If you have a cleaner would this bother you?

[Gymmum82]

We’ve had a cleaner for maybe the last 6 months. I pay her for 2 hours a week. She’s great. Does everything I ask her to and does a really nice job, I’m very happy with her.
However in the beginning she’d stay the full 2 hours and now today she was here 1 hour and 10 minutes. Most weeks it’s between 1.10-1.20.
I know because we have a doorbell camera so I see her come and go.

Would this bother you?
Part of me thinks I’m paying for 2 hours. But the other part thinks why should she be penalised for being efficient?

YABU she’s taking you for a mug and you should sack her

YANBU she’s doing a great job and good on her for being efficient

I would say to her that if she can either be paid for the time she works or if has time left over there are other things she can get on with and give her a list.

Be prepared for her to just drag out doing the same work over the two hours though.

It wouldn't bother me if she was leaving 10-15 mins early. But 50 mins early is taking the piss IMO. Maybe next time leave her a note with some suggestions of things to do if she finishes early?

I'd add a few jobs on to her list. Skirting boards, inside of one or 2 cupboards each time.

I’d add a couple of extra tasks.

I'd message feigning concern that she needed to leave early today. Let her know that you know.

I'm thinking she's good at her job
She does what you want at the pay you agreed.
Don't lose her for someone who does s half arse job in the prescribed hours.

I think it’s worth it for a clean you are happy with, you could message politely saying you are really happy with her work and please could she let you know if she can fit in a couple of extra areas. She can’t really say she doesn’t have time as you have proof she is leaving early.

Give her a reasonable to-do list and if she gets it done well and faster that’s her business. Life is hard, she’s probably rushing to another job and working really efficiently to keep spinning all the plates. Ultimately, if she’s doing a good job then she is an asset to you. It’s not always that easy to find a decent cleaner, I wouldn’t penalise her for being efficient.

It would massively bother me. She is charging you but not delivering a service - it’s theft.

Well if she charges by the hour then she should fill the time with other stuff, or she’s charging too much

Yes it would bother me. I never understand the posts about not penalising someone for being super-skilled at their job and therefore getting it done quickly. To me cleaning is not something you can get faster and faster at.

You can however, do a half-arsed job of schlepping round a floor with a mop versus a thorough job, rinsing the mop frequently, getting into corners, wiping skirtings, etc.

I think we all know which takes longer. so I think if she’s shaving time off the agreed hours to be worked, she is probably cutting corners.

My dm's cleaner leaves early and she's a crap cleaner too. She also plays houses, so dm's ornaments get moved on a whim.
Unfortunately my dm won't do anything about it so me and siblings end up doing the cleaning when we visit.

This is one of the reasons we no longer have a cleaner - the good ones were always charging 2 hours but only ever doing just over an hour, everyone else was taking 2 hours to do things I can do in 30 minutes (and they were doing a worse job!)
Final straw was when it went up to £22 an hour and she left after 65 minutes 😬

This is really normal for cleaners, I think it is rare to find one who does not

i do not have a cleaner because I find the whole cleaner-relationship deal in the UK very difficult to navigate 😁 So much tiptoeing around and it is not ok to just say: “Hey I pay you for 2 hours and you only stay for 1 hr, what is up?”

the sort of advice is always to play a subtle game where you let her know that you know she leaves early without it sounding like an accusation but you just “hint” at the fact that you have a ring doorbell etc etc

so that is the reason I do not have a cleaner 😁

So no good advice from me, but do what other people say and drop some subtle hints maybe. Or ask her to clean a bit longer

or ask yourself:, if you did not know she left early, would you be able to tell from the amount of cleaning that was done? If not, maybe just leave it

Years ago (before we had cameras everywhere) my next door neighbour told me that my cleaning lady was only doing an hour and a half a week instead of the agreed 3 hours. She told me because it annoyed her - she thought it was unfair and dishonest.

The clincher though was when I went upstairs one day to find my newish bedroom carpet sporting a deep, irrevocable burn where the iron had “fallen”.

Nope, if she’s finishing early what you’ve asked her to do early she can do more work or she can be paid for the hour.

We have a cleaner for two hours a week and if she finishes earlier she’ll do something she doesn’t usually do.

She’ll also do something she doesn’t usually if we ask her and then ask us what we’d like her to leave if she can’t get it finished.

I would say look you do a great job and we value you. I want to confirm the list of jobs we need to get done across the 2 hours (provide a list) I'll leave this in the cupboard.
I want all the jobs done to a good standard as long as thats happening i have no issue with you leaving earlier.

Our is fairly mediocre but turns up reliably and doesnt steal.... what a high bar 😅

Mine did the same and I got rid of her. She didn’t do a good job, she basically did everything in sight but if you looked under the sofa, it would be covered in dust. I paid her for 3 hours and she did 2 on a good day. If the house was absolutely immaculate, I wouldn’t have minded so much but I was sick of seeing dust under beds and under sofas.
The other thing that irked me was that she spent the whole time in her AirPods chatting to family members. I feel like if you are focusing on the task at hand, you shouldn’t have time to focus on a conversation. Or, if you’re focusing on a conversation then you aren’t focusing on the task at hand. Maybe that’s unreasonable though and I wouldn’t have got rid of her just for that.

I think it depends. Is she doing all the work you want her to do to the standard you want? If so maybe you should just pay her a set sum for doing the work regardless. You can’t just add extra tasks on if you have already agreed on specific work. She can just drag the duster round slower if you prefer.

I'd mind if you have a pay by the hour agreement. When I had a cleaner, The lady running the company came and looked around what I wanted done and said to to what you want once a month will cost x Sometimes the work took longer, sometimes it took longer but the cost remained the same.

@MySweetGeorginaI love hearing about these sorts of cultural differences. Might you share what happens in other parts of the world where they are more straight-talking?

I had a fantastic cleaner for a while who powered through the regular clean and then worked on the deeper stuff on her own initiative. That’s fairly rare though.

I’ve also had cleaners who couldn’t get through the tasks in the time allocated, so if you have an efficient one I’d be inclined to count yourself lucky.

I would give her extra jobs to make it 2 hours of work

He who steals my time steals my money

As a cleaner I charge a minimum 2hrs. So if it takes me 1.5 here I'm still charging for 2hrs. Anything less just isn't worth my time. I do make this clear to clients..