To expect the cleaner to clean for the time she’s paid?

[Annatinks]

Hubby and I both work full time (my hours exceed full time vastly - my choice) We have a two year old son and a late teen who has MH struggles.

Whilst we’ve always tried to be tidy, I’ve been constantly frustrated by the deep cleaning things taking the minimal free time I get and how tired I always am (autoimmune disease). My husband is good at general tidy but doesn’t really notice things like skirting boards, glass cleaning, light shades, door handles etc.

When he was promoted recently with a small but noticeable pay rise he spoke to me about the idea of employing a cleaner to do those deep clean things fortnightly and to mop/hoover etc so on the day before/day of/day after we have a bit more family downtime. I was quite negative about it because of feeling like “we’re not that kind of people” but then feeling horribly judgemental and saying yes we’d try it.

The cleaner is amazing 🤩
She came and had a look round visit and suggested things she could do in the two hours she proposed she comes each fortnight. She polishes the taps so they look new and her hoover is soooo much better than ours!

But…

She’s only been 4 times and last fortnight she left arrived late and left early (about 20min less time). Hubby said a mild “oh are you off already?” (I wasn’t there, he WFH) and she explained how yes she’s got to know our 2bed house better now so it doesn’t take her as long. She then made some comment about having to drop some clients before because they didn’t understand that.

Is this normal? Should a cleaner who quotes two hours and is paid two hours be able to knock off early regularly?
Neither of us get to knock off early for efficiency so it seems unreasonable to me?

Hubny wants to cancel her because he feels like she’s going to take the Mickey ongoing but I’ve appreciated the help soooo much I’m reluctant for it to stop.

With regard to rates, I've found out that it's actually CHEAPER in London - my friends all pay in the region of £15 an hour, whereas, in Central Scotland and Dorset way it's @£19. We figured it was because of the abundance of cleaners in London.

Oh, and she's not that great if she doesn't even clean bathroom taps!

Why do you get to decide what I charge? I can charge £25/hr even though the average round here is £15/hr. You’re going to be really cross when I tell you my deep cleans are £45/hr. I give a price before booking and I have a long waiting list.

I’m not sure how you came up with the comparison between a cleaner and a nurse? Nurses aren’t underpaid because cleaners can earn a good living. Nurses get holiday pay, sick pay and a pension. We’re self employed. If I’m ill, I don’t get paid. I have zero job security. It’s not ‘easy money’, it’s a hard physical job plus you’re running your own business which comes with a lot of admin. Many cleaners don’t do it for long and go back to having a job.

Many jobs don’t require a high level of academic qualifications yet are extremely well-paid - I have friends in six figure sales roles who left school at 16. I’m educated to post graduate level but I earn more cleaning than I ever did when I had a ‘proper job’ using my degrees.

Some people want a cheap cleaner but amazing results. You can’t always have both and it’s often a case of buy cheap, buy twice.

I pay my cleaner a set amount every week. If she does it quicker then good but it takes her longer because she's a bit slower that day then also that's on her. I think it's fairest that way as she knows what she needs to do ie kitchen, bathrooms, hoover and mop and as long as it's all done then great.
Good cleaners are hard to come by so maybe you need to discuss with her a set amount arrangement for x, y, z tasks or ask her if she's now familiar with the house would she be able to do some other stuff in the time available. But don't accuse her of cutting you short as she could easily leave by yhe sounds of it

Leaving 35 minutes early and bringing a child with her... 😲 Nah, I'd get someone else especially if her standards have dropped too. All these minutes add up, if everyone left half an hour early from their job they'd owe their companies money.

@Whichwhatnow Same here. Our claner always leaves 15 mins early and it irritates me a little, but she does a lot while she's here, and to a very high standard, so I try to think of it as her reward for efficiency / her tea break

@Fudgewomble I think that's a great approach. Wish I'd done that

She's trying to wriggle her way out of it.

After the amount of things missed for example we thought to look back on the baby monitor and she was in that room less than 6min - didn’t dust the shelves (not even the edges), definitely hoovered round the small play rugs and only mopped the doorway 🙄 we text to say a (very nice) sorry we need to cancel this service; she replied ok, no worries - didn’t ask why at all. I think maybe I thought she was better than she was because I was just grateful not to be doing it myself and because the first few cleans really were good standard.

You're paying for time, not a list of jobs. I always give a list of "if time" jobs above our usual clean in case ours finishes early.

She doesn’t wipe inside the microwave?
I should think this should be done after every time it’s used!!!
The same with taps they need to be cleaned every time they’re used too to get rid of watermarks!!
you sound like you’re expecting too much from your cleaner as most cleaning jobs need to be done every day, I think it’s ridiculous only having a house cleaned every 2 weeks for 2 hours

I would find twenty minutes worth of tasks for her to do. "Freshen bathroom/toilet", Clean kitchen sink and worktops", vacuum upstairs/downstairs on alternate sessions all come to mind.

Alternatively, pay her for 1 hrs 45...

I tutor students and some pay for 45 mins rather than an hour. So if she's earning £20/ph, She'd get £35 and not £40.