Cleaner charging up to £45 an hour!

[Aanothernamechanger]

Regular MNuser but NC for this...

Need perspective, and also interested from anyone else who lives in a flat. I bought my flat in 2021. The building is a coming up to 18 years old. There are 5 floors and 20 flats in total.

Overall, the building is in very good condition, as it's generally treated well by people who live / visit here, and is well maintained, although this comes at a cost, hence my AIBU?

Our service charges are approx £2000 per flat per year, and I've recently (November) had the latest annual statement sent to me. On the breakdown of costs, the cleaning for the interior of the building comes in at £2340, which I work out to be £45 per flat per week. I hadn't given this any thought on previous years, probably because it seemed OK when compared to all the other expenses we have, and probably because the building never looks dirty, so I figured someone must be doing something - and I word that very carefully, in as much as I am not saying "you can tell when the cleaner has been", I am saying "it always looks clean, from one day to the next".

Anyway, it never occurred to me that the cleaner we have works for himself. I just assumed he probably worked for a company or an agency or whatever. But I was chatting to him in passing recently, and it cropped up in conversation that he is not an employee of anyone.

So here's my AIBU - I think what we pay for the cleaning would be fair if it was a company who sent staff, but I think it's a lot for someone who works for themselves. Added to which, I can see from my window (I WFH most days) when he arrives and leaves, and sometimes it's only an hour or just over! I queried this with the management company, and they said he (the cleaner) does not charge an hourly rate, he charges a fixed price per calendar month to turn up once a week to "maintain" (their words) the building. They say that the amount of time he takes to clean is at his discretion as he is trusted to keep on top of the cleaning schedule, and that some times he might be on site for several hours (I have never seen this, although with there being five floors there is no knowing where he is when he's here!).

I asked them what they do to make sure we are paying a fair price, and they admitted that it's been a long time since anyone else quoted for the cleaning, but said to me they hire loads of other cleaning companies for other buildings they manage, and "consider" (again their words) that the price would likely go up if anyone else was to take it over. Added to this, they said the cleaner tests the fire alarm and emergency lights which is something they say they could not trust most of their sub-contractors to do, as they don't always send the same people to clean and can't rely on them to do it properly. They said if they swapped cleaners then we'd have to pay separately for a member of the management company to come out each week to do the tests. I am not sure I believe any of that, but hey. They also said our cleaner is exceptionally reliable and very well liked by them and residents in my building and other buildings he cleans for them.

I have spoken to some of the neighbours about it to gauge opinion, which isn't easy as about half of the flats are rented, so the tenants don't care as they don't have to pay the service charges, their landlords do. However, there is one lady who has lived here since the flats were built, and until now she was always quite friendly with me, but when I mentioned this situation she became incredibly defensive (I didn't know until she told me, but she also pays the cleaner to do work in her flat from time to time and clearly thinks the sun shines out of his bum-hole), saying that he'd been cleaning the building for at least 12 years to the best of her memory, and that before then they'd had all sorts of problems with the building not being cleaned properly or regularly, and said there's no way she wants to go through all that again. She practically closed her front door in my face after this!

But I still can't get over how much our cleaner gets paid every week and I think the management company isn't doing enough to ensure we pay as little as possible. AIBU?

This. OP is being beyond unreasonable.

Imagine nitpicking like this over a self-employed man doing manual labour.

I don't think you grasp how this works. No one would bother to take on the job if it paid less. It has to be worth someone's while to give a shit about cleaning your communal areas. It's not some great prize they're delighted to have. It has to stack up as being worth the bother alongside other contracts. This is the price they charge and it's competitive enough or else someone would be under-cutting them or you'd easily source an alternative supplier. Truth is it's hard to find good reliable people to do unappealing menial tasks like this. I don't think it's a hefty cost so yabu.

Is it clean?

Op you sound un hinged!

FWIW I'm not a cleaner but I do a job where I pop into somewhere to carry out a task.
Sometimes I get £25 for something that takes me 5 minutes.
Other times it's £90 for something it takes me 60 mins.
Should I only earn minimum wage?

I don't see why you don't get that someone is paid £45 for this job. It's nothing and he will have lots of other small costs involved including travel etc.

£45 weekly, £ 2.25 per flat ( less than a takeaway coffee ) to come home to a clean hallway.
Have you ever tried to keep 5 floors/stairs looking clean /cleaned that area ?
Am agog you even question it.
Lived in many different flats, run residents associations where we did cleaning ourselves vs paying cleaners. In fact have cleaned a 5 floor communal hallway when my turn, not fun and takes ages.
Most of maintenance charges are taken up by buildings insurance/sink funds/repairs/safety cerificates etc, not cleaners.
I think
you should all count yourselves lucky to have such a relieable cleaner and I don't think they overcharge at all.

You really don't understand what is involved in being a director like this!
You will have 19 neighbours complaining to you about everything. You will end up thinking £45 a week was so trivial when you're spending all your time be hounded by neighbours over really petty things like how much you're spending on a new cleaner AND a contractor to test the fire alarms AND why isn't the place as clean as it used to be.

This really isn't worth the fight!

Seriously OP you really don't grasp the fact normal people are happier not to over complicate their lives is things are well run.
You go ahead and get your directors together (you'd need more than one), sort out all the paperwork, organise yearly AGMs, annual budget and annual accounts which will need to be submitted by a specific deadline every year. Also you'd need a business bank accountant for the company with x number of signatories. All of these are headaches which will not be making material savings compared to the current setup. Unless a lot of you residents volunteer to do a fair bit free if charge. I'm guessing you'd be happy to work for free in the name of communal good.
Let it be. The guy is doing a good job. He is trustworthy and well liked. No idea why you dislike him so much or why you begrudge whatever he's earning. He's not stealing from you. Under £3/week FFS, that's the cost of a loaf of bread.

Well are you unhappy with what he does? You haven't mentioned.

The place is well maintained as you say, so why do you begrudge it?

Wind your neck in. The guys gets £45 per week from your building in total. That’s all he gets. And you think it should be less? Do you actually believe you will find a cheaper cleaning company than £45 per week TOTAL? Not per flat, but the total charge is £45 per week.

You will never find another cleaner who will do that.

You sound like an idiot.

I think what we pay for the cleaning would be fair if it was a company who sent staff, but I think it's a lot for someone who works for themselves.

It is a cleaning company. The owner sends himself to clean the building in addition to paying all the expenses and doing all the admin of running a company. This is how being self-employed works... you're responsible for filling the roles of both employee and employer.

You seem to have made some really baseless assumptions about this cost being too high despite people who have more knowledge telling you otherwise and are refusing to let those assumptions go.

So...your cleaner leaves everything on 5 storeys spotless at all times but you feel aggrieved that you have to reward him with the princely sum of £2.25 a week?
Well of course you're not being unreasonable. The lazy slacker is clearly rolling in clover. What a bloody cheek. I think you should go around all your neighbours and complain bitterly. Then, for good measure, you should post all over the internet about this waste of space. Perhaps you could contact the Daily Mail too.
What a loser. I'll leave you to ponder who that last sentence refers to.

She practically closed her front door in my face after this!

Right enough, I'd probably close the door in the face of someone who begrudges a hard-working self-employed person that everyone else seems happy with, £45 a visit, but would yet be happy to pay the same amount to some grubby agency.

This thread is hilarious. The OP would rather take the time and trouble of setting up a management company in order to, essentially, oust a well-liked cleaner out of their job for having the audacity of charging her roughly £2 a week to clean the communal areas of her block of flats. Imagine being that fucking tight-fisted and mean-spirited.

No-one would do this job for less.

If you employ a cleaner, or someone to do a task (I use Task Rabbit occasionally for one-off jobs that I can't do myself) there will almost always be a two hour minimum charge.
It's not worth anyone's travel time for a one hour charge of, say, £25.

This is quite bizarre. You are wound up about trying to save yourself maybe £1 a week. And setting up a management company would be a ridiculous amount of work, responsibility and pain (and cost), in order to do so.

I think your cleaner is a victim of his own success.
If the building is cleaned and maintained to a good standard £45 / hour is cheap.
You could have someone charge £25 / hour and take two/ three hours to do same work as your cleaner does now.

Yabu.
Less than fifty euro a week to clean the common areas of a building that size, as well as testing alarms and emergency lighting, is a bargain. He is reliable and the work is carried out to good standard.
Aside the amount charged, your main complaint is that the cleaner is liked. Surely most of this is people appreciating the work he does, his reliability and responsible nature. If he was doing a shit job and they were still keeping him on because he was laugh or they socialised with him I would understand, but that doesn't seem to be the case, you have no issues with the standard of the work.

This thread is very embarrassing for you OP.

Are you mad OP? You say yourself that the building is kept clean, and has been for 12 years, reliably, and he also tests the alarms, and you're miffed because some weeks it only takes him an hour?

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. He sounds great. I'd pay him 45/week to come and clean my floors and stairs!

so £117 a year for each flat for communal cleaning?

Exactly.

I can't even begin to understand the mentality of someone who would Scrooge over this. It sounds like a bargain.

Also OP you say you have no visibilty of the costs your Managing Agents incur. You have the right to make a Sectio 22 request, this means you can see all of the documents that make up the sercive charge - so receipts, invoices etc..

Don't complain of not having rights when you apparently have not researched the ones you do have.

How are you so sure that you are seeing every time he visits the flats? Do you never leave, and constantly watch the security cameras?

You've said yourself, the communal areas are always clean. He's doing a good job, yet you want to micromanage what he does, or contract out to a company rather than an individual - for no real reason except that you've seen him be there for an hour sometimes.

And people think highly of him - the utter bastard!

Do you, perhaps, own a cleaning company in need of contracts?

It sounds very good value to me. Stop monitoring the cleaner's comings and goings it's weird.

There’s always one resident in every block of flats who has nothing better to do with their time than question every decision made by the management company, because they think they could do a better job. They usually make life difficult for everyone.

OP, if you’re happy with the standard of cleaning, give it a rest! As everyone has told you on here, the cost seems reasonable.

YABU and are a right CF.
From that he deducts tax, NI, pension, something to cover sick pay, something to allow him holiday pay, supplies, insurances etc etc. Then there’s all the administrative work that he has to do, which means he’s not on a job and therefore not being paid.
That amount is what his business charges, NOT what he earns. Ask your employer how much you cost them per year. It will be around 3 times your salary.