Cleaners - tardiness and fees?

[SpringDreams26]

I have moved house, 15 miles but a different county.

I paid £20 per hour for a cleaner who was with me several years and wonderful. She continued to clean for a few months to help us but couldn’t keep up with the travel so gave me notice. She cried when she left she was genuinely fantastic and we got along so well.

Now everyone is charging £25-27.50 per hour. Even self employed, one woman bands. AIBU to think that’s madness? I come out with about £30 after taxes earning £50 an hour. Cleaning used to be marginally above minimum wage and now it seems the same cost as a professional? Not to say cleaners aren’t professionals, but the start up costs and overheads low.

Then you have to weed out the awful cleaners, I’ve had many in my time who just move dirt around.

Had 4 people quote ALL have been late by atleast 30 minutes. If you want to justify your rate atleast show up.

and yes, I know the answer is to do my own cleaning. But AIBU that the market has changed this much?

That’s supply and demand which is a different argument than someone’s worth.

So you're not coming out with 30 quid an hour?

Min wage is £12.21 I don’t agree that paying £20 an hour is a “shit wage” there are many people who don’t earn that, doesn’t make their income “shit”.

why don't you just pay your cleaner and extra hour towards her travel or something

I said:-

“I come out with about £30 after taxes earning £50 an hour.”

There is nothing inaccurate about that.

My degree subject also wasn't essential for my role. I did it because I wanted to study it, not because it was a way into a specific profession, and that still would be the case if I later became a gardener or a plumber or dogwalker. Are cleaners not allowed to do the same thing? Did we learn nowt from Educating Rita?

I mentioned upthread. That we did, but she’s had a bereavement and I think a bad bout of traffic and the snow we had a while ago made it all too stressful for her. Which I understand.

It is, but as I said I don’t view cleaning as essential, but dentistry is. So I won’t have to pay it.

I’m not sure I understand your argument tbh. Why does minimum wage not meet what cleaners charge in my area then 🙄

Well, you have two choices here:

• no longer pay for a cleaner if you think they cost more than you are willing to pay, buy a pair of rubber gloves, and cut the resentment you feel out of your life
• stop projecting your feelings of being hard done by vis-a-vis your own hourly wage onto another self-employed person and simply enjoy the luxury of being able to outsource your own domestic labour onto another person

@YouHaveAnArse i addressed the first bullet point in my OP. I am well aware that’s my choice.

I don't understand what you mean, sorry.

Can you rent or pay a mortgage on minimum wage in the area where you live, especially if your work requires you to also own and operate your own car? If the answer is 'no', then there's your answer.

Then I'm not sure what you're bumping your gums about, then. If you think it's too expensive then you can simply choose to no longer have a cleaner, as with any other added extra in life.

I was using a talk forum for a talk.

each self employed business is different, my deductions are almost £20k a year for premises/heating/travel/cpd. Even flowers/candles/bottled water is about 700 a year.

Another one not quite clear what your argument is.

If it's the going rate, then you'll have to decide whether or not you can afford it, same as anyone else with anything else. Or you could keep looking and hope to stumble over an untapped group of cleaners charging less, I suppose.

Surely it'll simply be the case that you now live somewhere where there's more demand and less supply, and more people happy to pay the sorts of prices you're hearing quoted?

I went self-employed last year (not a cleaner) and I have come across a few people who try to tell me my price is too high, and they'd rather pay less, or they think it's not worth it. I politely suggest they find someone else. They either disappear or come back ages later to complain that (shock horror) other people have said no too. <shrug>

I think it's mad what some cleaners charge. They literally scrub loos for a living. Yes it's manual work but it hardly requires a degree.

I've had terrible cleaners in the past. One Chinese lady connected to my Wifi and spent the whole time talking on the phone. Others have cut corners and like you said, showed up late and left early.

I've got a wonderful cleaner who charges £15ph (we live in a London Borough) and she's great. She doesn't do everything such as change beddings, pull sofas out etc but she does enough to make the house look clean.

You said you're a solicitor and running a couple of businessess. That is shit money for 3 jobs dude.

You obviously see yourself superior. Self employed cleaners could absolutely not live on minimum wage with their expenses and the same tax shit we all pay.

It's the same with all trades though. I recently chatted to someone who was outraged that he was being charged 40 quid a door to fit 5 of them. That's cheap for door fitting.

Another wanted his massive fuckoff hedge cut with precision lines and corners and only pay beer money.

People don't see the worth anymore and want to pay peanuts.

If you don't want to pay someone's worth then you'll have to do it yourself. It's that simple.
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@gamerchick it’s your comprehension, thats less than ideal rather than the money I’m on. My point was after taxes earning £50 p/h I come out with £30 which makes £25 p/h for a cleaner seem a lot. What my other interests earn is irrelevant to that sentiment.

Because I’m observing, discussing, not arguing. I’ve moved, made an observation and have an opinion. I wasn’t actually intending on arguing, it’s other posters intent on that. Not me.

One simply cannot get good help these days! One of the many trials of those who can afford staff.
My heart bleeds.

Except employed peoples wages?!

Cleaners aren’t professionals. They don’t have student debt or the qualifications to warrant professional salaries. £25/hr is crazy. People are crazy for paying that.

You posted in AIBU?

I'm also not sure what your opinion is. That you magically deserve to pay less than market rate? That market rates are a terrible con and there should be some adjudicator-on-high who insists that cleaners only charge tuppence ha'penny and tug their forelocks when you pass?

I'm sure if cleaners round your way were struggling to get business at the rates they change, they would soon drop their prices.