house !

Oh dear. No it doesn't. They only need paying for half the time... because two cleaners take half the time. It costs the same.

I'd email them and ask them to explain the invoice, also to confirm the hours they worked.

Why do people equate
1 cleaner 12hrs
So 2 cleaners 6 hrs.😂

And what kind of a business doesn't bill for travel time.

Going a bit geeky here, but actually two workers can do the job of one worker in less than half the time for task oriented work like cleaning. Small teams are the most efficient way to get work done.

The standard procedure is that the cleaning company visits your house to assess the size, what needs to be done, and the level of cleaning you require. They then produce a written quote based on that.

Without a quote and a written agreement this will be difficult to prove.

Our end of tenancy clean for a 1 bed flat was done in 2 hours by 3 cleaners, at a cost of £160, but this was 7 years ago.

I love it when a smug poster comes on to delight in the OP’s supposed ‘mistake’… and then gets shafted by a wiser poster. Good life lesson to STFU 🤐

YANBU at all. The fact they sent two is irrelevant because as others have pointed out, this should mean the job is done in half the time. You should just pay for the hours it took and you know this wasn’t as long as they claimed so that’s the discrepancy here.

It doubles the hourly cost though. You pay one cleaner 12 hours or two cleaners 6 hours. 12 hours pay either way. 12x£10p/h or 6x£10p/h x2.

The number of cleaners is irrelevant.

OP thought she would need to pay for circa 4 hours of work as this is what her mum had in a similar sized house. Unfortunately neither OP or the agency said we think this job will take 'x' hours.

The other issue is that the 2 cleaners weren't even there for 6 hours.

@Lightningboltblue I would definitely dispute the invoice on the 2 points above and the next time you need a deep clean make sure the amount of hours is agreed prior to the job.

Sigh.

The cost to the OP is the same, however many cleaners are involved. At say £10 an hour, a 12 hour job (which I'm not saying this was) works out...
1 cleaner - 12 hours x£10= £129
2 cleaners - 6 hours x£20=£120
3 cleaners - 4 hours.x £30=£120
etc etc

Ugh. Ignore the £129. Fat fingers. £120 obv

How many hours did you expect it to take OP? Did they visit? What was the quote? I think we need more details.

I'm a landlord and my tenants left my flat in a largely uncleaned condition. It wasn't awful but when you started looking you could see it was actually quite dirty. I must approx 10 hours cleaning and it's two bed flat, not huge. I got 'paid' £100 for the clean. Deposit company seemed to think cleaners earn £10 an hour for an end of tenancy clean. They don't (it should have cost more like £250). And nor should they. And nor should landlords if lazy tenants refuse to clean or pay for a cleaner.

In your case the house was probably more dirty than you realised. I'd just pay up and just get things in writing next time but £22 ph for a one off cleaning job is not unusual.

Has anyone ever had a cleaner charge an hourly rate for travel time?! That seems madness.

Of course they price it in, but they price it by increasing the hourly rate for the time they actually do they work to allow for the non-billable travel time. Exactly the same as holidays.

I've always wondered if two cleaners do do exactly double in an hour what one cleaner would do in two. It seems unlikely as you'd need more breaks if working two hours than only one, but equally there is the start and finish period twice for two cleaners. Maybe it balances out.

Ok, tell me which bit I got wrong smarty pants. 😂

Yes she has! Presumably you hadn’t RTFT before berating me for supposedly making assumptions.

The OP isn’t suggesting she’s been charge double for having two cleaners. She’s saying it couldn’t possibly take two cleaners 6 hours or one person 12 hours to clean her small house. As she’s living in her home and it’s not a student let, I’m sure she’s probably correct.

For reference, my mum is in a 2 bed house (same as me) and her deep clean takes 4 hours, for one cleaner. No time was agreed as I (naively) assumed it would take the same time as my mums, due to living in the same size property.

Just catching up. To clarify, I thought the clean would take one cleaner no longer than 3.5 - 4 hours at a push. Hence why I was so shocked that they are claiming it took 6 hours, plus the fact it allegedly took two cleaners 6 hours.

I am standing my ground and they are threatening police action, which I’ve welcomed them to do as it is not a criminal matter, it’s civil. They are being most unpleasant and reminding me that they know where I live, I won’t be bullied in to paying the full invoice though.

Naively I never got a quote, I asked for a deep clean for my home and reminded them I’ve booked previous deep cleans for my mum using their company

Did you specifically mention that you thought it would take 4 hours (one cleaner)? You're right that not getting a quote was silly!

What does using the service previously have to do with the cost to you for this particular job?
And are you a cleaner?
No.
How are you calculating the cost?
Nightmare customer.
I'd let the bill go unpaid for 30 days then begin procedures to enforce the unpaid invoice.
CCJ for an unpaid cleaning bill.😂

They should only charge you for the hours they worked obviously.
But you do need to pay them for the hours they have worked because you didn't set any limits on that when you gave them the job.
They could fairly easily pursue a claim through the small claims court I would think.

Threatening you and bleating about the police is a bit laughable. If they come to their senses and take you to small claims (and who knows, they might not bother and you might get away with it), I think you'll lose though.

You didn't get a quote, either job rate or hours estimate, you just guessed, and unless you have proof from a Ring doorbell or similar of what time they arrived and left it will be your word against theirs. As far as a judge will see it, you asked for a deep clean, they did it, invoiced you, and you ended up with a clean house you refused to pay for.

OP you say you've only used them before at your mums house so they haven't visited your house

I have had a number of deep cleans as has my mum. We have the same sized houses but my deep clean is nearly double her costs (same company)

The size of the two properties is largely irrelevant here. A deep clean involves a lot more work than a simple clean and it's more about what's in the property than the size of it

Eg
How much furniture is there to be moved (deep clean usually move things like bedside tables etc)
Do you have pets? (I have a dog, my mum doesn't)
How much surface area is clear (I have more shelves with more things to be moved and dusted than my mum)
Things that need to be tidied away/cleaned around
My kitchen is bigger and kitchens are always the hardest area to clean and work around

It's really not as simple as 2 three bed properties should cost the same

Whilst I agree with you 12 hours of cleaning seems a lot (and I would absolutely dispute the times they say they were there) you didn't get an estimate before hand and really that mistake and the fall out is on you.

Hardly! Some people wrongly believe that if a there’s no agreement or if there’s a signed contract, that’s all that matters and that the plaintiff will automatically win. Not true.

The OP should write to the company offering to pay £X to cover what she feels is a reasonable amount on the basis of their previous cleans in her mum’s house, which is a comparable sized property and usually takes around 4 hours.

How can the company justify 12 hours cleaning time (2x 6hrs)?
In addition, she needs to state that the cleaners couldn’t have spent 6 hours in the house between her leaving in the morning and her DH arriving so on that basis alone, someone is not being truthful.

It’s far more likely that the judge will deem the defendant’s version the more plausible one. Plus as she’s presumably paid a fair portion of the bill, say 6 hours worth of cleaning, not 12, then I can’t see the company getting anything other than having to pay their own costs.