Cleaners' contempt for their clients

[bookmarkymark]

(preface this by saying I love my cleaner, she is here now and she is excellent)

but... I have noticed through the years, mainly on a local 'mums' facebook group (15k) members, some absolutely attitudey comments from independent cleaners. Saying people want it done cheaply, high workload, constant requests. Pay peanuts for work that you can’t or won’t do your self. Exploited and under-appreciated.

Compare their expectations of pay to a highly skilled job (like electrician), but in the same breath say that women could clean their own house if they could be arsed. Which is it?

Surely, there is a going rate and if you accept a job for a rate you are willing to work for, that's what you do.

Of course, no excuse for rudeness, but this cuts both ways. I wish women could appreciate the women they work for, and the women who work for them!

Does cleaning only apply to women?
My husband is equally he responsible for the cleanliness or otherwise of our house

We aren't all like that! I quote for the job, I don't have a time limit on the job, they accept or don't accept the quote, whatever. Sometimes, I even turn down the job because they try to cut you from the get go.
I love all my families theat I work for and they appreciate me.

You're misreading the post! Your hubby doesn't clean other people's house does he??!

No, you've misread the post - it talks about women judging women in both directions

And actually one of the local cleaners in our village is male

Its mumsnet, so ofc it has to derail and go wrong within 3 posts!

The experiences I've seen of judginess are from a women's Facebook group, so that what i know about/am posting about here.

It depends on your attitute to your cleaner. Some people make a decent salary but try to get extra work for no more money. If you're decent to your cleaner she won't complain about you

You really should have MNHQ edit your title to 'some cleaners'.

My cleaner's fab. £18an hour, 6 hours a week. Totally reliable, always nice, works very hard. I pay her Christmas week and a week in the summer when she doesn't come. She's been with me for six years.

Does bathrooms, vacuums and steams hard floors weekly. Kitchen is always immaculate. Does a bit of dusting and all my ironing.

Why not go on that FB group and suggest to the cleaners who feel ‘women should clean their own houses’ that possessing a vagina doesn’t give you cleaning duty? Our cleaner, who is great, cleans ‘for’ the entire household, two thirds of which is male. She’s not doing my job.

Maybe there's some misunderstandings between householder and cleaner? A few years ago my ruptured my Achilles tendon and really needed a cleaner. She was really good at what she did but had a set routine from which she wouldn't vary. So wouldn't clean my kitchen floor when I asked her. It wasn't that I was expecting her to do more hours, just to substitute this task for something else she would have done instead. No way would she do it. In hindsight I wonder if she thought I wanted her to do this as well as everything else, whereas I wasn't actually asking her to work any more hours.

I’m sure there are people who overload their cleaners but I’m guessing there are many more cleaners who do a rubbish job. I’ve just got rid of one who started fine but now doesn’t even bother cleaning behind the toaster. As to the question why shouldn’t we clean our own homes.. why would I when I can have a cleaner?

Quite.

I have a cleaner for 2 hours once a week, £15 per hour. She's great, gives bathroom a good deep clean, same with kitchen, vacuums living & dining room & hall, dusts etc. I prefer to do bedrooms myself. Then if she has time left over she will do other things such as clean windows, fridge, oven etc. DH does laundry & ironing.

The problem with a lot of women that hire cleaners is they think they have hired a housekeeper. That the can then boss the cleaner around and demand extra work is added on for no extra cost. If you book for a 2 hour clean then that is what you are going to get, it doesn't include a third hour reorganising your linen closet. When men hire cleaners they state exactly what they need ( or ask the cleaners opinion) and stick to it. Some women (and i will say women) because it is always women act like Lady of the manor when they hire anyone to do any work for them.

When I was younger I was a cleaner for years, I charged what were considered top rates at the time, it was hard work but a nice job in general, and I felt respected and cared about by the majority of my clients. I honestly felt a mutual respect and a lot of them I actually felt treasured by, I felt almost a part of the family and I cared about them very much.

I think, for cleaners, charge as much as you need to, you don't need to justify your price, clients can either say yes or no, just fill up your schedule with the ones who take your price and who feel like a good fit for you, and then if you offer a good and reliable service for them and respect them with kindness you will reap what you sew and clients will genuinely love and respect you back with kindness.

There will be the very odd client that gives you grief because that is just their personality, so you just cancel services with them and move on quickly, there's no need for any on going bad feeling or to bad mouth them on facebook, just take yourself out of the situation, replace them and stay happy, no need for bad vibes either way.

Having run a cleaning and gardening business and done both in people's homes, the issue arises that most people are lovely and appreciative of the work done for them.

However, some people treat you like a skivvy and expect you to tug your forelock every time they pass.

Some don't consider you important and ignore you or get stroppy if you dare to be ill or take a holiday

Some like the kudos of having "staff" but don't really know what ones for so have no real idea if you're doing a good job or not (that one more applies to a gardener to be honest)

Some expect the moon on a stick and you to have their 5 bedroom house spotless in 2 hours a fortnight without them having done anything in between. Or their massive garden to look like the grounds of Buckingham palace without buying plants, fertilizer, weed killer, sprays for pests and diseases.

I have had very good experiences with Eastern European cleaners, who I enjoy chatting with as they tend to “have something about them” (given they had the get up and go to come over here and to have learned a different language) and who clean to a much higher standard than my British cleaners generally have done, they really leave it sparkling.

British cleaners seem not to have learned the basic trick I was taught when cleaning hotels of looking at the room before you leave it and with bathrooms/kitchens etc making sure all the chrome is polished/sparkling.

British cleaners are also unreliable in my experience and constantly phoning up to tell you why they’ll be late or can’t do this week. I’m busy, that’s why I have a cleaner, I don’t want more stress added. Just apologise and tell me when you could come instead.

I've seen cleaners post pictures of an elderly person's filthy home on Facebook and wondered if they'd actually agreed to it

I know a cleaner. She doesn't post online about clients, but some people really are disgusting and deserve to be publicly shamed about how they treat the cleaner - things like leaving skid marks on sheets and used sanitary products on the floor, not cleaning the loo after themselves. It's gross and those people don't deserve any respect.
It's fine to hire someone to do the vacuuming and clean the kitchen etc, but there really are some things that people should do for themselves, as a matter of self respect.

I think everyone needs to be clear in their expectations and commitments from the start. If you take a job as a cleaner, you should turn up on time and be reliable. You should ask the client for a list and be upfront as to whether there is enough time for each task - if not, what does the client want prioritised, or do they want to pay for more hours?
If you are the employer, be realistic about what can be done in the time paid for, pay on time, don't do nothing between visits and expect a show home when the cleaner has only done a couple of hours per fortnight and don't leave skanky knickers etc for the cleaner to pick up!

All of this. My friend was a cleaner and the lady of the house would leave her bathroom bin full of used sanitary products. Gross and totally disrespectful to her cleaner!

My experience is exactly the opposite. I've found British cleaners to be thorough and reliable. Other nationalities not so much. I had two eastern european cleaners through an agency who were slapdash and left early. I'm sure not all eastern european cleaners are lazy, just to point out you cannot generalise.

Surely there was a bin liner in it? If so could she not just tie it up and empty it like any other bin?

I never asked her about her method of disposal, and not everybody bothers to use a bin liner. It's also beyond stinky if they've been left in a small bin for a few days; and that's not the point.
The point is that it's gross and disrespectful to the cleaner to leave used sanitary products and skanky underwear lying around for the him/her to pick up. Especially if the disposal of these items is not in the list of duties. If it's such a quick job why can't the house owner get rid of it all, so cleaner can swoop in and actually start to clean straight away?
You sound like you'd not have much respect for your cleaner. No one in this world is too good to pick up their own shit and clean up after themselves.

I have massive respect for my cleaner, after many useless ones, she is brilliant. I certainly don't leave skanky underwear lying around (where did that come from?). When I engage a cleaner I discuss what's required and they agree (or not). Emptying bins is a normal part of cleaning surely? By the way it's a long time since I needed period products so no problem there.

Skanky underwear is an example quoted on another pp, I didn't think it was from you.
Glad to hear you respect and appreciate your cleaner, as some do not!
Disposing of your own personal sanitary products should be done by the house owner and not left for the cleaner.