Our cleaner got offended

[Hocuspoc]

I am confused.
We have a cleaner for a couple of months now, a nice lady, but doesn't exactly stick to a schedule.
We agreed on 2 hours per week after her own assessment how much it would take her to clean the flat on weekly basis.
With the exception of first two times, she started leaving earlier, for a couple of weeks now she is staying no longer than hour and a half.
Yet, she always says at the end - 2 hours done hence x Pounds for today.
Because I don't find money on the street and because there are more things left to do every time she announces she completed the work, we decided to make a list of tasks so there is enough work to use up the 2 hours (which we are paying for).
She was absolutely livid when I introduced this plan. There was nothing out of ordinary on that list, nothing that she didn't do the first time she cleaned the flat. Yet she stormed through the flat for 2 hours to the minute and left without saying goodbye - assuming she is not coming again 🤷🏼‍♀️
I really don't understand people anymore,sigh...

If she's charging for 2 hours then yes, I'd expect her to be there for 2 hours.

Maybe she thought it was 'clean the flat, with these things included, for £X'... Not £x per hour?

How odd. Its not you....

You well rid of her. Hopefully next cleaner will work the two hours you paying for

If she does this to 3 clients, she has 1 1/2 hrs free to fit another person in.

It's not right, but it might be how she thinks.

She was challenged about short changing you and had a tantrum.
No loss

Totally unreasonable of her OP

So she stopped cleaning things that she was cleaning in the first clean she did for you?

Sounds like she was hoping to get her feet in the door with a great first clean and then coast on 1.5 hours forever more.

Paying by the hour always seems to cause problems. It’s much better to have a list of tasks expected and agree a rate based on those. Everything ticked off the list = fair payment.

V bad form on her part. You did nothing wrong and she comes across v badly.

I had this exact same thing with a cleaner.

it's definitely not you! Chuck and move on. It takes a few tries to find someone great

Yes, but that's not how she charges. She charges by the hour - she was very clear about that. And there is no misunderstanding either - she makes a statement at the end saying : 'So 2 hours for today equals x Pounds'
The problem is that it is never 2 hours 🤷🏼‍♀️
To answer another question from the above -no she does not manage to do everything she did the first time around. But I am a reasonable person - not everything needs to be done every time. One time she can wipe the cupboard doors in the kitchen, next time it can be bedroom wardrobe doors etc... some things are sensible to do weekly some fortnightly, I have no problem with that - hence the list of available tasks. But one thing is sure - there is enough work for two hours as exemplified the last time she visited .

I think you should take the the initiative and tell her her services aren't needed anymore.

Even if she does return for another clean, she will storm around bring livid and maybe damage things in her anger.

am I the only person who just finds having a cleaner too stressful!

She was stroppy because she knew she was in the wrong.

If she said 2 hours then she needs to do 2 hours. If all the basic things you have agreed are done in less than that time then she should clean other things which don't need to be done weekly in the etra time she has.
I see nothing wrong with your list. She only needs 1.5 hours to do the general clean so she has half an hour left to tackle some other things.
If she doesn't want to work like that then she should charge X amount for cleaning of a, b, c, d, e, which would mean if she was finished early she could leave early as long as everything had been cleaned.
Or she does 1.5 hours work and gets paid for 1.5 hours work.

Not, oh I'll just work for 1.5 hours, do nowt else and charge the client for 2 hours.

YANBU. I have an agreement with our cleaner that it's up to her, if she wants to finish early after the clean and we pay for that time that's fine, if she wants to stay longer and do some specific extra jobs and be paid for more time that's fine too. Honestly though if a cleaner is claiming for 2hr of cleaning and then leaves early and charges for 2hr that's theft. There is always more that can be done or more care/attention that can be paid and imo it sounds like she's cutting corners to get away early while taking money for that time. Sneaky.

I'm glad you have wrote this as I'm struggling with my cleaner myself!

When we started using her, she charged £48 for a 2.5 hour clean.
I always left £50.

Then she said she was coming with another cleaner so the clean would be 1/2 the time (1.25 hours) but charged the same as it was the same amount of work but 2 cleaners.

I thought this was fine and I've paid the £50 every week.

I've recently been checking my doorbell when they've been arriving and leaving and noticing some days they are arriving at say, 1pm and leaving at 1.50pm.

I feel like she does the basic hoover etc but she's namely just gassing my house with air fresheners so it smells great when I get home.

I don't know how to tackle it at all? I'm thinking of getting rid of her after Christmas but I just don't know what to say.

In my experience, with good cleaners you don't have to hold them to a specific list to try ensure they do the job properly, they have pride in their work. With crap ones, you have to hold them to it and they won't do it properly anyway out of spite/laziness. If you get to the point with a cleaner where you're trying to present them with a list of jobs and they storm out you've lost and need to sack them off.

It's frankly hilarious that she thinks she can be offended because her customer has expected her to do certain normal jobs in the time she's there.

If she comes back, she'll slow down to do the previous tasks in 2 hours to teach you a lesson.

Her mouth is saying "two hours done" but her brain is telling her that if she zips around and does the work in 3/4 of the time then she "deserves" to leave early for full pay.

She's likely not deliberately ripping you off, but she doesn't care that much about all the little shortcuts she's taking to make it 1.5hrs.

Depends on the cleaner.

With a good, honest cleaner, no. It shouldn't be stressful.

With crap ones, so stressful. I stopped using cleaners when we just couldn't find a decent one until our old one returned. The hassle and stress of coming home to a house that needed significant extra cleaning after forking over a load of cash specifically for the feeling of coming home to a clean house... was horrible. I'd rather do it all myself then I know it's done properly.

So, you’re in the house when she is cleaning and when she comes and says, “That’s been 2 hours so X pounds please,” why didn’t you reply with, “You got here at 12 and now it’s 1.30 so that’s an hour and a half, here is X pounds for the time you’ve been?”

We used to have a housekeeper two days a week where it was clear that she was not working her full time. We also sought to address this by writing a list of tasks to complete and her attitude was really defensive and annoyed, despite us approaching it politely and non-accusatory. Because of her high defence, we then asked for timestamps on the jobs she was doing, which she struggled to provide, and then became more disgruntled.

In my opinion, if people are decent and honest workers they will have no reason to not want to work with you on the job they are being paid to do. They will normally only become difficult and defensive if they know the jig is up.

I don't employ people to make my life more difficult so we parted ways.

Just message and say thanks for your work, I've decided to do it myself going forwards so no longer need our regular booking, best wishes.

Don't complicate it.

Yes pretty much... It's not like she has done anything more last time she stayed for 2 hours.
But I really don't understand her logic, why would you expect someone to pay you for the time you are not working if you are charging per hour worked. Why is she mad at me - why does she think she is teaching me a lesson here !?!
All I see is a really disappointing attitude, it's just ridiculous.
I have to work 8 hours a day, and we all know what would happen to me if I started staying at work 6 hours instead. 🤷🏼‍♀️