Clean a house to a good standard in just two hours

[Shittyhouse]

Seen so many posts about cleaners, with a lot of people talking about two-hour cleans. I’m just wondering what I’m doing incorrectly, because two hours is not enough to clean my house. How can you clean a house to a good standard in just two hours?

If my sums are right, your figures take it up to a total of

5 mins per toilet (3) = 15 mins
10 for each bath or shower (3) = 30 mins
5 for each sink (4) = 20 mins
5 per window/mirror (3 windows and 4 mirrors) = 35 mins

ie 95 mins which is 1 hour and 35 mins.

It doesn't actually take me the number of minutes you've estimated for the above, as I.5 hours also lets me wipe down the tiled areas, cupboard doors, sink counter (one room has two sinks with a countertop) and doors/door handles plus empty two bins and put in new liners.

To the pp asking why tiled surfaces need cleaned each week, they regularly get splashed/marked plus one of our bathrooms has a tiled wall with decorative tile ridge which catches dust.

I still don't see how someone could clean a whole house in 2 hours, or even do a couple of bathrooms and a kitchen in that time.

I used to have a couple of cleaners who did three hours total in our old house. They didn't clean the bathrooms or kitchen apart from hoovering and washing the floors. In addition to those, they hoovered and dusted the living areas (two rooms), hall/stairs, washed the hard floors of the living areas and downstairs hall floor, and dusted/hoovered three bedrooms. I made sure all the rooms were tidy before they arrived so they had a clear run. They worked hard without a break and that was what they could manage in three hours.

It’s the tidying that takes me time. I do need to declutter. But I still can’t clean my house in 2 hours.
I don’t use bleach!!

That is absolutely ridiculous. How can that possibly take a cleaner 2 hours? I can clean my own 3 bed top to bottom including bathroom in 2 hours

I couldn’t clean one floor in two hours! But that’s because my house is not tidy, so half the time it’s picking things up and putting stuff away before I can start any proper cleaning! I used to have a cleaner who could spend half an hour just doing the bathroom and she never managed to get our whole (5 bed at the time) house done, even though because she came every other week it was a lot tidier than now my current home.
I once had a woman who trained at a hotel and she could though - did an excellent job, got everything done and even had time to clean out a kitchen cupboard or two. She was unreliable though - would go MIA for a few weeks at a time and eventually just disappeared (and I owed her £20)! She was the best.

You can't.

I used to have a cleaner for 2 hours in my old house. It was 4 beds, but the size of an average 3 bed and with only one bathroom. She would clean the kitchen and bathroom, and hoover and mop throughout. In reality, she got through these tasks in about 1 hr 20 (and then left!) so I think a decent regular clean on a small-medium house could definitely be done in 2 hours. That wouldn't include any deep cleaning, occasional tasks, or things like changing beds.

You really can

Our cleaner does 1.5 hours. That includes kitchen diner surfaces, hob and sink, vacuum and mopping, vacuuming and mopping hallways and living room and 1.5 bathrooms. If any time left over will do dusting but it's definitely not a deep clean eg not skirting boards or lifting things off shelves etc

No chance. Scrub sink, toothbrush to scrub crevices etc, rinse sink, dry sink. Same with taps. Polish taps to streak-free finish. Loo cleaner in and left to sit for a while. Scrub bowl. Clean rest of loo. Use steamer to really get into all the nooks n crannies. Wipe tops of doors, cabinets, mirrors. Scrub shower, rinse shower, dry shower, polish glass screen to streak-free finish. Same routine with bath. Hoover floor. Clean floor. Empty bin. Clean loo roll holder, towel rail, shower head, any shelves, cabinets etc.

I could when I was working as a cleaner. I can't do my own house in a month of Sundays but I could shit absolute miracles in someone else's admittedly tidy house. It used to sparkle, my favourite ever job.

Christ alive. I only do some of the stuff on your list once or twice a year, and my house is spotless. Wiping tiles, windows, skirting boards, doors...... You must be really dirty, or obsessively clean. Oh, and I never used bleach.

It depends what you want done, and what you do yourself.

Absolutely , every day the bathrooms are cleaned toilets bleached, worktops oven tops sprayed and wiped down and hoover (don’t pull furniture out daily) most of my friends also do this I thought it was normal ??

No I don't think so. I don't know anyone who does that daily. I do bathrooms and vacuuming once a week.

My cleaner said she likes to book four hours for a new customer to get everything up to a standard. Then it's two hours a week. Last week she did a deep clean of the kitchen, mopped hall, bathroom and vacuumed sitting room. She's very quick.

I've always wondered about the 2 hour clean as well... I can spend that giving my kitchen a good going over and my house is generally clean and tidy. However, it gets very dusty, daily (old, floorboards, by a road etc), and wet wiping dust alone takes up so much time.

You do know bleach is really bad for the environment?
No-one I know cleans that often. I do it when things are looking grubby, but when I do clean I do a really thorough job so a kitchen or bathroom might take me getting on for an hour.

I've only heard about the daily clean on mumsnet! Hard to see how there'd possibly be time?

It's not good for the lungs either

We have a “clear desk policy” for the home. Meaning that nothing is left on the surfaces of the bathroom, coffee tables, table, work surfaces or banisters, shoes are put away etc. and rubbish is consigned to the bin before the cleaner arrives.
We don’t get the bedrooms done, just the upstairs and downstairs loos, bathroom, landing, stairs, hallway, utility room, kitchen and living/diner.
It takes our cleaner the whole two hours (with help from us moving furniture in the living/diner), but it works for us …

Cleaning your own house takes longer than a professional. We get distracted in our own houses by other random things, bits that need tidying and put away that we've been putting off.
I get it, my house is clean and tidy 98% of the time, my cleaner actually says I don't need her.
A paid cleaner is on the clock and doesn't 'see' the extra things that we do as we live here, quite rightly they are here to do a job and no extra.

I just done this 🤣

I’m not sure what you don’t understand?

A professional cleaner who does nothing but clean - no tidying away, no dishes, those things are done before she gets here - is of course quite efficient.

It would be very strange indeed if she were not quicker than me.

My cleaner is like the Duracell bunny. She doesn't stop from the moment she arrives. She's constantly on the go and entirely focused. I'm never like that. Too many distractions and I'm not as organised (or as energetic) as she is. She does living room, dining room, kitchen, cloakroom, hall stairs and landing, bathroom and two of the four bedrooms (though I think she whizzes the hoover around them all, though I don't ask her to).

So yes. I can't clean my house in two hours, nowhere near. But she can.

I have my cleaner for 2 hours twice a week and I think she does a great job. She also changes the bedding in 3 bedrooms in that time too. We try to keep it tidy in-between and I tell teens everything off the floor so cleaner can vacuum on a Thursday.