Cleaner advice?!

[Darsar111]

We've never had a cleaner before and we really struggled to find one. We finally found one that charges £18 an hour and agreed to do a fortnightly clean for three hours - great we thought and got them booked in. We agreed that they would clean one kitchen, two living rooms, two toilet, two bathrooms, hoover two flights of stairs, and an upstairs bedroom.

They completed their first clean on Friday.

When we came home, we were quite disappointed as they had only cleaned the kitchen and the two living rooms. When we queried this, we were told that they didn't have time to do the rest as they wanted to make sure that they did a proper job of the rooms that they had cleaned. We were disappointed with the quality of the clean as there were still marks in the corners of the floors, they hadn't cleaned the dining room table, surfaces still had dust on and they had wiped items in the kitchen not under them. We were told that they need more time to 'get on top of things' and for the next clean will do upstairs only. After that, they can do all the house in three hours.

Is this normal for cleaners to spend longer one only a few rooms first 'to get on top of things' ? Are we expecting too much in three hours? Admittedly, our house isn't spotless- but I can normally clean the kitchen and mop floors in around an hour. Any advice on expectations would be great.

I always do a longer deep clean before taking on a new client in a regular basis.

Clients always underestimate just how long detailed and thorough cleaning really takes. That said, it doesn't sound like she's done a thorough job anyway. I always say you can either have thorough or you can have quick but you cant have both.

That's a lot of work for three hours. It's about the same as mine and I have a cleaner every week for four hours.

We’ve had a cleaner since I went back to work after I had DS who is now 5. We also have three hours every 2 weeks and she charges about the same.

The first time she came she did a deep clean and so it took longer and we paid more - so I don’t think this is unusual as a one off tbh

We only have the one living room (!) and our cleaner does the whole house 4h per week. You were very unrealistic hoping to get all that done, with such a big house, in just 3h unless you just wanted a brief tidy and some room spray

I’m a cleaner. The first clean always takes me longer so I double the time for the first one usually.
Partly because I clean everything really well, and then it takes less time to keep on top of and also partly as it takes a bit of time to get used to the house, where the plug sockets are, how far the hoover reaches from that socket etc.
But I will also mention my fortnightly cleans take longer than my weekly ones because there’s more dirt there!

It’s customary for the first clean to take much longer than the subsequent cleaning sessions. My only concern in your case is that this wasn’t communicated to you up front.

I think they often do a more detailed clean the first tint but the should have worked out how long that would take and manage your expectations, not just leave it half finished

That sounds like far too much to clean in 3hrs per fortnight.

The first clean is usually a deep clean, where they get it up to standard and then more like a maintenance clean from there on, unless you specify to spend more time on a particular area. I usually have 2hr clean, but my first clean was 4hrs.

I wouldn't expect cleaners to be moving things either, surfaces should be clear for them to be able to clean. Things like dirt being left in corners isn't good though!

I think your expectations are unrealistic for 3 hours.

We just had our first clean with a new cleaner - it included 1 large kitchen/diner, 2 bathrooms, a downstairs loo, living room and stairs and landing carpet. This sounds similar to the amount you've requested and we've arranged a fortnightly 5 hour clean. First clean it took her the full 5 hours to do all of these. If she finds she's getting through it quicker on subsequent clears, she'll add in additional jobs.

I think what you've requested in 3 hours is probably unrealistic.

Whether a deep clean takes longer or not isn't the issue, the job she did on the limited areas she did wasn't up to scratch and there was still marks. iPad assume the three areas done would have been fecking sparkling after 3 hours on them. They weren't. I'd be disappointed and I also wouldn't be using her again

In four hours our cleaner cleans 3 bathrooms to a high standard, 2 loos, vacuums stairs and a couple of rooms and wipes down kitchen. Might be able to mop hallway or kitchen. I think you need four hours or accept a quicker run around for three hours.

Yes, I’ve known it take 4 hrs to clean a kitchen on the first visit, same with a bathroom. I’m a fastidious cleaner and once I’m on top of it I have a routine and everywhere is immaculate every week.
Theres no excuse for leaving dust and dirt and not getting into every corner, 3-4 visits should be enough to get to this level, and £18 per hour is deep clean standard

It will be 21 years in January since I started my cleaning service. I have no idea where time goes.

In all those years of working for more clients than I could remember (a few only wanted a one-off clean, but most were regulars for many years, until their circumstances change), I can tell you this - every single first clean involved more time & I allowed for that, and almost all the houses required a lot of work to improve the standard (though it's fair to say I've hit the ground running on a few of them, where someone else -be it the homeowner or a previous cleaner- had been cleaning regularly & to a high standard).

Some houses have taken literally months of one visit per week or every two weeks to break the back of the cleaning and get it to "that point" where it cannot get any better given what there is to work with.

In all of this, I have only ever had two people tell me they were disappointed with the first clean, and in both cases it wasn't the quality of what was done, it was the fact that not everything got done. Everyone else has always been gushing with praise - I remember being told by one lady that -after just one visit- the difference was like "night & day", and I'd only cleaned one room & vacuumed all through.

It will probably take several visits from the cleaner for you to really get into the swing of it and to see what you are getting for your money. He/she may well be crap at what they do, or not able to do what you want, but unless you've taken an instant dislike to someone who cleans for you, you've got to be prepared to invest in the process.

You must also remember that cleaning a house falls into two categories - cleaning "up" after you and your family, and cleaning "down" the building. Most of the people who have asked me to go weekly have wanted me mainly to clean "up" after them, mainly because they don't do much cleaning at all. As such, these houses don't get the attention to detail, because most people haven't got the budget or desire for it, they just want to be taken in hand for another week.

Those who have me fortnightly or monthly are the ones who do a lot of the cleaning already, and / or keep the house tidy at all times. These are the people who want me to go in and clean "down" the building - less dusting surfaces etc. and more moving furniture, cleaning windows, and generally doing the jobs they don't or can't do. Vacuuming with a decent mains-powered vacuum cleaner, mopping, along with cleaning bathrooms, are what a lot of people ask me to do, as they struggle most with this. The less frequent people ask me to go, the more specific they have to be about the tasks they want me to do.

However, when a cleaner starts working in a house that requires improvement, it can be like pushing water uphill with a rake, as not only are they trying to deep-clean areas that may well stay clean for a long time afterwards, they're also fight another weeks mess created by the family who live there. I cannot emphasis enough how long it can take to get the balance, and the less mess you make generally while a new cleaner is attempting to clear a back-log of built-up dirt, the sooner that point will arrive. If you know your house is needing to be brought up to scratch, it's better that a new cleaner is allowed to concentrate on those parts first, more so than cleaning up after you.

The only thing from the OP that troubles me about your cleaner is that there's no mention of the cleaning telling you beforehand that the first clean is unlikely to tick all of your boxes, although it took me a couple of years to find my voice, so I can't say I'm without blame. I had to learn how to politely dictate my terms & conditions and appreciate my worth. I am very wary of people who've never had a cleaner before, in the same way I am of people who've had several in a very short space of time. The former can have expectations way, way above what is realistic as they've no experience to bench-mark it to, and the latter is just one red flag after another...yes, there's many a bad experience to be had with cleaners, cleaning companies, and cleaning services, but when a potential client is ranting about having had four cleaners in this year and it's only July, you can bet your life I'm not going to become number five so that I can be talked about to number six.