To expect a cleaner to have done more

[YourBlueDuck]

So we've cracked and decided to get a cleaner, DH and I both work about 60 hours and just can't keep on top of it. House is a 3 bed semi, a reasonable sized semi but still a 3 bed house with standard living room, kitchen, dining room, 1 bathroom, no downstairs toilet. We agreed that we'd book in for 3 hours a week for ironing, a light clean and some things to rotate fortnightly, and that first we'd have a deep clean which would take 6 hours. The house was tidy and I don't think it was dirty before they came, we do clean just struggling to keep on top of it. I've come home today from work (DH has been at home while they've been here but been on calls a lot and didn't want to micromanage) to find that they've done general hoovering, dusting and cleaned the bathroom to a nice standard, they've not properly dusted the skirting board on the stairs and they've not dusted any picture rails or pictures on the walls. They've also totally missed out cleaning my office (box bedroom) and the porch, and also didn't do the ironing. They told DH when they left that they'd not done the ironing (even though I'd listed this as a priority but didn't mention the rest. AIBU to feel ripped off? I really don't understand how this standard of cleaning has taken them 6 hours, I feel like I could've done it in about 3 and I'm not a professional cleaner. I don't particularly want to pay £90 for it now to be honest either!

This was a deep clean.

@QuestionableMouseIt can take me up to 30 mins to do the stairs at work - but they're massive and the carpet is horrible to hoover. And there's over 200 spindles to dust 🙃🙃🙃
OP said: The house is a 3 bed semi, a reasonable sized semi but still a 3 bed house with standard living room, kitchen, dining room, 1 bathroom, no downstairs toilet

• *so no comparison, really .........

Hi, myself & my friend clean together and it's really not up to your husband to say. 3 hours is plenty of time to do a good clean if it's all tidy! Think you would need a little longer to do ironing too. Myself & my friend split up like I will do the bathrooms & she will dust, she will hoover & I will mop but also both of us will pull out furniture if needed.
I personally would feel the same as you.

I've never been able to find satisfactory cleaners. I've had cleaners who do a good job first few visits then go increasingly slap dash. Reliability is another issue, cancelling last minute and such like. I don't bother now, much easier to just do it ourselves.
My Dad has had the same cleaner for several years, she's a nice lady but she does the bare minimum (she charges £20 ph so not terribly expensive, but still...).

I appreciate you aren't happy and they've missed things, however I don't understand how you expected a deep clean and ironing? This was never going to happen unless it was half a basket full, although they shouldn't have agreed to it. Id have her back as I doubt they missed stuff on purpose. Cleaners are crying out for work atm

I’d do up a list and itemise under every week / every second week / once a month. Id print this off, and leave it on the kitchen table to tick off. If there’s a language barrier, put a photo of eg ‘lounge’ so they know what room you are referring to.

I’d also specify start time and if they use public transport, check the start time matches a bus time (my last cleaner was always texting that she’d missed the bus and trying to reschedule - I eventually ran out of patience.)

Get her back in over weekend when you are home and can show her what and how you want things doing inc ironing

ideally the 6 hours would have been one person ironing for a couple of hours and splitting the cleaning

I had a cleaner who turned up with her teenage daughter and tried to charge me for 2 full cleaners. I told her her daughter had been following her around and didn’t do anything independently so I assumed she was there to help make your life easier not in place of another cleaner!

At the very least ask her to come back and do the ironing / if they missed out bedrooms they had plenty of time
to do the ironing surely?!

@Concannon88 I can categorically assure you that that isn't the case. I am inundated with work and am turning it down on a weekly basis. Demand for cleaners is at unprecedented levels.

There was 2 of them for 3 hours I'd expect them to take a room each except kitchen where 2 could work at once. I think it's about the attention to detail and them not being very experienced maybe. You should really have pointed the things out and said, could you just do those that you missed. I'd say the fact your house was clean already might have made them think they could slack off a bit. Can you try a new one from same agency, and kind of supervise them on their first visit?

I used to clean houses. I would have been able to do a really good clean of your house in about 4 hours. It takes no time to wizz a damp cloth over picture frames, pick up kitchen appliances and ornaments and put them back for example. Skirtings can usually be done with an attachment on the vacuum cleaner.

Good cleaners don't need telling how to vacuum some stairs. They don't need a list of jobs either, at least not things that you routinely do when cleaning your own house, because they have eyes.

I'd have done a first clean of four hours. Followed by two hours (yes two!) each week. Some jobs I'd rotate, like cleaning the inside of windows. Add time for ironing on to that.

I've noticed that most cleaning companies seem to want to start with a deep clean at the moment for an exhorbitant fee. It's a bit insulting as its almost insinuating that your house isn't up to their standards. It's happened to me twice and both times it's been what I've considered a sub par surface clean. First time I went ahead anyway with the regular clean and hugely regretted it. 2nd time I told them where to go. Half wondered if its crappy cleaners who only last a few weeks so they try and maximise the initial outlay from the customer.

I have a cleaner fortnightly for 2 hours for my bungalow 2 bedrooms,office,large kitchen,sitting room,bathroom,and hall. Easily gets things done in that time - will also wash up and clean outside windows saving me cost of window cleaner. Has just raised her hourly rate from £12.50 to £15 - I am very happy!!

Realistically the girls were probably on minimum wage and the agency got the majority of the money. Sounds lile your expectations are a bit to high for cleaners. You can always ask your hubby to do it on his lunch break 😂. Seriously, there are cleaners and there are Iron maidens. Id get cleaners hours shortened by 2 hours and get an iron maiden for them spare 2 hours. At least everything will get done. Good luck.

I literally study economics. And it is the case. You only have to look on Facebook and see how many cleaners comment on a request post. I have 2 separate cleaners and when I advertised I had over 500 local cleaners apply for 1 role and 1000 for the other.

That's interesting, where we are you can't get a cleaner for love nor money

We recommended ours to a friend (as another friend decided not to continue so we knew a slot was freeing up) but it turns out ours had a waiting list so it was immediately filled. They are currently on 10 waiting lists at the moment and have been since December.

Why do you say that her 'expectations are too high'?

To be fair it was about half a basket full, maybe 8 or 9 tops I think. My frustration is that it was 6 hours because that's how long they said they'd need to complete all the tasks, I didn't pull the number out of thin air

What do you think would be reasonable expectations if mine are too high? My husband doesn't take a lunch break, as I said in my original post the whole reason we want a cleaner is we both work really long hours, most days both of us are still working at 9pm.

I wouldn't get bogged down in any discussion on them fixing the missed jobs if you're not intending on having them back. You don't owe them anything except the pay for the work done. Move on.

We have a fortnightly cleaner, she knows my priority is bathrooms and floors, other than that I'm happy for her to do whatever she can see needs done. She knows what to do and what's fine and doesn't need done every visit, there's no specified list to work from. She's been coming to us for years and the work she does literally keeps us sane. I happened to mention once that I absolutely hated putting clean bedding on, I get myself all flustered with the duvet covers, and she said to leave that job and she would do it, no problem.

As for ironing, I stopped doing that yonks ago. Nothing needs or gets ironed unless it's visibly obviously creased like a shirt (and we never wear those anymore anyway). Hang things up properly, fold, then put away. No ironing required. Once you stop doing it you wonder why you spent years doing it.

Also if you're working all day till 9pm with no lunch break, I'd be looking for a new job.

I think that these cleaners were CF. Many moons ago, I worked as a cleaner during university vacations as it beat working in a shop. I happily ironed clothes and did odd jobs like change the bed. I don't get all these people who are saying that your expectations are too high.

I don't give a shit what you study. I did statistics at University and worked at a senior board level in global businesses (if you want to play top trumps) but I'm now a cleaner and I've never known demand like it. I think my real-world experience trumps any academic theory. It's not always been like this....just in the last couple of years. I see similar posts on fb too but again, that doesn't translate into the demand I'm seeing.

I got rid of one who did this. She also tried to charge me £165 for the privilege of 4 and a half hours cleaning!

She said because I asked her to clean the kitchen cabinet fronts this constituted a deep clean so more expensive as 'physically demanding'.

I've tried cleaners a few times and with the exception of one (who was doing an end of tenancy clean and was absolutely fantastic), they've all been disappointing. I'd expected some level of expertise, but the majority were just like your average person off the street armed with a spray bottle. All of them seemed to prioritise odd things to spend time on whilst missing out more obvious candidates (e.g. I keep a clean and tidy house and did a pre-clean before each one, and made it clear that I wanted them to tackle things like the oven or the bathroom grout etc, and they'd still go ahead and start with dusting and hoovering and cleaning already cleaned stuff).

I've just given up now as it felt like a waste of money and caused me more stress than doing it myself. I've opted for majorly decluttering, buying a robovac, and doing quick blitzes multiple times a day rather than deep cleaning.