What to do about the cleaner while we’re on holiday?

[Hatehairdressers]

More a WWYD then an AIBU…

We’ve recently taken on a cleaner who comes to our house weekly. She’s not been able to come for week or two here and there for personal reasons, and we’ve only paid her for the weeks she has actually cleaned.

We’re going on holiday for a fortnight soon, and I’m not sure what’s the ‘done thing’.

1. Ask her not to come whilst we are away but pay her anyway
2. Ask her not to come and don’t pay
3. Ask her to come and get her to do a deep clean/spring clean

She has house keys so she can easily come while we are away, we just won’t have been in the house from one week to the next for it to need a regular clean.

I'd definitely go with the deep clean option.

We have a cleaner but she doesn't have keys so we pay her if we're away but don't pay her if she's away (apart from week between Christmas and New Year which we do pay for).

When I go away I give my cleaner a list of jobs, she would rather earn money than not. Fortunately she works on bin day so she takes my rubbish out so the house doesn’t look empty.

I always love coming home from holiday because she does more than cleaning, she’ll put all washing away and make the beds.

What a shirt attitude They should be like childminders - you pay them to keep your slot in their calendar.

We've had our lovely cleaner for about three years now. If we're away for two weeks she does one normal clean and then we agree a list of deep clean/extra jobs to do the next week - so cleaning out the fridge, doing the oven, inside the cupboards, inside windows etc. She's offered to do laundry as well though we've not taken her up on that yet.

We do 3. She can do the hours whenever she likes, she doesn’t usually come in the same slot.

Definitely don't do 2 btw. I really feel like a bit of give and take goes a long way. Our cleaner really goes above and beyond and in return we always pay her when the reason for her not working is us (we also paid when she went back to her home country for a holiday, but that was because it was the first time she'd had off in 3 years and we wanted to! Wasn't expected by her at all). We paid when she couldn't come because we had COVID for example.

I know from (bitter!) experience that some cleaners are pretty shit, so if yours is good then hang onto her!

What a shirt attitude They should be like childminders - you pay them to keep your slot in their calendar.

Why? Genuine question, why should this service be different?

Because great cleaners are reliable and trustworthy. Mine is super flexible and does jobs over and above cleaning if I ask her too. She's helped me hang curtains, clear a spider infestation and helped me sort out wardrobes.

She's worked for me for 8 years.

She's a professional who is excellent at her job and I trust her implicitly. Why wouldn't I pay her when I go on holiday?

Our cleaner doesn’t have a key, only because we are here when she comes.
When we go away she comes anyway (give her a key) and we come home to a lovely clean house

I have never paid a cleaner if they haven’t actually cleaned, unless I cancel last minute or similar. Last week both DC were at home in bed poorly so she couldn’t do their rooms and was here an hour less than usual but I did pay he the usual amount as that was our fault.
She is SE and so in my book if she doesn’t work she doesn’t get paid, I have been SE myself and unless it was a last minute cancellation by my client I didn’t expect to be paid either

As a cleaner...2 or 3.

Give her a list of jobs for the deep clean or you won't know what's actually been done.

3

My cleaner will come whilst we are away and be paid as usual.

We don’t have a regular cleaner now, but when we did we still paid her even if we were away and she didn’t clean. We get holiday pay, why shouldn’t she?

During lockdown 1 our fortnightly cleaner couldn’t come to the house, obviously. At the end of lockdown we gave her all the money we’d have paid her during that time. She was a low paid migrant from Central Europe whose income had vanished; I rather thought it was the least we could do. She was very grateful.

My lovely cleaners will come as normal, but do extras. Such as clearing all the cupboards, giving wood floors a polish, the annual (awful) job of deep cleaning and resealing the stone floors. Even if they only did normal clean, I just love coming home to a fresh house.

I've never paid mine when I've been away, haven't got one since moving but had them on and off for years. Never once would I trust my keys - perhaps I was unlucky but I wouldn't trust them. My cleaners have never billed apart from work done, that's why you pay quite a lot more per hour than an employee

Definitely 3. Come back to a lovely clean house.

I pay for a deep clean while we are away and she can do the hours however she wants as we aren't there. She does extras like cleaning out the fridge, oven, kitxhen cupboards, windows etc, it is bliss coming back to that after work.

If we're away for two weeks, I ask my cleaner to do a normal clean the first week, then things like the fridge, oven, windows inside etc the 2nd week. Fwiw, if we ever ask her not to clean for whatever reason, we still pay her.

After holidays obvs 🙄

1 or 3

We don’t pay when she cancels or goes on holiday. We do pay when we go on holiday. If we’re going for 2 weeks we’ll ask her to do the fridge or windows or deep clean something

I'd pay her to still come in because of the extra things she'd have time to do without needing to reset the home as normal. And if that includes more physical work like windows/changing curtains/bottoming out some cupboards, I'd pay extra, possibly asking if she could change the second week to just before you come back so she could put fresh milk/bread into the fridge (if she's able/willing to change her day, obviously).

It's a great opportunity to get ahead.

Definitely 3

Depends what you call a deep clean, if it’s moving furniture she may refuse or heavier cleaning then she needs paying more. I can’t believe you were considering option 2.

I worked as a domestic cleaner. Majority of customers got a deep clean when they were away. Fridge all cleaned cos it was empty. Internal glass etc. A few of them were very keen cooks they always wanted their kitchen cupboards done. Dates on spices/herbs checked, any out of date was binned.