To think of sacking our cleaner for small irritations?

[curiouscat]

How annoying does a cleaner have to be for me to replace her? She's pleasant and willing, but speaks little English. The problems are

1 Uses whole bottle of multi-purpose cleaning fluid every week which would last me a month and entire kitchen roll every week
2 Uses yellow dusters to clean the bathroom, gets them all wet and ruined
3 Cannot use Dyson properly, has broken one attachment and insists on using the other attachment wrongly attached so the handle's on the floor.
4 I don't trust her with my new Miele vacuum which I hide in the car boot when she's due
5 I dread trying to communicate and explain what I need (tried endlessly) so avoid the house when she's around

AIBU to give up on her and find someone else?

She sounds like she's a bit short on common sense and I would also be concerned at her overuse of cleaning fluid. That amount isn't going to be doing the enamel on your bath / sinks etc any favours. Personally I think you're justified in looking elsewhere.

Riven, usually cleaners would expect to clean not tidy, however if you book someone for say a 2 hr stint, you can usually negotiate what they are happy to do in the time they're there. In the heady days of yore when we had a cleaner I would scurry round and put things away before she came so that she could GET to the surfaces to clean them. She did:

kitchen
bathroom
dusting
hoovering
mopping
changed ds's bed
about 15 mins of ironing ds's clothes
if remaining time: clean windows, sweep outside, MAYBE clean the oven although this usually required a chocolate digestive bribe!

However a friend used to ask theirs to tidy more than clean - she liked cleaning herself so her cleaner came to tidy stuff up by mutual agreement. She'd iron, fold and put away clothes, tidy toys, generally declutter and sometimes reorganise kitchen cupboards etc. She was a scary spanish matriarch, (the cleaner, not my friend!) so really enjoyed organising my friend and her dd. And my friend missed her mum so really liked being mothered.

Yeah kitbit, my cleaner cleans AND tidies because we are all hopeless slobs so she is a marvel I know!

But to be honest if a cleaner refused to clean until everything was tidied away she wouldn't be much use to me and I might as well do the lot myself.

I have scared off several more faint hearted cleaners in my time, though!

I tidied up myself and got the cleaner to do the stuff I really hate, bathrooms, loos, floors. I had a fantastic Polish cleaner in our old house, she was one of the two things that I missed when we left Hannover.

It may be that she's having to put so much effort into intepreting what you've told her at the time that she can't concentrate as much on ensuring she'll remember it.
Try reiterating your visual instructions with a list in the international language of visual reminders, such as a crossed out picture of a full bottle, beside a ticked picture of a couple of capfuls.

why dont you clean with her?

i jest!
get rid, shes crap. give someone competent the position. a roll of bounty sounds like she cant be arsde to rinse the cloth.

arsed!

Riven, yep that is the sort of stuff they do - by carry upstairs I assume you mean baskets of clothes/toys stuff like that?

Definitely write a list of stuff that you can't/don't want to do and get them to work down it in order of importance.

If you find a good cleaner and get into the groove with her - try to hold on as long as you can! I miss the lady who used to do my place in Oz, she looked after us for years and became a good friend in that time.

It does sound like you may need to have another chat or if you don't want to do that then you will probably have to find someone else.

As for the fact that she won't come on the day you want.....well, the poor girl can't help that can she!!! Most people want cleaners on a Friday or a Monday, there are only so many hours in the day!!

It is significant that your DH took on this cleaner! Sorry to stereotype, but most males wouldn't know how how to spot a decent cleaner if she hit them over the head with a bucket!

Message withdrawn

YANBU. At the end of the day the cleaner is meant to clean your house effectively.

As others have said, if she did an incredible job cleaning then I doubt you would be posting about the other stuff. However as her cleaning appears to be poor to average, she can't come on the day you want her too and she is using up too much product and breaking your Dyson then it doesn't seem to be a good fit for either of you.

I have just asked our agency to replace our new cleaner after a couple of weeks and I feel really bad about it. I certainly don't have incredibly high standards but do expect the tables to be wiped and the bed to be made if I have left out the sheets and asked this to be done. I would have given her another chance but the whole purpose of having a cleaner is to make life easier and it is a job which shouldn't require detailed instruction once they have an idea about the basics.

Riven, I'd guess that your might be more of a helper rather than just a cleaner, bearing in mind that's the kind of person you might need? In which case absolutely yes, ask them to do the stuff you really need them to! Thing is, if you have the conversation that goes "tell me which of these things are OK or not" then nobody feels put upon or taken advantage of, and neither does anyone feel they're not getting the right things from the arrangement.

But to answer the OP, if I had a member of staff in the office who was lovely but actually couldn't do the job very well, I'd address it. Same thing here, really, even though she might be lovely she's not really doing what you want or need.

I recently sacked the cleaners I was using because one of them (a man) was totally crap and had absolutely no common sense or natural intuition about what needed doing and what didn't - he'd just go on auto-pilot. I kept him on for months because I was aware that he was married with a family and I though well at least he's getting off his butt and doing something to support them, and I felt a bit guilty. But what finally did it was when I went out, realised after 10 minutes that I'd forgotten my purse and came back, to find that he had finished, with 45 minutes of paid time still to go, with all his stuff by the door waiting for his supervisor to collect him, and he was passing the time by flicking through my appointments diary which was on my dressing table!!!

I had another one who had an obsession with anti-bacterial wet-wipes. If I asked her to wipe any paintwork she would want to use them. Totally unnecessary and v.expensive, but she was too lazy to use a bucket of soapy water and keep rinsing her cloth. I had to get rid of her in the end because she wanted to use me as a free therapist to discuss every minor detail of her complicated private life, and she would come in at 10am and then talk at me solidly until 10.40 and I was too polite to say anything! Also, I realised she was ripping me off by leaving half an hour early each week as well.

I have those E-cloths (green fluffy one for cleaning with no chemicals and blue silky one for polishing/buffing). They are absolutely great and leave a perfect streak- free finish on everything, and are washable but can I find a cleaner to use them on my stainless steel and glass? No. They prefer wads of tissue and kitchen roll, and copious amounts of smeary spray stuff.

I could go on and on, but I'll just say that in the end, if they are reliable, trustworthy, affordable, and your house looks lovely when they've finished then learn to let it go!!!! It's not worth the hassle. BTW all cleaners HATE Dysons. They are unwieldy, heavy, temperamental, prone to blockages when asked to deal with anything larger than the atom, and the cords are never long enough to stretch up the stairs.
Every cleaner I've had (about 7 now) has refused to use them.

I had one who was excellent but she tried to put the rate up to cover the fact that she lived a long way away and it was costing her too much in petrol and time to come 'all the way' to my area. So, work in your own area then! How is that my problem? You advertised in my area!!!

She sounds dire imo...it would frustrate me no end...absolutely no point in just a superficial clean, you could do that...change your Cleaner, and then get a professional to do a thorough clean every week...

Oh yes all cleaners I know also hate dysons - Henry's ar the preferred make, apparently very good and will suck up anything!

buy cheap kitchen towel and dilute bottle stuff by half and add water

seriously if she is not doing the job the way you want, tell/write it down

give her 2 weeks to improve and then get rid of her

IME the best cleaners are the ones who are rooted to your area by family and other connections, and who will work with you for years. It might take a bit of trial and error but it is worth it

Absolutely right, as a cleaner myself, i detest dysons!!! I always use a Henry. Although for personal use i am buying a sebo.....Henrys are more robust for working with every day.

We have a Henry - does that mean our cleaner loves us ?

Quattro I agree - unfortunately we 'broke' the cleaner who met all your criteria (off long term with very bad back problems) so I have had to go for someone not quite so local, but so far so good.

Really? are henry's much better than Dysons? Why?

You have to take the good with the bad, no one's perfect. How easy will it be for you to find a replacement?

Well for me, Dysons are just a pain in the arse to use, too much faffing around, whereas Henrys are simple. Also Henrys are robust, not so much to go wrong with them. Then, Dysons just don't seem to pick up so much rubbish, whereas all the Henrys i have used are great on pet hairs, hard/soft floors and pick up all sorts of rubble!!

Well thanks all for these thoughts. We're kind of putting up with her for the time being. I gave her the Miele but hid all the extra bits and bobs in the car so she can't break the attachments. So far so good. But I've kept a leaflet from an agency so may reconsider.

Oregoniana how might I ration the cleaning fluid? I don't want to start hiding new bottles and pouring them into old ones or something.

Something else really annoying she does is open sachets of wipes the wrong way (eg leather wipes, antibacterial etc) so uses one wipe then I have to throw the rest away because they won't reseal and they've dried up. How dumb is that???