To ask about getting a cleaner.

[surreygirl1987]

My husband and I both work full time as teachers, and as well as long days, often do work in the evening too. We have two small pre-schoolers. Neither of us are hugely domestic, and the cleaning is often neglected.

From the above, it sounds like we definitely need a cleaner. But how much will it cost? We have a reasonable household income but huge outgoings (mainly mortgage).

We live in a 5 bedroom 3 bathroom house (plus downstairs wc) so it's quite large (although not massive - it's around 1800 sq ft). Here are my questions:

A. How many hours a week or fortnight would we need?

B. We'd want bed linen changing too, as we are awful for putting off doing that. Do most cleaners do that as well or not? Or is it a bit of an unusual request?

C. Is weekly or fortnightly more cost effective?

D. How do you even find a good cleaner?

Many thanks in advance for any info.

A - 3 hours per fortnight will just about stay on top of it but it won't be an amazing deep clean and our cleaner somehow never made it into the wet room to clean the shower. So it's not quite enough time.

We are very untidy so a fortnightly rush round tidying up was all I could cope with. I guess if she came weekly maybe my house would have stayed tidier??

I was paying £17/hr after several price increases.

D - word of mouth / Facebook.

It's fine to ask for bed linen to be changed. I think you'd need 4 hours a week, or less if you don't want the beds changed every week. I have a 4 bed, 2 bath house and have 2 hours, but she doesn't do the 3 teen bedrooms so effectively only one bedroom, 2 baths and the downstairs. And no bed changing. Years ago when the kids were smaller I had all 4 bedrooms done, and some ironing, and paid for 4 hours. I pay £18 an hour but I think that's at the top end of normal, having seen threads on here.

I have a small 4-bed (really 3-bed and study) 1200sqft and have cleaners in for 2hrs a week. This is usually enough and they will change the bed linen too. For your size of house probably 3-4 hours you'd need depending on how thorough you want them to be.
I use an agency (found on local mum's group on Facebook) and they usually send 2 cleaners for an hour or sometimes 3 cleaners for 40 mins - and this actually works out better as two of them makes it much easier and quicker changing the sheets! I pay mine 17.50 an hour (London / Surrey borders)

I also have 2 small kids, and dh and I work full time. We have a 4 bed 3 bath house. My cleaner comes 2 1/2 hours a week and does all the bathrooms, 3 of the bedrooms (#4 is my office which I'm usually working in so I clean it myself). She does kitchen, living/dining room and hallway. If I ask her to she does beds too, so one week I get her to do the kids, the other she does ours, as long as I leave the sheets out for her. She literally doesn't stop moving for the whole time she's here.

We pay £15 per hour for her, but for new customers she charges £18 per hour. We make sure before she comes that rooms are tidy and everything is put away, she's there to clean not tidy up (as I keep telling the kids).

She's also done a couple of extra cleans for us, we had her come before Xmas for example to do an extra clean when we moved furniture to put the tree and decorations up. She was a huge help.

If we went to fortnightly I would have to up the hours to 3 or maybe 3 1/2 as I'd want her to do all the beds each time.

We found her as a recommendation on next door.com we had a couple of others that didn't work out, one came to do a deep clean but didn't clean under anything, another didn't turn up on time. It took time to find the right one. But the lady we have now is worth every penny.

I'm a cleaner. Been in the trade for 5 yrs now.

I'd say, a house that size, including bed changing, you're looking at a 5-6hr slot each time. But to give you a more accurate time, I'd have to do a home visit first to see the size & layout of the property and the overall condition of it.

If the property is in a 'neglected' condition (as you say) I'd recommend having and extra hour as well, for the first 2-3 cleans, to bring it up to a standard where it can then just be maintained each week.

I do bed changes, but I offer housekeeping services too. Not all cleaners do. Some just offer cleaning and that's it.

A house that size, with young children and busy working adults, I'd recommend weekly cleaning. I'd only do fortnightly for small flats and bungalows with an elderly couple etc, as they don't lead busy lives.

The cost for general weekly domestic cleaning varies depending on the area you live, and the experience and expertise of the cleaner. I'm experienced, know my stuff, fully insured. run a legitimate tax & NI paying business, have many many business running costs, have an accountant etc. So I'm not the cheapest in the area. But I have a very good reputation and word of mouth has always been my source of work.

You can get far cheaper cleaners than me - often people just starting out, think it's easy money for just wafting a duster about, want cash in hand because they don't want to pay their taxes. But they don't last long when they realise its actually a lot of hard graft, both physically and mentally.

Ask local neighbours, or on local Facebook groups, or the Nextdoor app, who they'd recommend.

You'll pay more for a company who runs a big business, as they have staff to pay as well as turning a profit. The upside to this, though, is if the cleaner usually assigned to slot is ill, they'll send a replacement. And this can happen a lot. Cleaning companies staff turnovers are frequent, so you'll find in the space of a year you'll meet lots of different cleaners, all with their own varying standards and enthusiasm for the job.

You'll pay less for a sole trading independent cleaner, and they'll really get to know you and your home. How you like things, the most efficient way to clean it to the best standard, they'll learn what needs doing every clean and the tasks that can be rotated. As the business is entirely theirs, their enthusiasm and standards tend to be much higher. The downside is though, if they are off for illness, or any other reason, you have no cover. You just have to donit yourself until your cleaner returns.

Pls bear in mind, a cleaner is not there to clear up untidy clutter. A cleaner cannot adequately and efficiently clean if they have to move loads of clutter out of the way first, because it eats into the slot time. For the best clean I'm the quickest time, the evening before the cleaner is due, everyone needs to tidy away their belongings, clear surfaces and floors of clutter.

They also shouldn't be expected to clean up any urine, vomit, faeces or other bodily fluids, either human or animal. It is a general clean you're paying for, not a biohazard clean. Which is far more expensive.

2 - 4 hours a week

2 for the absolute basics
3 much better
4 probably optimal - or if you are messy, necessary.

I’d start with 3. Wouldn’t do fortnightly with young kids.

Fine to include bed change.

Ask around, look in windows and at gumtree - there will be ads. There will be local agencies too but you’ll pay on top so try to avoid. Get two verbal references.

Manage it actively, write down everything you want doing, get them round, meet them, they will assess the house and between you you will work out what can be done in the time.

Best thing I ever did.

Well, that can clear clutter if that’s what you want, but obviously they get less done on the time.

Except the cleaner doesn't know where all your clutter belongs. A weekly cleaner isn't a live-in house maid, working there full time and learning which item belongs to who and where it lives.

With a general domestic cleaning service, if you want your cleaner to tidy your clutter, they'll just gather it all up and place it in one spot. You will still have to tidy it all away later, so the clever thing to do would be do it the evening before so your cleaner isn't wasting the time you're paying for on picking up stuff before they can even start the actual cleaning.

So, OP, this also will slot time. If you're happy for.your cleaner to also.spend time gathering up belongings and clutter before they clean, but you still want a high standard all-over clean, factor in more 'tidying' time. OR don't complain if you leave lots of clutter out and your cleaner gets left cleaning done. That's on you.

I have a 5 bed, 3 bath house and have a cleaner come for 3 hours fortnightly. When I can afford it, I'll move it to weekly.

So, OP, this will also affect* slot time

My cleaner definitely cleans away clutter - she comes every week and has done for years, why wouldn’t she know where things go? It’s absolutely part of her job to clear clutter.

Okay this is absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much all of you.

So, I'm getting a better idea now. We don't need someone to tidy away clutter - we'd do this ourselves, in the same way we quickly run round and do a tidy up when we have guests coming over 🙈 it will force us to do this frequently actually so that is good.

Although it's a 5 bedroom house, they're not all used. We wouldn't need the study or spare room doing, and actually my kids' rooms on the top floor are literally only used for sleeping in (they're very young) so we wouldn't need them doing either I guess - we'd deal with them ourselves. So really we'd want:

Downstairs: living room, kitchen, w/c, hallway
Upstairs: master bedroom and ensuite, family bathroom, landing
Nothing on top floor

1 double bed change per fortnight.

Does this make a big difference to how long it would take?

Thanks so much.

I have a similar/slightly bigger house and we have 2.5 hours a week but no bedding/laundry jobs and not all showers need cleaning, office is excluded etc. We find that fine.

I'd say minimum 2 hours but this would be quite basic, 3 hours will be better esp if you want the beds doing.

Prices seem to be minimum £15 ph these days, our latest £17.50

We have a similar sized house and pay £60 for four hours per week. They do the beds on rotations - two one week, two the next, they also wash and hang out the bedding. That’s with their products And hoover but our steam mop.

Cleaner here... 3 or 4 hours a week @ £12.50 an hour...
3 hours of generic jobs and an extra hour a week for windows /paintwork /beds changed...

Following your update, that's very similar to what I have done in 2.25 hours. I actually wish the cleaner would do 3 hours, I feel there could be a better finish if she did, but she insists 2.25 is enough. So for you probably 2.5-3 hours weekly.

I’m a single parent, working eith 3 kids. I pay £25 a week for 2 hours each week. I have a 4 bed house and my cleaner changes 2 beds one week and 2 the next week so they all get changed fortnightly.
definitely worth the £100 a month!!!

Cleaner here. I'd say 4 hours. If that's too pricey then I'd ask cleaner to come 2 hours a week and rotate areas, I think you'd feel the benefit from a weekly clean. I charge £15 an hour and bring all supplies including hoover and mop. I'd be prepared to wait for a good cleaner to have a free slot and definitely go on a recommendation from friend or colleague.

Four hours a week at £15-20/hour. Recommendation by far the best way to go, but if you don't know anyone with a cleaner get a few in, show them around and be very very explicit about what you need them to do. Not all jobs will need to be done every week, but you might want to have the fridge cleaned once a month, for example.
Not all cleaners like to do all jobs.
They should then be able to tell you how long it takes. They may recommend the first couple visits they do a deep clean so it will take longer or they do a few rooms each time, then they can do normal cleaning after that.

I have a cleaner for three hours a week at £20/hr.

It’s a big house but we don’t use all of it (two adult household) so every week she does:

Large kitchen with open plan dining and living area- vacuums and mops, good clean of countertops and fronts of all cupboards/ovens etc. Plus dusting, generally making things look nice. This is our biggest room and seems to take about an hour.

Sunroom- dusts and vacuums.

Hallway and downstairs loo- high-shine porcelain tiles so need to be mopped and then thoroughly dried (they’re a nuisance). Clean toilet sanitary-ware and mirrors. Some dusting.

Sitting room- dust, mop and vacuum wooden floor. Vacuums sofa and turns and beats all cushions.

Sweeps down the wooden stairs.

Vacuums landing- some dusting.

Main bathroom- cleans all sanitary-ware, mirrors, shower screen, mops and vacuums floor.

Master bedroom with dressing room and en-suite- vacuum, mops bathroom floor, sanitary-ware, changes king-size bed. Dusts.

Some of our spare bedrooms are used as offices as we both WFH so tidy those ourselves.

She’s AMAZING and has been with me for years now. Found her through ad on a local website.

I have no idea how she does all of that in 3 hours. Realistically, I pay her for three but she leaves once she’s finished so tends to be under 2hrs 45mins.

I have to say though, our house is kept pretty tidy and clutter-free so she never had to tidy or organise. If you want someone to work around some clutter/kid-mess then you’ll need to discuss with them and allow them to determine how long it will take.

We have a 4 bed, 3 bathroom house. Dh, ds, 6m old and myself. We have a cleaner 10hours a week. I would say if you want surface jobs done then anything less than 10hours would do. We prefer deep, proper cleaning including laundry and ironing so 10 hours works for us. This includes, floors, skirtings, fridge clean, bed linen changes, organising cupboards. It really depends on what levels of cleaning you need. Our cleaner is 16.5 an hour and worth it. Our weekends are completely clear and free of any cleaning and just a quick tidy on days she isn't here.

@Flippityflipflip I just posted that a 5 hour clean is what we do. I always am a bit at people who want anything more than a surface clean for a 4/5 bed house in 2 hours. I sat down and discussed with my cleaner how long would it take to what I need and 5 hours works for us.

Ours is a six bed, two bath and a loo. Two of the bedrooms are used once every six weeks.. Our cleaner does 90 minutes’ ironing every week too.

She does six hours every week, £15/hour and I provide all the cleaning equipment and materials. I think I’m going to start paying her extra, even though she hasn’t asked for it, as I think that’s started to be quite low.

She says she likes our house because it means that she only does one job that day, and doesn’t waste time travelling.

We got her through an agency initially, and then she set up on her own.

Our cleaner is weekly and alternates some of the jobs so they're done fortnightly.