Did I get ripped off - cleaners

[Mellowlaz]

So my parents house is the best place to host Christmas. They have a large-ish kitchen and two sitting areas.

I go over once a week to hoover, mop and just chuck old newspapers, leaflets, boxes etc.

I don’t have time to do the biggest clean before everyone comes so hired some cleaners. They came yesterday. I paid £320 for:

• carpet clean living room - 14x12 feet
• Carpet clean stairs and landing
• fabric clean 3 and 4 seater sofa
• Deep clean family bathroom
• deep clean downstairs loo
• carpet clean

4 people came for 1:45 mins.

I’m okay with the results. Carpet feels fresher.

But the bathrooms left a bit to be desired. For that price I would’ve hoped that they deep cleaned the grout. The floor has been swept and mopped but it doesn’t look as perfect as I was hoping. I will probably find time to do it as it’s should be white but is a funny orange brown color. But they didn’t even give the towel radiator a dust. It’s in a good condition and I can get it to that pristine level now without having to do the hard graft. The white painted door wasn’t given a wipe. Water marks on it.

A coffee mark hasn’t been
Taken out. I understand it at not be possible but I feel like a previous carpet cleaner would have been able to manage this.

We live in the SE. The price I think is fair. But I would’ve been willing to pay a fair price for top quality work

Do I have a right to be disappointed?

Seems fairly unusual to have carpet and upholstery cleaners ( velvet would be specialised. ) and then bolt on bathroom cleaning. Maybe as part of an end of rental deep clean. IMy DD had a gap of time between moving into a flat purchase and out of a thankfully temporary and v pricey flat rental and had the luxury of time to have the company who did the change of rental deep cleans for the big flat complex in to do a total deep clean before they moved the furniture in, inc excellent carpet cleaning.

I’m thinking they’re not proper professionals. More like people who have bought a professional carpet cleaning machine and doing what they can. Grrr!

They style themselves as a cleaning company. I rang for the carpets and saw online they had end of tenancy cleans etc. So asked and was told no problem

Seriously? £40/hr, equivalent to a £80k annual salary? Where do you live? Here, in Surrey (known for being expensive), it would be £25/hr max via an agency, more like £18-20 private, them supplying equipment and products.

Really? I don’t pay anything like that.

I don’t usually wash my floors without giving it a scrub with a scrub broom. It doesn’t take a lot of time. Maybe 10 to 15 minutes in total.

I do wash white laundry with lectric washing soda and after spilling some on the floor (and then flooding the laundry after clearing out the washing machine filter) I found it whitens grout just by using a microfibre spin mop.

It sounds like you’re going to have to re-do the bathroom.

Maybe next time you will need to book specialist grout cleaners.

That's quite annoying. They've charged for a deep clean but done a basic clean. I've had the same experience in the past. I think a lot of cleaners reckon we can't tell the difference.

I think maybe you would have been better off getting progressional carpet and upholstery cleaners in, and then separate cleaners in, your carpets would of probably been done better (or paid more to get the carpets done well and then done the cleaning yourself)

Very annoying. I even spoke to the guy on the phone about the fact that my mum and dad keep it pretty tidy ie can wash the basin and bleach the tub. But due to mobility and arthritis can’t do the deeper scrubbing.

I do cleaning work that includes regular cleans to the other end of the spectrum of Biohazard cleaning.

For 4 people and specialist services that’s not a crazy amount. Was the time agreed as 1.45hrs is incredibly short for a deep clean just to be able to do a job throughly.

Some carpet stains won’t shift in that time and depending on the carpet material could be impossible to remove.

I find these threads frustrating you expected your grout to turn back to white which probably has soaked up staining built up over the years. If you want a clean that’s going to restore your home to its original state you pay much more in afraid. The grout would need to be steamed with special equipment and products that would need to sit in the grout to whiten it which just is hard to do within that time frame.

I pay cash in hand for 2.5 hours every week and it comes less than £40 per hour. Agency costs jack it up to £40 per hour. Also cleaners don't get paid for travelling between sites of work or holiday, so they're not the same as an office worker (40 hours for 52 weeks). Eveb if they made £100k a year net it wouldn't be worth having such a shit job.

No that’s the odd thing. we were told two/three hours but they left after 1hr 45 mins. I assumed they brought in an extra person as they were busy. I genuinely have no problem paying a fair price. I probably do the grout once a quarter and get it looking new. But it does take elbow grease I acknowledge that. I have my own family and home so was hoping for a bit of outsourcing. If I’ve underestimated the job I would appreciate that being communicated. Not looking to take the piss with anyone

i got quotes from cleaning companiea that charge more monwy when you call it “something “ eg deep clean, end of tenancy clean etc. i needed my MIL small space deep cleaned after pest confrol. I asked myregular cleaner to do it in the end. Yes she took more time but it was all done

I think you need to look for new cleaners. That's ludicrously expensive (unless you live somewhere like the Channel Islands maybe?).

Going rate is nothing like £40/hr, even via an agency across the UK generally, even in London and the SE.

If the time was agreed at 3 hrs and they left that early that’s appalling. There is always more you can do in time left over.

If you have Amazon prime they do these excellent grout brushes that will help. They come in a pack of 3 and help brush out tough stains.

I would focus the complaint on them not staying the duration first as if that was what was agreed they haven’t finished the job on that alone.

Sometimes this happens when they book too many clients in one day and rush off to get to a job that isn’t close by. It’s not acceptable.

I find their service exceptional and the fee well within my means. Worry about yourself

You pay by the hour so I think it works out £40 per person per hour. Not terrible. But id feel had when it wasnt to standard

If you paid for a deep clean then i would expect every mark and wipeable stain to be gone. My cleaner used to do what she called a 'flick over' but deep cleaned a room a week to keep on top of them.

@Herefornowwi bet you have seen seen some sights.

@Mellowlaz that's the equivalent of £45/hour you paid!!

Personally I don't understand why a deep clean costs more than a normal clean. They're cleaners by trade so professional at what they do. So if a house needs "deep cleaning" then surely it's their usual hourly rate but you would charge for more hours? e.g. as long as it takes to clean whatever it is that needs cleaning (and a professional should be able to look at a job and know how long it will take).

Or are there different levels of cleaning? Surely a key skill of being a cleaner should be attention to detail?

Anyway, at the price you paid I'd want the place sparkling!! I'd be furious at that price to have such a substandard job and would ask for a partial refund rather than someone to come back round.

Did they have more than one carpet machine?

Thanks will try the washing soda hack!

If your white floor is orange and they didn't do the grouting on a bathroom deep clean then yes

I wouldn't pay till they came back

I have had consistently good experiences with weekly cleaners but I have found deep cleans to be deeply disappointing. I get the concept of getting the carpets or sofas cleaned, but I think you are better just getting a specialist to do that and giving your cleaner extra hours to do the cleaning.

Yeah but if a cleaner has been asked to deep clean something that cannot be cleaned she generally says 'I had a good go at the grouting but nothing doing'. The fact they didn't, combined with the dirty floor indicates that they didn't really bother their arses and are gambling on the OP not complaining