Abusive cleaner took pics of my home

[ChicExpert]

My lovely self employed cleaner went back to her own country. New cleaner started this week. House is tidy but dirty floor and surfaces, needs a good vacuum/mop/wiping up. We hire 4 hours a week for a deep clean of the downstairs(kitchen dining living room)/hallway and stairs. Standard 3 bed house in London with kitchen extension, takes me 2 hours to do but pay for 4 so the job gets done properly.

New cleaner came and in 4 hours couldn't clean what we asked which is just vacuum/mop and wipe down all surfaces. Had to ask her to clean individual window seals as she didn't and when she left I noticed the living room window seal wasnt cleaned. She broke my glass chopping board and didn't say anything and left chemicals in the oven which I told her not to clean. Last cleaner was able to wipe the skirting boards and didn't leave a spec of dirt in corners, this cleaner left many areas dirty.

I said nothing and thought I won't hire again. The company messaged me why I don't want to hire again and I said I wasn't happy with the clean nothing else.

I then get very abusive messages and pictures of my floor being dirty saying my house is disgusting. Didn't get to respond before I was blocked by the company.

AIBU? I feel completely violated and want to complain some how. She took photos of my home without permission.

Don't even know what to do now and feel uncomfortable using another cleaner. Husband says I'm over reacting :( am I?

FYI I've added a photo of my home before the cleaner came. Floors are clearly dirty but the kitchen is tidy/needs wipe down.

So you didn't sweep or mop, wtf does a cleaner expect? A fully clean house?!

I'd get a robot cleaner, seriously don't use it when you're not home or your pets might attack it!
But for this to work, everyone has to pick up big items off the floor. It's likely that they don't cos you have a cleaner.

No you're not going to clean before the cleaner comes but you can tidy up after yourself day to day, put rubbish in bins and brush floors, stop it building up. Otherwise you're just living in a mess all week until the cleaner comes.
If OP wants things like window seals cleaned then that suggests a deeper clean. She then needs to not leave trash on the floor to enable the cleaner to have enough time. Four hours might not be enough time depending on the size of the house and if every room is bad.

Me three. IME households where someone is as obsessive about cleanliness as is implied in some of these replies are miserable ones.

OP, you need to leave honest reviews for this company on Trustpilot and Google.

i think people are being really nasty, @ChicExpert .

don’t be embarrassed. You hire a cleaner for a reason. 💐

This is really abusive of OP - get a grip everyone! She has a deep clean every two weeks, there are three animals, children, adults etc - multiple people as OP has said. They're probably working full time and trying to do and be all things to all people, including parent which is a full time job in itself.

The floor is dirty but the fact you've managed to keep everything away and relatively clean is a credit to you. I'm sorry for these responses OP - I don't think it's 'disgusting' as everyone is making out. I think the cleaner probably needed to take pics of the before and after as it was her first time, nothing more sinister than that.

The criticism and judgement on this post is what is disgusting, nothing else.

Can't be that terrible given that it appears that the relationship with the previous cleaner was fine.

Well said! This is exactly why I discounted the idea of getting a cleaner when I was travelling for an extended period of time with work - because I knew I would be rushing around cleaning before the cleaner was due to come and then I realised I'm not so stupid as to pay someone to do something I'd already done! 🤣 (But God save us from the tiny minority of people commenting on this thread who ARE that stupid! 🙄)

@ChicExpert your house sounds like ours. Full and busy with the kitchen in a perpetual state of being used, dishes waiting for the dishwasher to finish, crumbs on the floor (and pieces of dried pasta, dropped and forgotten). We have a Dyson cordless and if I'm working from home I run it round about twice a day and it's still always crumb covered and grotty. It's never ending. And the other adults rarely 'see' it.

I cajole, direct them to take action, shout, but it's always the same. Fucking frustrating. So to those saying that's minging, you probably don't live in such a full and busy house (when it's just me and DH it's immaculate pretty much all the time).

If anyone out there has any tried and tested ways of getting a house of adults to consistently step up, and properly clean up after themselves please do advise, as I'd try pretty much anything at this point.

And OP please don't be embarrassed, the cleaners have behaved badly and you are well shot of them.

Good luck with your pregnancy too 😊

Bunch of bitches on this thread. My kitchen floor can get like that in a morning of three people making breakfast with a dog. I've no doubt it would be worse with 6, a dog and a cat.

OP you're not in the wrong. That's a clean enough kitchen and if the floor wasn't like that you wouldn't need a cleaner.

How can a cleaner be surprised that she's not turning up to a spotless house? I used to be a cleaner many moons ago and this is beyond normal.

Never heard of an abuse of trust then? This pathetic excuse for a cleaner TOOK PHOTO'S of the inside of OP's house without her consent AND sent them to the agency! Appalling behaviour by both "cleaner" and agency.

So… going back to OP’s actual question. Yes, I do think the company were unreasonable taking photos and then sending them in that message. Terrible.

Can’t have been that horrendous for the cleaner to do OP’s “disgusting” floors, they were clearly keen to come back and clean again and only got the hump when she dumped them.

The floor is filthy. Would need 4 hours to clean that alone much less worrying about the window seals.

Oh the floor is dirty, but cleaner is coming soon, so it'll soon be clean"

the floor doesn’t get like that overnight

that is days of things falling on the floor, looking at it and thinking “oh i’ll wait for the cleaner to get a broom”

@CissOff
"I am quite shocked at that floor. I couldn’t ignore that, even if it was due to be cleaned - that’s very slovenly."
Perhaps you should "ciss off"?! 🙄

the OP said the cleaner took photos

so more than just this kitchen floor

the OP obviously would have cherry picked the photo she decided to share on this thread.

So… imagine what the bathroom looks like 🤢

Even with 6 people living there I can't imagine what you are doing in there to get the floor like that in one week! So weird to drop rubbish and not pick it up!

I can't get past posters who seem incapable of using the "OP Posts: See all" functionality on MN which, had you bothered to use it, you would have found out she meant to write cills/sills, not seals. Honestly, some people!🙄

I once worked with a woman who also cleaned part time. She was always sharing pictures of messy houses, blocked sinks etc from her clients houses . made me think twice about who I’d let into my house (would not have been her). Maybe get somebody that a friend or neighbor uses and meet them ahead of time, it’s probably a matter of elimination before you find the right person.

My childhood best friend came from a very wealthy family with a lovely large garden. I remember giggling my ass off at her mother frantically pushing the lawnmower around and pulling weeds because "I have to clear up, the gardener is coming this morning!".

Rich people never cease to amaze me with this utter bollocks.

FFS read ALL of OP's posts! How hard is that for you?! She meant cills/sills, not seals!
How is dusting/cleaning window cills "not part of a normal clean"? Of course it is! You'd clean any other horizontal surface, so why wouldn't you clean window cills?

I’m not rich. We do spend £60 a month on a cleaner though and I get this. If the gardener came and did the jobs she can do then it’s a waste of money. Perhaps she wanted the gardener to do more specialist jobs. It also means you can see the difference.

before our lovely cleaner comes I tidy up. Otherwise she spends time moving things from one place to the other rather than cleaning and when she’s done it looks good.

Other theory is she wasn’t paying him to garden but needed it to look like he’d been by the time her husband got home?

I have a big kitchen @ChicExpert and it’s the room I clean constantly. I can honestly see how floors could get like that in a day or so. When kitchens are small it’s more noticeable and people would clean it up. The only thing I would say is the reason I don’t have a cleaner is that I need to do it all everyday anyway so I’d need a daily and that would be extortionate. I have a vax glide2 that I use several times a day in the kitchen to keep the floors clean. I do the whole floor first thing every morning and then spot upkeep throughout the day as needed for any spills etc. but the vax is a godsend. I hoover and clean the downstairs living rooms, hall and bathroom every morning too. Upstairs bathrooms and rooms are gone over quickly every day and deeper cleaned once a week. I couldn’t leave it all till once a week for a cleaner. It would be awful.

With six people plus children and animals in the house, it really isn't several days' worth. - particularly given that the cleaner seems to have swept it all together anyway.

ONE child

Four hours to clean one patch of floor? What utter nonsense.

And, yet again, OP has made it clear she wasn't worrying about window seals. She just reasonably expected the cleaner to clean sills.