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?

I pay £30 for two hours for my tiny 2 bed terrace.

I think it's fine. As long as they are happy with the £15 hourly rate you can give them the list of tasks you'd like doing and see how much is feasible in the 4 hours.
If after a few weeks they are regularly not finishing (or not having time to do to the standard you'd like) then you know you need to increase the time or reduce the list of tasks.

Thank you for all those sharing their experiences, i really appreciate it. It's been really helpful and I think getting someone to come out and look for themselves is probably the best bet.

I suspect a lot of posters on here are not familar with the low wages in the SW. I think £15 per hour is probably about right providing you are employing directly and an agency is not taking a cut. The amount of work looks ok but will obviously depend on how thorough a job the OP requires.

Hi, cleaners vary in how fast they clean a house but I would say that isn’t long enough if you want everything on your list done. I have a three bed bungalow with one bathroom and a cloakroom and I would say it would take 4 hours to clean thoroughly and dust everywhere with minimum tidying just straightening throw on sofa etc. £15 minimum , oh and most people want cash I have found. There is always the option of having a cleaner from an agency where they would usually supply two cleaners to work at same time but obviously that’s going to be more money.

Its worth speaking to cleaners and getting their thoughts on what is a reasonable amount of time for the tasks if you have the flexibility, or as others have suggested, you can set a list of priority jobs and see how much they can get done in the time.

We always tidied up before our cleaner came round, but when she had time she always plumped cushions, smartened up the towel rail etc. She was ACE! Although one time she folded all the knickers I had on the dryer which was...an interesting chat about later.

You’re asking if your expectations here are reasonable, but you don’t seem to want to hear any thoughts challenging them. To the point of being quite defensive. For what it’s worth, I agree with some points already made. That’s a longer job than four hours, more like five. Tidying should be taken care of by yourself beforehand (although I note that you’ve since said that you’re not asking them to tidy up after all). £15 is reasonable, some cleaners will ask for more. I would agree with a pp - initially ask for a deep clean, followed by regular maintenance cleans.

Well Im being ripped off, I’m paying £64 for 4h in a 2 bed 2 bath flat

You need to allow at least half an hour per room, and probably an hour for a full clean.of the kitchen. So I imagine you're looking at nearer to 5 hours than 4. Particularly as you can't really expect someone to work for that amount of time without including a (paid) break. £15 an hour is okay but not more than okay, so you'll just get an okay service and standard of reliability for that. Whereas I get the impression that you expect more than that?

You aren't unreasonable. Light tidying should be fine. It just might take a while to find someone who is reliable and flexible. Pet and child free homes are generally easier jobs. I'd do it if you were near me!

We're in the south and our cleaner does similar to this in two hours. Couple less rooms to hoover, but more mopping.

We do clean as we go throughout the week though - including bathrooms - so she does the deeper clean without having to battle through day to day grime.

My cleaner does 4 hours for 3 beds, 2 bathrooms. I think that's asking her to do a lot in 4 hours. I'd personally pay £75 for 5 hours.

Our lovely cleaner is here for 2 hours and we pay her £17.50 an hour, holiday pay and a Christmas bonus.

We have 7 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms, kitchen and 2 reception rooms as well as the hall 2 sets of stairs and landing.

She said it took 2 hours and that's what she dies each week.

But nothing is out of place, everywhere is free of clutter for her to whizz her duster over and she doesn't need to do all the bathrooms every week as the kids are away at school so don't use their bathrooms other than at weekends. All toilets are also bleached every day so that's not an icky job and we don't use any of the baths so she leaves those. I wouldn't expect her to dust the ceilings each week or the skirting boards. She dies a big clean for us a few times a year when we go away for which we pay her more.

She cleans smaller houses and has told me she spends more time in those as she has to really clean them and tidy up so much crap.

Do really it'll be down to how you live and how much they have to do each week.

Thirty mins per bathroom, thirty mins for a standard size kitchen with no washing up or very dirty hob and then I’d say about twenty mins for each other room depending on how many objects need dusting and dusting around.

Bear in mind that the first couple of weeks will take much longer and be absolutely exhausting because she’ll be getting into a routine and it will be dirtier so she’ll need to get on top of it (if she’s any good). It would be nice for you to pay six hours for those weeks so she’s not racing around like a lunatic. And then at least four hours. It’s very different cleaning other people’s houses because of the expectations and because it’s hard physical work that she does every day.

We pay £15/hour for 2.5 hours a week. In that time our cleaner wipes down kitchen cupboards, cleans surfaces, hob, sink & microwave, cleans 2 bathrooms and a downstairs loo, hoovers 3 storeys of hall & stairs along with 4 bedrooms and sweeps/mops two living rooms and kitchen diner. She also straightens cushions/throws and puts the odd thing away.
That takes her 2 hours & the additional 30 minutes she does windows, deeper cleaning in kitchen diner, deeper clean of bathroom and deeper clean of living room on rotation. She doesn’t have time for things like skirting/moving furniture/cleaning under sofa cushions and similar but if we paid for more hours she’d do more and is also willing to do things like change bedding if you want. She does it faster than me in part because she doesn’t get distracted by extra things you see when cleaning like the skirting that distract you

Also (I say this as someone who used to clean and knows how awful it is as a job) make sure you have an upright vacuum cleaner, preferably one on each floor. Otherwise her back won’t last long.

I think that's loads for 4hours. I'd say that's a 5hr minimum clean.

It's £17ph here, but I don't know about other areas.

She may not agree to tidying things into baskets, cleaners don't generally tidy.

Our cleaner does take longer than I do to clean our (small) house but then she does do a better/more thorough job than I do. We pay £15/hour in London for 3 hours a week (she set the rate) for a two bed/3 reception house. I also give her a bonus at Christmas (and a gift)

The place is (usually) tidy although she does sometimes straighten a few things up that she feels are out of place and will stick the odd cup in the dishwasher that I've missed or empty an ashtray. She does change the main bed and empties the bins (not all cleaners do)

If she's done more quickly she'll also sort other stuff that she feels needs doing.

When she first came she did additional hours until the place was up to speed. Probably worth flagging to her if you smoke or have pets too

We discussed what we both considered was realistic before she started. There are times she leaves early which is fine as the house is done when she leaves. It may be worth thinking of the cost as being the cost of cleaning the house rather than an hourly rate. I'm also flexible as to what time she comes if she has something else to do before she arrives. TBF 5 hours does seem more realistic than 4 for what you're after

I'd also reiterate what a number of people have said is that having a decent cleaner is like gold dust. Treat them well. Mine knows I'd rather get rid of my OH than her. Because she's lovely

I’d second the advice to let the cleaner do an initial clean and then give an assessment of how long it’ll take regularly.

My house is just over 4,000sqft and my cleaner does:

Mops, dusts, and vacuums hall, open-plan livingroom/kitchen/diner, utility, downstairs loo.
Cleans granite kitchen counter, sinks, wipes down front of ovens/microwave etc.
Vacuums and dusts sunroom and sitting room. Straightens couches/cushions etc.
Vacuums stairs, landing, master bedroom suite with walk-through wardrobe.
Mops and cleans main bathroom and our en-suite including all sanitary ware.

So three bathrooms/WCs, one large bedroom, three reception rooms, hall, and kitchen.

She usually then has time to do some ad-hoc bits like cleaning down the front of kitchen cabinets, vacuum other bedrooms (they’re vacant so don’t need a regular clean) etc.

I tidy before she arrives so she just has to clean. Any stray items, she just leaves aside.
I have provide all cleaning equipment.

I pay her £20 for 3 hours, but it’s typically around 2hrs 45mins. She’s really fast and definitely gets it done much faster than I would. Originally, she quoted £15/hr but I increased this once the cost of living impact really kicked in. She’s fantastic and I wanted to make sure it was worth her while. Going rate where I live seems to be £13-15/hr.

She comes the same day every week and I get an invoice first thing in the morning (automated) and do a bank transfer same day.

Forgot to say, our cleaner doesn’t change beds or do laundry.

The cleaner will tell you how long it should take, but agree with PP that sometimes you go through some bad ones to find a good one!

My current ones are amazing, two girls in an hour do 3 bed, 3 bath, two living areas and kitchen, they do all the dusting, mopping, hoovering, blitz the bathrooms and kitchen, if I leave the clean bedding out they’ll do the beds too.

I pay £15pp too, I don’t know why prev posters are calling that slave labour when my friend who is a health care assistant in the NHS is on much less for a much more demanding job.

I pay £15 per hour (with an agency) in Leeds. I have a similar sized house but they only do 3 hours. It's not really enough time I know but that's our budget. They do everything you list (not tidying) but in a very quick, superficial way. It's fine for us. If I want a deeper clean of something I'll do it myself. They keep on top of it so the house generally looks clean, floors are hoovered and mopped etc.

Interesting views on what a cleaner should and shouldn’t do.
Ours is paid for her time.
so she might tidy or she might iron or she might to both.

Think ours is about similar size, our cleaner does 4 hours with no tidying, I do a whizz round before and tidy up, make beds etc. She’s great but couldn’t do it in less and doesn’t have time for much under and behind furniture type cleaning unless I specifically leave the couches pulled out for example.

£20 for three hours? Or £20 per hour, for three hours?