Cleaner raising prices

[inthemornin]

Received a text from our cleaner we have had a few years now. She is raising her hourly price from £12 to £15. Fair enough, we are in a cost of living crisis, however, £3 more per hour is a big and sudden jump. She also gave less than one months notice to this price increase.

What do you all think?

YABU - that sounds about right in this current time.

YANBU - that is a big price increase.

Yabu. £15 is really very reasonable.

Do you like her? Does she do a good job? If she does, value her. We happily paid over holiday times even though she didn't expect to be paid when she didn't work, gave bonuses at Xmas, showed our appreciation.

A good cleaner is worth their weight in gold. Ours retired to babysit her grandchildren and she is badly missed!

I think it's probably very little for you, but will mean your cleaner will continue to be able to support herself.

£15 was the going rate here in the Midlands last time I checked, so I imagine it's more now. A relative of mine pays £20.

We wouldn't be able to afford such a rise, so I'd either cut the weekly hours or go to fortnightly shorter cleans (e.g 4 hours a fortnight instead of 3 hours per week). For us, having a cleaner is a luxury, and whilst we do cut other things to afford it, we will have to do without if things keep going this way.

I can understand why the cleaner is raising prices, but they must understand that not all the customers will be able to afford it and therefore may lose work.

We're in London, our cleaner charges £15 per hour but she's one of the more affordable and I wouldn't be surprised if she raised her fee any day now. From what I've heard, mostly everyone in the area charges £17+ now.

If you decide to let go, send her my way. I can’t find a cleaner for love nor money and would happily pay £15 an hour.

I think that when cleaners put their prices up it often seems a lot because it doesn't happen every year. If she hasn't raised the price for three years the level of rise seems fair enough. If she had put the price up by £1 a year over the last three years it would probably have seemed reasonable but would have cost you more. If I was a cleaner I would probably leave the price the same for a few years than increase by about this much. It saves a yearly I'm putting my prices up discussion. A person I know who does cleaning once remarked that sometimes people in jobs where their own pay goes up every year or put their own business prices up regularly are really surprised when she puts her prices up. My mother is a bit like that. Has a really great cleaner but is always a bit shocked when her prices go up.

Sounds like a bargain. We are paying £20 p/h!

£20 p/h for a cleaner! I’m a qualified Nurse with over 15 years experience and get less than this, obviously need to change career ASAP!!

No you dont
You also get employer pension contributions, employer NI contributions, sick pay and paid annual leave.

Do it then.Or do you think cleaners should clean your mess up for peanuts?

our cleaning firm have just out their price up to £18 ph. They do a good job and so I am happy to pay

We have ours a rise before being asked, counts for a lot, she cut back the number she works for, we were one she kept. A good cleaner is worth looking after. Yours sounds very reasonable, she may lose a customer or two, but I’m sure they (you) can be replaced. Start paying the new rate straight away, don’t wait until her deadline.

I think being an excellent cleaner requires great skill and attention to detail. People look down on it but I think it’s a challenging job.

I can see a sudden rise of 25% makes you think "What?", and am surprised how small number of other posters can't.
However I can also see that sometimes it is easier to just do it in one go, rather than putting her fees up a bit, then a bit more, then a bit more.
It is people on the lowest wages that are obviously most hit by all the cost of living rises we have seen - petrol, gas and electricity, mortgages etc (and knock on rent), food and every day items like toilet rolls. So I am guessing she has done the maths and worked out what she needs.

What you need to do is work out if - with your cost of living rises also affecting you - you can still afford a cleaner or not. If you can, then good, trustworthy, reliable, hardworking cleaners are like gold dust, so I'd hang on to the one you have. Obviously, if you can't afford it, then you can't afford it, and that is the risk she has taken. I presume she has factored in that she has worked for people for a long time and not raised prices in that time, that most will be happy to pay the new rate.

You’re still getting a good deal to be fair.

Yabu

A newly qualified nurse is on 13.84 p/h rising to 14.92 p/h after 2 years experience. Not taking anything away from cleaners they do a fantastic job and deserve every penny. It just shows how poorly paid NHS staff are.

It doesn’t take into account pension, sick pay, annual leave etc

My cleaner is £15ph and the previous two I had were also £15ph. I think you've had a bit of a bargain so far!

Mine did the same. I’d been expecting it as knew £12 was low for current rates. Agreed without quibble.

True, nor the 10s of thousands in tuition fees and training costs

Our cleaner’s rate is roughly £13.33 per hour. We sort of worked it out as a round number for hours done. And I suppose that flexibility is why we all need to work these things out. Many are talking about contracts - other than those who work for agencies contracts will be verbal and rely on trust. We don’t have any discussion about cancellation as an example - but when we had Covid we still paid her.

it seems reasonable frankly

Our cleaners recently went up to £20/hr and even though it seems like a lot we're really happy with them. They do loads of little "extras" (from their price list) like changing beds, cleaning out fridge and microwave, putting out bins and recycling as I'm disabled and as one of them said, they like to think they're providing me with housekeeping as well as cleaning. They certainly don't charge the £15 or so more a week that these jobs would cost on the price list! I'm disabled and so the extra they offer is more than worth the money, whether it's feeding the Guinea pigs or changing the duvet covers.

Nurses are paid very little, and it's not a job I would advise my DC to go into. But that doesn't mean a cleaner who sets their own rate (and has to pay costs, isn't earning when travelling between jobs etc) shouldn't charge an even lower rate.

I earn a lot less than £20ph, but I'm also not stupid enough to think I would be better off going SE to do a drip I have to drive around to, have to drin up my own custom sort out my own tax and insurance and pension to take home £15 for each hour I was cleaning.

Cleaners really are viewed by society as little useless people who couldn't do any other job and totter around from house to house, over charging for their time and effort.

But that's not the issue or discussion here.