cleaner wants extra money

[scrubdaddy]

I own an Airbnb.

I have a cleaner... we agreed on a set price per clean, which she makes out most of the time because the cleans are usually anywhere from 6 to 8 hours. The set fee means I pay her 10 hours per clean. She hasn't been the greatest at checking inventory and cleaning inside kitchen cabinets, making sure pots and pans are scrubbed clean and everything is put in it's place and I have to constantly remind her.

Anyway, she has been with me going on 2 years. We originally agreed on a set fee and that would include the oven and gas bbq grill. She recently, about a year ago, had a baby so she dropped all her other clients and she has only cleaned for me... We also got a second cleaner to fill in.

Her husband is a handyman and works all the time, but doesn't offer her money to manage groceries and personal shopping so I understand she feels uncomfortable asking him. It's just not been her way. She has always worked hard and always had her own money. This last clean only took her 6.5 hours, but at some point while she was cleaning the oven, texted me a picture and said she needed to charge me £40.00 extra because the oven required so much scrubbing. I didn't respond with anything other than wow!

I have a hard time with people trying to get more dollars out of me for frivolous things when I am already paying them more than I should. I don't want to make her feel bad, or create an uncomfortable situation between us. I'm not the best diplomat because I tend to be frank and honest. I'm looking for help in the best way to communicate to her that I don't feel she should be charging me £40 extra dollars when I'm already paying her 10 hours for a 6.5 hour clean. Please any suggestions???

I can just pay her the extra £40.00, but I don't want her to look at me as a cash cow whenever she needs money and start charging me for things I'm already paying her for. I don't want to start resenting her.

AIBU to say no to her?

What job with a lot of responsibility have you been offered for £11.50 p/h? It’s shocking. I earn way more waiting tables.

That;
's low. Especially in London. I pay mine 15 an hour in Scotland.

So she’s paid £130 a clean that’s expected to take upto 10hours.

If she finishes in 6 hours she’s quids in if it takes 10 your actually getting what your paying for.

she’s being a cheeky. No way either is she actually cleaning the cooker every week if she’s now deeming it so dirty that it’s an extra £40.

Invite her in for a contract renewal. Bring the old/current one with you too. Lay out again the actual expectations and maybe if she deems she isn’t being paid enough up her hourly rate by a £1 or £2 but only pay for the actual hours it takes her.

I have a job with a LOT of responsibility. Ultimately deciding whether to prosecute people for a niche offense. I have to visit their homes, alone, wrote up paperwork and on and on. £12.60 an hour. My brother was speechless when he found out. He is on the same, set to rise in 6 months, on the phones for DWP.

I pay my cleaner £15 p/h in London but am wondering about a pay rise soon. FWIW she's a bit unreliable, with quite a lot of absences. She also doesn't speak very much English. If she were 100% reliable and I could communicate with her by text I would already have increased the rate. If your cleaner is those things then I suggest that you increase her hourly rate to the point that you're paying her more than now but only for the number of hours she does.

Is it only me who is wondering how an oven gets that filthy in an air bnb? Isn't it cleaned or checked after every guest leaves so it's clean for the next guests? My oven is used every day and if it was cleaned every week there's no way it would require that much scrubbing.

Do you really enjoy it? If you don’t I’m not sure why you’d do that to yourself.

How much are you paying her gross on the payroll? You mentioned in a post that you are paying money to hmrc as well, so her take home is irrelevant

Also at her level of income no tax or ni should be deducted

Usually a job is fixed price OR hourly.

If it’s fixed price, then it takes as long as it takes and you need to move away from thinking about it as an hourly rate.

If you’re not happy with the work (inventory) then that should be addressed separately.

£13.07 is not a good rate of pay. There’s no holiday/sick pay when you’re self employed. She will have income tax to pay, mileage costs. She will have insurance and travel time to factor in, being with you if and when you have a booking meaning there will be down days when you don’t need her and she won’t be paid, and other times when you might get a last minute booking and need her availability.

Was oven cleaning to be included in the usual changeover clean?
If so, was it supposed to be a quick wipe to freshen between guests or a full on oven clean?

I think you’re being harsh. Her personal finances/relationship with her partner are not your business.
I think you’re getting a good deal and you could try to hang onto her. You could switch to a larger company and you’ll be looking at an average of £25 plus VAT.

No, I hate it, I'm currently signed off with work stress. Looking elsewhere. It is term time only and very flexible though.

It certainly should be which means she’s been charging op but still not carrying out that work either. A good wipe down between each guest should be done.

If the oven was now that bad it could even put off people from booking again due to dirty oven.

This is a very low rate. She should be expected to do general household duties within the contracted hours. Oven cleans, where I reside cost over 100 euro for a single oven. It's hard work!! People underestimate the work of cleaners and what's expected. I have just started my own cleaning business, you may think I'm biased but prior to this I always respected the skill of a good cleaner. I am shocked at how clients behave, what they expect within an hour and always trying to haggle the price.
I have so many clients I can now afford to end contracts with some whom are so difficult they the stress isn't worth it and how they think they can speak to you and treat you. It's always the wealthier clients who haggle the price and expect you to deep clean their 6 bed home with 4 bathrooms in 2 hours! It's always the person with less money but for some reason or another can't clean or reach up or down due to an ailment that are the kindest in which case I leave extras such as a bunch of flowers or a candle after every 4th clean.
It's hard to get good cleaners you can trust, talk to her-i would consider an oven a deep clean, cooker top and inside of oven door standard clean, sorry

Just read air bnb bit, yes oven should be cleaned after each move out which would or should not require much unless someone cooked something that was caked on required a lot of time, effort, scraping and scrubbing. That'll take more time away from the other tasks, perhaps that's what she meant.

Are you making a profit from the cleaning fee on Airbnb ?

I’d agree that £13 is low. Min wage will be £11.44 next month. Really it costs about 1.4 times a salary to have an employee. Pension, holiday, ni etc. £16 is probably the right starting point. That said if you are paying £130 for six hours and she is missing stuff I’d consider a fresh start with someone new.

That’ll be 6p over minimum wage in a month. Regardless the cost to the employer is much higher. More like £16 an hour when you consider statutory obligations. Self employed people have to fund own pensions/ holiday pay. When I cleaned I charged £20 an hour as rural ( supply and demand) that said I’m better off working for £12.70 an hour for the LA than being self employed at £20 when you consider expenses.

This post is from May last year. I’m sure OP has made a decision by now..

That's a very cheap London rate.
But I'd point out you're paying for 10 hrs.

ZOMBIE THREAD

I am a cleaner - I get paid £15 per hour which is a fair rate . I am also a qualified NHS dispenser being paid £11.50 per hour. It is absolutely crazy that I am paid more to clean someone's house when the worst thing that can happen is a spillage/breakage but yet if I make a mistake with my dispensing I could kill someone! I clean to support my NHS "proper" job as I cannot afford to live on what I am paid by the NHS. You should be paying your cleaner more than £13 per hour particularly in London - but equally there are so many more jobs ( particularly NHS/ care work etc that deserve £13 an hour and more and are paid woefully below this)

This. It’s a very low rate for London. If you are paying her for more hours than she does because you are underpaying her you really need to renegotiate a better rate of pay and adjust the hours. Cleaning ovens is a professional job and a nasty one at that. You should pay her for that at least.

So the real living wage for London is £13.15

I personally would become a bit less motivated if I felt I wasn't paid enough however if your paying her 10hrs at 13.07 and she only works 6.5hrs it's the equivalent of £20 ph

I think it probably is time to have a review and work performance discussion. Have a look round for other cleaners to see what their hourly rate is.

If you want to keep her reset the contract - hrs / pay per clean / expectations