To sack my cleaner?

[BigLittleRedOne]

Just want to preface this with stating that I realise I am lucky to have a cleaner, and I realise many people don't.

I've had the same cleaner for 8/9 years. She is very good, thorough and it is a lifesaver as both partner and I work full time and have two (messy) kids and a couple of pets.

She currently is due to come once a fortnight.

HOWEVER she is very unreliable. She has a lot of health issues and so do her family. Most of her cancellations are due to this. But she lets me down so often and usually when I'm desperate for the house to be cleaned (today it's cos we've got guests arriving this evening for the weekend)

I've just counted up and in the last 6 months she has cancelled 7 times (out of 12!)

The trouble is I feel a loyalty to her, she's a nice person, I've known her a long time and the cancellations are genuine health issues. But I want to be able to rely on her and I need this support!

I don't know what to do.

I’m kind of in the same boat, my cleaner changes days almost every week. It’s really annoying as you rely on the cleaner to do the cleaning but if you have guests etc. then you have to do it yourself so it’s pointless her coming. Also really difficult to make the decision when the cleaner has personal problems, mine has kids with SN and her life sounds really difficult and I know she relies on the money. But it’s also not unreasonable to expect someone doing a service to be reliable as you fit around them. Sorry no advice, just empathy!

This

I think this is common that many people want a lot of cleaning for a little money. Cleaning is hard work and some peoples houses are really grubby or they want an extra job added on, or it starts with an unmade bed or a few dishes in the sink and snowballs.

I think you need to have a conversation with her first. Just sacking her straight away is not fair. imagine if someone did that to you at your job without telling you that there was a problem first. Anyway I hope you get it all resolved :)

I would sack her, there are so many great and reliable cleaners out there. Go for an agency for reliability because they'll send a replacment cleaner.

You clearly don't have fibromyalgia or another fatigue causing disease.

Yes, you can push through the pain and exhaustion. Until in very short order, you give yourself such a terrible flare up that you can't even make a meal or wash and dress yourself.

Do you genuinely believe people should be pushing themselves to the point of being unable to care for their basic needs? Or did you just not get it and you thought fibromyalgia was akin to having a bit of a headache?

I think it depends how long these issues have been going on. She has worked for you for a very long time. Like others have said, does she reschedule?

I have hyper-mobility, rheumatoid arthritis and aplastic anaemia. I really hope that’s enough conditions to deem me worthy of having an opinion.

I still get up everyday, go to work and run my businesses. Some of it is tough physical work. I just get on with it.

Yes people should be getting off their arses and pushing themselves. It will not kill you to work with pain. I do it every single day.

You're not winning any prizes from me for working yourself into the ground, nor for telling other disabled people that they're lazy.

If it's alright with you, I'd still like to be able to use my hands when I'm 60 so I've got no intention of going out destroying my joints and my entire quality of life for an employer that wouldn't care if I dropped dead tomorrow. I'm supposed to sacrifice the last vestiges of my health for cash? Bollocks to that. You can't buy new hands.

Aren't you lucky that your many conditions obviously don't interfere with your ability to work?!!

It's not just a case of 'pushing through'... People with these chronic conditions have fatigue that is qualitatively different... (you can check out the research if you want..)

As a matter of interest how bad do your flare ups get??

I've worked with people who can push through and then spend the next 3 days on bed on morphine...

I have an AI so I know what it’s like working around illness. But this is taking the piss. She needs to find work she can reliably complete around her health issues and that of her family.

Look for an E.European cleaner.

Of course RA & anaemia interferes with her ability to work.

Well let’s take today as an example. For want of a better word my whole left side from my hip to my ankle is killing me. I can JUST about walk on my ankle. I also barely slept because joint pain means I have to keep moving during the night.

Tonight I’ll go home after doing a full weeks work and do nothing other than use my fingers to order dinner. I’ll probably have a two hour bath because it helps and go to bed at 8. In the morning I’ll probably have another two hour bath then go to the pool to sit in the jacuzzi for another hour while DH goes to work. I’m not needed on Saturdays otherwise I’d be there. The likelihood of me doing anything at all this weekend is slim to none other than pick up my crap so the cleaner doesn’t think I’m a total slob. Not every weekend is like that. Sometimes I have little pain. This week it’s been bad and I’ve powered through. I’ll recover on my down time tomorrow when I’m not letting anybody else down or expecting someone else to pick up after me. A lot of it is just will power and how much you want to live a normal life.

You can't sack someone you don't employ!

You could have a conversation with her and say if she isn't able to come on the agreed dates in future you will need to let her go, and see if anything changes.

Hmm, tricky. How about giving one last chance by saying that you sympathise with her health problems but that the last minute cancellations are making life too difficult for you. Is it possible that she could find some way of being more reliable? If so, that's great, but otherwise you're going to have to let her go, and look for someone more able to commit. No hard feelings; she's a lovely person and a great cleaner, etc etc.

I wouldn't call being barely able to sleep from the pain you're in a normal life.

But you're your own person. If you want to make yourself sick all the time and cause permanent damage to yourself in the process, that's up to you. But you can't insist that others should be doing that.

Have you tried an infra red sauna? I swear by mine.

What a silly thing to say. She’s neither making herself sick or damaging herself, she’s just to cracking on with a relatively normal life rather than sitting on the sofa watching TV all day.

Have you actually had a discussion about it with her?

And I appreciate that she is self-employed but some form of 'warning' along the lines of 'this isn't working - I need my house cleaned' might give her enough of a shock to get her back on your track

I had a very similar cleaner. She let me down the week of Christmas and didn't even message. When she finally got in touch I told her I was managing the cleaning on my own now. Big relief.
I've since found someone else who is an absolute demon cleaner and very reliable.

Unless you actually employ here and pay her NI etc you don't have to sack her. She is a self employed person and you don't want to use her services any more.
I appreciate you feel sympathy for her, we had a cleaner we really hoped would retire as she wasn't up to a physical job and DH used to joke she would probably keel over while doing skirting boards or similar. It wa sgetting to the stage where I would have had to let her go but she retired thank God.
You can feel sorry for someone but you presumably need a cleaner who can do the job so its fine to ask her not to come any more

Maybe this would offer you a way out OP…

My cleaner didn’t come for a month (fortnightly clean). Then she wanted to re-arrange the next clean for another fortnight. That would take it to 6 weeks with no clean. I messaged to say that actually, it turns out I have coped fine the last month without cleaning, and considering the general cost of living I should probably direct my money to other things that need paying and do the cleaning myself.

Very different to cleaning a house.

Not sure op... I've done self-employed cleaning and also have health issues. I suppose a lot of women will chronic health issues are attracted to cleaning because it's quite flexible. The problem is that it's also really hard physical work.

Could you book her weekly? Then she might turn up half the time, or she might turn up more regularly because cleaning a house weekly is so so much easier than cleaning a house every fortnight.

No that wasn't a silly thing to say. Powering through chronic pain and illness isn't something to be congratulated on. And sitting on the sofa resting is not something shameful. I really wish people would try to develop a bit more empathy towards people with chronic fatigue/illness.