How long do you have for your cleaner?

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We have 3.5 bed house (one room is a box room) with one tiny ensuite, one main bathroom and one downstairs toilet. Downstairs is open plan but not enormous, with a kitchen, seating area and a mid size living room. We’re in the Oxford area.

Our lovely long term cleaner did our house in 2 hours for £16 an hour but has moved away so have been looking for a new cleaner/cleaners.

Most I’ve spoken to are charging £20 and seem to think it’s a minimum 3 hourly job per week which seems wild to me! My expectations are pretty basic, dust hoover mop work the occasional deeper clean on a rotational basis. We both work full time and just want a weekly clean to free our weekends. AIBU to expect it to be achievable in 2 hours?

Maybe you could have the first two sessions 3 hours and then when they have brought it up to their standards 2 might be enough. Are you using all the rooms? Are there teens in the house?

One of the rooms is a spare room/office so is minimal use. No teens, two young children but we’re tidy and keep it cleaned throughout the week. No pets. I can do it in 3 but am not a professional cleaner and have constant interruptions so feels like 3 for a professional seems excessive.

2 hours is plenty. I find that when I give a cleaner 3 hours they do the same level of clean. £20 an hour is reasonable

My wonderful cleaner is here for 5 hours a week at @ £20 per hour. This covers 4 beds, 2 baths, downstairs loo, office, large lounge, large kitchen & family room, landing, hall & porch. (Plus dog & cat cuddling as required.)

I don’t think 2 hours is enough unless you want a very basic clean. Small bathrooms are sometimes more tricky to clean than bigger ones! And it depends so much on how tidy the house is kept between times..how much clutter there is… Generally a 3 bed house is a 3 hour clean for me (but that is a proper clean). If it’s weekly and the house is basically tidy then 2.5 hours is possible.

I think 2 hours might not be worth the cleaners’ while once travel etc is taken into consideration. We used to have a cleaner for 2 hours simply because she also did 2 hours each at 2 properties across the road so a 6 hour day with virtually no travel between jobs.

Ours does twice a week and 2 hours each time.

My house is bigger but I have a cleaner for 2 hours per week - £20 per hour.

She does the following:

• 2 bathrooms (one has a deep clean and one has a basic clean, swapped each week)
• 2 carpeted living rooms, 4 bedrooms, stairs and landing hoovered
• all hard floors downstairs mopped (plus quick hoover one week, things properly moved and hoovered under the next)

We then rotate through her cleaning a different room each week - e.g. skirting boards, windows, blinds, dust and clean surfaces etc. We choose a smaller room when she's doing the full hoover of the hard floors and bigger rooms on the other weeks. Obviously we do have to do a bit of light dusting etc in between.

Personally I don't bother asking my cleaner to wipe down my kitchen/utility surfaces and sinks as I do that every day. Similarly she just cleans the floor in the downstairs loo as I do sink mirror and toilet in there a few times a week.