Cleaner, is this reasonable?

[Hoghedge10]

I know cleaner threads have been done to death but...
I'm in the West/South West and will be looking for a cleaner in the next couple of weeks does this sound OK?

It's a fairly large house and takes me about 4/5 hours to do myself but that's a decent clean although not skirting boards windows (they are done once in a blue moon tbh). I'm not sure how long this would take a professional?

I want:

Full clean of two bathrooms
Polish/wipe down all surfaces in 8 rooms
Bit of tidying/setting straight - any things left out that shouldn't be either put away or put in a big basket for me to deal with later.
Hoovering 9 rooms
Mop 4 rooms
Full clean of kitchen
Dusting round ceilings
Generally cleaning anything that looks grubby.

The rooms are pretty standard size and while I'm planning to keep it tidy during the week I don't plan on doing any extra cleaning so will be a full once a week clean for a cleaner if you see what I mean.

I'm thinking 4 hours once a week @ £60 for the whole thing. Is this reasonable both for time and cost?
Is the list above of what I would want doing reasonable as well, or have I missed stuff/asking too much?

That's a lot for 4 hours work. I would say that's more like 6-8 depending on the state of the bathrooms and how much general cleaning of anything grubby there is.

Cleaners (around here anyway) don't tidy up or set anything straight, they just clean, they expect things to be tidy. £15 an hour is average around here for cleaners so I think the wage is ok.

I think it sounds reasonable. My cleaner does similar in 3 hours per week (including a quick cuppa and a catch up with me before she starts). Sometimes she finishes earlier. She charges £15/hour but I pay her slightly more as I want to keep her as she's efficient and trustworthy.
I make sure its reasonably tidy but she will tidy sofas/cushions/beds as necessary.

Cleaners don’t tidy. YABU to expect her to do that amount of cleaning AND tidy your crap away in 4 hours

In my area cleaners are about £16-20 an hour and they don’t tidy.

Yeah I think that’s a bit unreasonable.

You’re imagining they’ll tidy as well for that price, which isn’t stand and can take quite a long time. Also 8 rooms is a lot to do in four hours as the only/ main clean of the week.

Id have though more like £80/90 but I’m in London, albeit outer

Cleaner here. More likely 5 hours unless you remove the tidying and reduced the rooms they had to enter. Do you use all rooms? I generally rotate doing unused rooms.

I have a cleaner fortnightly. She does 3 hours in my flat, which isn't particularly big. When she comes, there isn't a thing out of place. I would never, ever expect my cleaner to tidy. I wouldn't want to raise my kids with that attitude either. They know that their rooms have to be tidy for the cleaner coming.

Just pay for four hours at that rate, which is a reasonable one, write a wish list in order of priority and anything that doesn’t get done in that time gets done by you or by cleaner next time.

We pay £17 p/h in South Manchester.

If you have a top budget, why don't you see what they get around in the time allowed and modify your requirements accordingly, rotating specific jobs or rooms?

Will you give her a break for a drink in the middle? If it takes you closer to 5 hours then why expect someone else to do it in 4? Unless I've misunderstood and you want her to do less than you do?

Slave labour sorry.

Far too little for far too much. Also as others said...cleaners don't tidy.

Well I thought that if it takes me that time it would be shorter for a professional?

When I say tidy I literally mean put the sofa cushions/throws straight, maybe pick up a couple of books left out and either put away or in a basket by the stairs. So not really tidying as such?

I thought about £15 per hour was a pretty decent wage tbh.

The house would be in a tidy-ish state, not like a bombs gone off. No children or pets to worry about either so no toys etc out.

I also didn't expect changing sheets or duvets in the time, I would do that myself.

I'm not sure how you could possibly think it was slave labour, don't be ridiculous.

We have 10 rooms (1 is a porch) and our cleaner does it in 4 hours for £50. We have no stairs however and we are up north. She gets it all done no problem though

Oh and she doesn't tidy. We make sure it's all tidy ready for her

Are you serious?

What you are asking for is for someone to do a deep clean of your entire house and tidy your mess...

This is much more than just a regular cleaning job.

You need to first pay for an initial deep clean which will take longer than 3/4 hours and then arrange for someone to come in every week to do the regular maintenance cleaning.

Slave labour indeed...

My cleaner does 3hrs on my 3 bed (but she doesn’t touch 1 bedroom as it’s my office and I’m in it). She absolutely doesn’t tidy and I spend an hour or two the night before picking up and putting away my clutter so it’s tidy. She charges £45 and we are in North Wales.

Woah hang on its not really a deep clean is it, I'm asking for regular cleaning. If your cleaner thinks wiping down surfaces, running a feather duster round the ceilings, cleaning a kitchen and 1 bathroom, 1 shower room and hoovering is deep cleaning then I think you need to lift your standards!

The tidying is not an issue really I just put it in my op as I wanted to be completely transparent. However the tidying I'm talking about is something I can do before they come. It was pretty much putting the sofa cushion and throws straight maybe putting away a couple of bits if I'd missed them.

I have very high standards.

That's why I don't expect people to tidy up after me and I pay people a decent wage for their labour.

My cleaners (2 of them) spend one hour so 2 hours in total if there was only one person to clean a 3 story 3 bedroom house including all skirtings etc, it’s £35 a week. I will warn you though good cleaners are hard to find I went through around 10 different cleaners before I found someone that’s really good! My 6 year old could clean better than some people I’ve had in. Also they don’t tidy I make sure everything is away they will rearrange things like sofa cushions etc and they leave the towels in an animal shape on my daughters bed which she loves!

I get that you're clearly chippy about something and this has triggered you.

I'm not sure what planet £15 per hour is slave labour?
But by all means feel free to take your over inflated idea of what people are able to afford to pay cleaner's in the West/South West and find another thread to pontificate over.

My house is a similar size. My cleaner (who loves tidying but doesn’t need to do much of this at my house) does all of the above plus some ironing in 4 hours. She also changes our bed, washes the bedding and hangs it out to dry. She super fast and very jolly.

No, you can’t have her number.

I let my cleaner advise me on how long it would take! She came for a visit to look at the house then said she could clean it in 2 1/2 hours, at £13 an hour. After her first visit, a deep clean as some areas such as spare bedroom, skirting boards etc had not been done for ages, she said she thought she only needed 2 hours to keep on top of things.

She comes every two weeks and apart from a quick wipe round in the bathroom, I don’t do anything in between but I live on my own and am very tidy. In that time she cleans my bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, lounge and hall - dormer bungalow. On a rota basis she then cleans either the study/craft room or one of the two spare bedrooms. She will put clean bedding on for me if I leave it out or drop the spare rooms to do another task if I ask such as internal windows, blinds etc.

She does work very hard, provides all her own equipment and refuses to have a drink!

She sounds amazing! I'm very jealous. I hope I find an amazing cleaner too!