Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Do you have a cleaner?

84 replies

kjvjfknv · 22/04/2025 19:30

We are both professionals, live in London in a two bed flat with two kids. We've never had a cleaner, everyone else seems to but Dh thinks it's a total waste of money to pay £60 per to clean what is ostensibly not a large dwelling. He does do stuff around the house but it never feels totally 'clean' in one go. Yes, this is a first world problem ...is getting a cleaner a waste of money?

OP posts:
Elsadutton · 22/04/2025 20:09

I recently got rid of mine… had one for a few years as found it hard to keep on top of things returning to work after the lockdown years and having young kids. The price slowly crept up £5ph every 6 months or so until recently it was £50 for 2 hours. The cleaner was non stop while she was here but it was little more than a surface clean really and she only did one of the four bedrooms with the rest of the house in that time. It was a fortnightly clean, but I think you’d need weekly to really feel the benefit as we were still cleaning on the alternate weeks. We have gone back to doing it ourselves and it is are probably more thorough.

MoominMai · 22/04/2025 20:10

I’m a single woman with health issues still working FT though. If I could afford to I definitely would. I moved into a fairly large detached home quite quickly to escape a violent past and didn’t think through how hard it would be to keep it all clean! Can’t afford it with mortgage and increased c tax etc but once I’m retired when no doubt my health will be worse, i will definitely be budgeting for one. My mental health increases just at the thought of having one! 😅

kjvjfknv · 22/04/2025 20:41

Interesting to hear other people's thoughts on this. It's definitely true that Dh just doesn't see the dirt, although he does clean. With two kids, the mess also adds up. I keep thinking that I will out three hours aside to do everything in one go but never do.

OP posts:
Justkeepingplatesspinning · 22/04/2025 20:45

I would give up every treat before giving up our cleaner. She does more in 2 hours than I could do during a full day, and the place stays dust free all week. I just keep on top of floors, bathroom, kitchen in between visits. We are £18 per hour which seems to be towards the upper end of what cleaners charge around here.

BonneMaman77 · 22/04/2025 20:51

Ours is a small place and we are tidy and clean as we go, but once a week our flat she brings our home to pristine level, wouldn’t have it any other way.

It does depend on the quality of the cleaner we had some not so good ones at the start and found our lady years ago now and love her to bits.

ilovesooty · 22/04/2025 20:52

Yes 3 hours fortnightly. She's brilliant. She does the washing as well. I live on my own but my mobility isn't good enough for me to do it all myself.

Cynic17 · 22/04/2025 20:53

Not valid waste of money at all. If you are both working, a cleaner is an absolute essential.

Bundleflower · 22/04/2025 20:53

Yes, I have a cleaner. Relieves a good bit of mental load. It would be one of the last luxuries I’d give up!

Zeitumschaltung · 22/04/2025 20:56

It’s the easiest way to buy extra free time, which adds to your quality of life. Splitting the cost also means sharing the load rather than the partner who is lucky enough not to see dirt not taking on their share of the burden.

lifemakeover · 22/04/2025 20:57

Love my cleaner - 2 hours a week - £35. Worth every penny!

Wincher · 22/04/2025 20:58

We have one, a lovely woman who has seen our kids grow up and is such a pleasure to have around! She broke her arm a year or so back and we had a couple of different cleaners who might have cleaned a bit better but were grumpy or huffy and that made it a stress (I work from home while they are here). She speaks basically no English (though more than I do Bulgarian which is her language) but we get by with smiles and gestures. It costs us £35 a week for two hours and is worth every penny. If nothing else it makes us tidy before she arrives as otherwise she moves things and we can never find anything…

nightmarepickle2025 · 22/04/2025 21:01

Yep, I don’t buy make up, have beauty treatments, or eat out much. My cleaner is the only treat I need!

kjvjfknv · 22/04/2025 21:01

If your cleaner is in London, how much does it cost per hour?

OP posts:
avocadotofu · 22/04/2025 21:04

It absolutely isn’t a waste of money in my opinion. We also live in a two bedroom flat in London (although we only have one child) and we have a cleaner. It has made the busy juggle of work and life a bit easier and I’d de recommend it!! I would definitely go for it!

roses2 · 22/04/2025 21:04

Worth the money if you can afford it. I had one clean the whole house every week and when she left replaced her with one that cleans half the house each werk so still weekly but less hours. She rotates the rooms so each room gets cleaned once a fortnight. A full clean weekly was starting to cost too much.

If you feel guilty get one for 2-3 hours per week and see how it goes and give them tasks each week.

WinterOnItsWayOut · 22/04/2025 21:17

I’m a single parent, work FT with 2 teens, a dog and 2 cats. My cleaner is amazing and does 3hrs per week for £50. I think she charges £20ph now but I do pay her holiday pay and Xmas bonus so we’ve carried on at £50.

i lost my last cleaner after Covid as she got a job and went through a number of ‘companies’ all of which were rubbish.

Luckily got a recommendation for my current cleaner and she’s amazing. She even got my teens jobs as she seems to know everyone locally! 😄

PermanentTemporary · 22/04/2025 21:26

Yes, as soon as I could afford it. Both of us work full time.

Ask him how much time per week he thinks it would take to do all the housework needed to a standard where you could relax? When I became the breadwinner and my husband was at home full-time with one primary school aged child, he said he thought 1 hour a day should be more than enough. For everything (cleaning, tidying, laundry, food plan shop prep and cook, the lot, plus he hadnt even considered anything to do with caring for ds). I have rarely been so homicidally angry.

I don't brew my own wine and beer, raise my own livestock, grow wheat and grind flour to make bread and pasta, or grow flax to weave into linen. I do grow a few fruits and vegetables but not enough to feed us all the time - other people's work feeds into all these things. We also pay for clean floors and surfaces.

Both dp and I do a fair bit of cleaning, do the laundry etc but the cleaner means we are doing maintenance cleaning, not starting from scratch.

Interestingly, teenage ds became much tidier once we had a cleaner. He had to tidy up each week for them, then really liked having an organised bedroom, and although he's not the tidiest, he has remained more organised ever since.

It makes me so furious when people refuse something that their partners tell them would make such a significant difference to their lives. Try again, seriously.

Mumlaplomb · 22/04/2025 21:27

We’ve had good ones in the past and bad ones. Some don’t do a great job and we’ve had some not stay for the full time we are paying them for. I think the key is to try and get one recommended by people you know.

DefinitelyMaybe92 · 22/04/2025 21:28

We love our weekly clean. Just one less thing on the to-do list!

Kbroughton · 22/04/2025 21:32

Yep. I work long hours and have a long commute. When i come home or at weekends I want to spend time with my family, not dusting. Got a cleaner about a year ago and never looked back.

purplepenguindancing · 22/04/2025 21:33

No I don’t have a cleaner, but like you I do find that everyone around me seems to have one. Even couples where one partner doesn’t work / works part time (although these are all couples with children).

I don’t think it really matters what everyone else does though does it? If you want one and can afford it, get a cleaner.

DefinitelyMaybe92 · 25/04/2025 18:58

Yes, one day per week.

steff13 · 25/04/2025 19:00

I did until COVID. She took a break from it and then moved to Florida, and I never took the time to hire a new one.

Didimum · 25/04/2025 19:14

We don't have a cleaner currently as trying to save where possible. We do have a nanny so she takes care of a lot of the kids' mess, making it just manageable.

£60 seems a lot for a 2-bed flat – even for London. We would pay £60 for 3hr clean of 4-bed, 2-bath.

WildFlowerBees · 25/04/2025 19:31

Ours comes every other week, we absolutely love her she’s worth her weight in gold! I work away a lot so it’s nice to know that when I come home I won’t have to deal with Dh’s idea of clean.

Swipe left for the next trending thread