To think this isn’t 3 hours of work?

[WWYDwiththisone]

We had a cleaner come to our new house purchase the other day to do a deep clean. Two of them came, charging £23 an hour each.

They were supposed to arrive at 2. They didn’t arrive until 3:25pm because they were ‘late’ from another cleaning job. They said they would stay until the work was done, yet told DH they needed to leave at 4:50 as they hadn’t eaten all day. They said they’d come back the following day but I told them we needed it that day really so we’d have to do it between myself, my mum and my sister

They did almost 1.5hrs of work each, 3 hours combined.

In that time; they cleaned an IKEA Pax wardrobe unit in one of the bedrooms, cleaned the walls in the bathroom, the bathroom sink and the bath. That is it. They left the toilet, they didn’t get round to the kitchen, or skirting boards, or vacuuming, or mopping.

They have now invoiced for £69.

I don’t see how it would take 2 people 1.5hrs to do the above. I’m pretty sure I could do it in 45 minutes.

AIBU to think that’s extremely bad value? What would you compromise if so?

In three hours (for a client) I tidy a few bits, wipe/dust everywhere, unload and load dishwasher, put a wash on, hang wash to dry, hoover, mop and do bins. If I have time I do high dusting. I also clean the bathroom.

See that’s a lot, that’s good value for 3 hours

What could I say?

I don’t know if I’d be within my rights to negotiate on price but I have left it a couple of days that’s the problem

That's awful! I'd be firing them pronto. My cleaner does my 3 bed house in 2.5 hours for £45...

They’re not coming back but obviously they know my address. I’d be worried they’d take me to court but I don’t think the work provided was satisfactory, yet equally can’t pay them nothing… so I’m a bit stuck

I’ll add the walls in the bathroom were dusty when I ran my finger over them so I’m not sure how much cleaning they actually did - especially to say there was two of them! It’s a tiny 2.5mx2m bathroom too

Don't worry about the fact it was a few days ago.

I don't think I'd pay them the amount invoiced because you agreed to a 3hr clean at £23 p/h, not a 1.5 hour one (which was what you got). They didn't keep their end of the bargain and essentially renegotiated on you on the day without your agreement. It would have been better to tackle it there and then, but I don't think I'd just roll over because I hadn't done that.

I'd probably pay them 1hr each and say you're willing not to leave a bad review if they'll leave it at that!

The £23ph was their individual hourly rate. So it would be £69 for 1.5hrs of both of them doing it. We didn’t set a time length but they said they would stay as long as needed to get it done and weren’t rushing back, as they’d sorted childcare.

Is there anything they could possibly do if I only paid them an hour instead?

in 3 hours I have cleaned a 3 bed/3 bath house - includes all bathrooms/hoovering/skirting boards/blinds/wipe down kitchen units/mopping etc deep clean - as a paid job!

they are taking the piss!! (as did the company i worked for!)

Basically no. They can try if they really wanted but they have no way to prove the work was done and it would cost them more than what they're asking you to pay.

OP I'm not clear on what was agreed?

Your OP makes it sound like they were supposed to do 3 hours work but then you say you didn't agree on a time. Did you agree on a list of tasks?

Your contract was payment per person per hour, not for what they achieve during that hour, so unfortunatley I think you owe them the £69.

But a factual review on how much they got done in the hour, their timeliness and inability to stay for the time arranged wouldn't be unreasonable.

I had 2 people do 4 hours each, so 8 hours for a 'deep clean'. It was rubbish.

They did the kitchen & utility, but not the appliances (they wanted an extra £15 to just clean the hob!)

2 bathrooms with showers & baths. But I had to completely empty the bathrooms, including moving a cabinet out.

Hoovered downstairs and one bedroom and a hallway. Didn't even dust or wipe down bedroom surfaces.

That was all. It was a joke. It wasn't even really horribly dirty, just hadn't had a thorough clean for a while, I'd been keeping on top of it but not being super thorough.

They stayed the full time & made sounds like they were busy but just did so little.

I paid £165.

It went something like

’hi, can I book you for a deep clean? we would like the kitchen and bathroom deep cleaning, as well the wardrobe in the spare room and all the windows/skirting boards’

’yes, we have Tuesday afternoon available. we don’t usually set a time limit, we work until the work is done and charge an hourly rate of £23. since there will be two of us it won’t be a problem to do the requested. we have sorted childcare pick up so we can stay as long as needed’

‘me, great, let’s do it’

I thought with there being two of them they’d reasonably stay 2-6pm and get everything we asked for done. They were over an hour late and after an hour and twenty five minutes they said they needed to go as they hadn’t eaten all day, and would return the next day. I walked around the house (wasn’t there at time of clean, DH was downstairs painting so not watching over them either) and found they’d only done what I described above. The bathroom walls were actually still dusty when I ran a hand over them. I’m struggling to see how that’s all two people could achieve in 1.5hrs (3hrs of work between them) and don’t want to pay £70 for it

Surely their contract was to arrive on time and fulfil the job when promised? I dunno. I see it as paying for a hotel stay but the hotel being filthy, or paying for a meal and them missing half the order but wanting to charge you for all of it

Is the cleaning firm called Miss Merry by any chance?

No :)

Yes, you don't know these people, so who knows what they "could do" if they were that way inclined. But hopefully they will be reasonable people.

Legally, if they were charging by the hour and were there for the time stated, it is very, very hard to prove that you've not had good service as they were charging for their time, not for the work they were doing.

It's all very well them saying they would stay until the work was done, but it all comes back to the same thing - they were charging & you were paying for their time.

You can't therefore easily take an invoice where you've been charged for the time and complain that the "job" wasn't done. You can only really complain about "the job" if you were paying for "the job" to be done to an agreed standard.

For the sake of £69 and for not risking any further problems (unless you've the time & desire for the problems that will inevitably follow from underpaying), I would say pay it and write it off as one of life's less-satisfactory experiences.

What do you mean by your first paragraph?

Agree totally with the first part.

The second part all comes down to whether or not you want any further grief in your life. A poor review to a local business will never be received easily and it doesn't seem worth the aggravation it will cause you. You could say all you've said here, but some people might think what went on was acceptable -it would only be a measure of your unhappiness.

I mean, some people in this world are not as reasonable as you and I might be. We don't know how they may hold a grudge against you for underpaying, and nor do you.

They may take it on the chin. Or not. That's the risk you take.

I'd pay, learn from this, and be quite honest via message.

"Hi, I will pay you the £69, but after seeing what you accomplished on that time, I will be leaving an honest review online and will not be requiring your services further."

Is it a company or just some chancers claiming to be cleaners from Facebook? I expect the latter- if it's a professional company they would rectify and want to hear about this asap.

In*

When I first employed our cleaner, the first clean was a three hour one. She turned up with another cleaner and it took them 1.5 hours. They did everything we agreed and charged me for three hours because there were two of them - 1.5 hours each.