How much cleaning to expect in 2 hours?

[airey]

For anyone with domestic cleaning experience.. am I being unreasonable in my expectations of our home cleaner?

We have a terraced 3 bed house with a conservatory and small galley kitchen. Downstairs loo, upstairs bathroom. she comes for 2 hours

Cleans: Downstairs - Hoover & mop hardfloors throughout downstairs (superficial, not scrubbing) cleans downstairs loo, kitchen surfaces, tidy and Hoover living room and play area (can be messy with a few toys.

Upstairs - cleans loo and shower door, wipes bathroom floor. Doesn’t Hoover/dust/do beds or anything else upstairs. Bedrooms untouched.

I have long suspected she’s cutting her 2 hours short, as I really feel that an efficient cleaner would do more in 2 hours, but maybe IBU?

We pay £15/hr, SE England, and she uses our products.

grateful for any thoughts I guess!

My experience of cleaners is they don’t want to ‘clean’ as such. More do superficial stuff. They won’t do what you would do with two hours of cleaning time.

YANBU. i do a lot more than that in two hours. I wouldn’t expect a 3-bed house to be thoroughly cleaned in 2 hours, but you can have loo and bathroom cleaned every week, maybe also kitchen, and apart from that, do upstairs one week and downstairs the next.

My cleaner gets round a 5 bed, bathroom and downstairs loo. Cleaner changes 3 beds (double/super king/king). Downstairs is quite a big space - all floors hoovered and mopped, surfaces dusted, kitchen units and leather sofa wiped down. She tidies a little (only making things look neat and folding stray clothes, straightening shoes in the porch etc) in two hours. She comes every week though so I think she will swap out extra bits and pieces. She used to do 3 hours and do the ironing and more dusting and window cleaning too. She alternates the en-suites - two don’t get used often.

Hm I do try to tidy before she comes, but she probably has five minutes of toy tidying to do every time.

I just wonder if she’s
a) cutting the time short
b)spending some of the time on her phone

she’s a lovely lady and I hate the hassle of changing cleaners but it’s really starting to bug me. I need the cleaner badly, with work and young kids I really rely on her

OP IME a good cleaner is hard to find. I’ve had several over the last ten years. Some I’ve not invited back after the first clean, the good ones have been great to begin and then gradually gotten worse. They then seem to get more stable jobs in hospitality or care. So sometimes it’s a case of better the devil you know.

I text my cleaner each week with tasks I’d like doing like cleaning inside the microwave/fridges/skirting boards and she will get to it then. Could that help?

It sounds like you need to talk to her and ask for the bedrooms to be at least partially done, or you would need to look for a new cleaner.

I wouldn't expect everything to be thoroughly done in two hours, but that's enough time to zip around with a vacuum and dust.

We haven't had a cleaner for years, but when we did, she would do kitchen/lounge/dining room and downstairs loo all surfaces and floors (hoover/mopping) and then hoovering 3 bedrooms and surfaces upstairs plus upstairs bathroom in 2 hours, with time left over for a chat and tea. She was bloody fantastic. There was never any tidying for her to do as I did that before she came, but once she did have extra time and I came back from a walk with ds to find her having completely tidied all the shit toys and snack wrappers from underneath the sofa that we hadn't moved in about 2 years.

YANBU
My previous cleaner did 2hrs, 4 bed house, 2 receptions and 2 bathrooms in 2hrs. She knew what needed doing and what could be picked up the next week. There were 3 of us living there.
I'm now just me, 3 beds, 1 bath, but my cleaner struggles with just getting the bathroom or kitchen done in 1hr.

I have a cleaner two hours per week and pay £13/hour.

In that time she:
Dusts and hoovers the lounge, plumps sofa.

Dusts, hoovers and mops dining room, wipes down tables.

Hoovers and mops hallway.

Superficial clean of kitchen sides, does the sink, hoovers and mops.

Hoovers stairs and upstairs landing.

Dusts and hoovers 2x kids bedrooms.

Dusts and hoovers master bedroom. Changes master bed (I have to strip it but she remakes it)

Cleans en suite

Cleans family bathroom

Cleans downstairs loo

If she has time she also does a quick hoover and dust in study / guest bedroom and kids playroom.

She is incredible and if she ever try's to quit I might hold her hostage. (Joke. Maybe)

Wow she sounds incredible, perhaps consider putting her £ up as she is worth her weight in gold!

the lovely people never tend to ask do they, whereas the crap ones are good at charging more…!

I don't have a cleaner but today I made my bed tidied up my room made Childs bed tidied his room deep cleaned my bathroom sorted washing into washes put wash on hoovered upstairs and stairs and landing done dishes cleaned work top scrubbed cloth sofa hoovered and mopped all downstairs mopped 2 bedroom and deep cleaned downstairs wet room all in 2 hours lol

Awesome effort! ….Can you come and do mine ;)

My cleaners (2 of them) do 1 1/2 hours (so total 3 cleaning hours) to clean a 4 bedroom house with 3 reception rooms and 3 loos, for comparison's sake. This includes cleaning a large tiled floor area. There is no tidying to do, however, as I do that beforehand. Often they are finished early though.

They manage to clean it all, on the surface anyway, and use their own cleaning products, vacuum etc. In your case I think I would expect them to be able to finish in a couple of hours. I do notice sometimes cleaners start off good, but some tail off when they've been cleaning your house for a while.

@airey that made me lol maybe because it's my own house and I no exactly what needs done so put music on full blast and work away lol

Yanbu

Assuming she sweeps/hoovers the hard floors before mopping them, then that sounds reasonable.

If you want her to do more then maybe make sure everything is off of the floor and counter tops. So she can spend more time cleaning and less tidying.

There bets cleaner we've had used to do 3 hours a week for 3 bedrooms, one with an ensuite. I used to make sure all the toys were packed away and the kitchen was tidy so she could just get on with cleaning.

2hrs is the least amount of time we would allow for a clean.

It would cover a 1-2 bed home with one bathroom.

Just to conclude this… I checked up on the cleaner (secretly) and she was only doing about 1hr 20mins, every visit!

I am so disappointed as her cleaning standard was good, but it feels horrible to have your good will taken advantage of like that.

so I messaged her and said we needed to save money and couldn’t have a cleaner for the time being.

She was perfectly nice and offered to do occasional deep cleans if we need it… I think the trust is broken though, so shan’t have her back

now to try and find someone genuine….