How much cleaning does your au pair do?

[PaulaMummyKnowsBest]

Just curious as to how much of your au pair's 25 hours are spent doing housework and how long it would take you if you were doing the same tasks.

My sister in law used to get her au pair doing 3 hours of housework a day, every day and the other 2 hours were childcare and helping with the eveing meal

as an aupair i used to do about two hours of cleaning in the mornig - tidy up the kitchen, sweep/hoover floors, dust, tidy children bedrooms, hang out, fold and iron family laundry.plus clear up after supper.
in my german family i was responsible for the laundry and cooking lunch, sweep floors/occasionally mop. prepare supper /bred and cheese/ plus clear up.

Mine does 8 hours a week of laundry/ironing and general tidying but no proper housework otherwise - no cleaning sheets or anything like that.

He also cooks for the grown-ups occasionally on top of his normal hours, but only if he feels like it (generally when he fancies a paella...)

Mine does 4 hours of cleaning the house from top to bottom once a week but she gets paid extra to do that.

The usual bits of regular tidying up which probably amounts to and hour to an hour a half a day.

HTH

Iam probably slightly different to the other posters as I have a 4 year old and a 2 year old and have a fully qualified nanny rather than an aupair (they are bloomin' expensive). I don't expect her to do any cleaning apart from tidying up after the mess the children have made in her care. I am of the opinion that I am paying her (an eye watering amount for me) to provide the best care possible for my children and not clean the house! Sorry I know this is not what people want to hear.

Our AP spends about 8 of her 25 weekly hours doing housework. She does the laundry from start to finish including ironing although we don't iron much, she changes DS' sheets fortnightly, she hoovers twice a week, she cleans the bathroom once a week, she wipes the dining table daily, she mops once a week, she empties the upstairs bins once a week. She also within her hours helps with meal prep (maybe 10-15 min per day) and cooks once a week. The rest is childcare.

Haven't added it up in hours, but her 'cleaning' job list is:
everyday - wipe down table and sweep kitchen floor after breakfast, put roomba hoover into either hall or living room.
Mon/Fri - mop kitchen floor and utility.
Once a week - dust shelves in living room/playroom, hoover stairs, hoover sofa

She doesn't do any washing, ironing or cooking. In addition to the above cleaning she walks the dog once a day and watches the children from 4pm-5.30pm 3 times a week and has to be 'on call' in case my train is late from 4pm on the other 2 working days.

I would take about 2 hours to do 'her' cleaning - I know because I did it all last friday having discovered that she hadn't actually bothered doing any apart from the roomba/kitchen floor since the first week (she came 6 weeks or so ago). Ho hum...

I offer the APs the choice of cleaning (extra pay) or no cleaning (standard pay) when recruiting..so far they have taken the money. I clean bedrooms and bathrooms though.

Mine's really similar to yours, Millarkie - sorry to hear yours is underperforming, by the way. Did you see Boffinmum's post about how she had it out with hers over a cappucino? Mine does about 9 hours cleaning: mopping, hoovering, dusting, bathrooms (but we've only 1 bathroom ATM)and kitchen, change DS3 &4's bedlinen, all once a week. Ironing when there's a pile. It would probably take me twice as long (one of the reasons we have APs), because I'd get sidetracked by every little thing. I do all the washing, drying, folding & putting away of clothes.

What's a roomba, BTW?

Roomba is a robot hoover - she just has to put it on the floor and press the 'clean' button - it potters round and sucks up all the fluff/animal hair...so not a lot of effort required

I have had lots of little chats with current AP, and she is always pleasant and takes my comments on board but it has been very tiring (lastest example -
AP 'Can I help with anything?' to an exasperated Millarkie frantically waving a duster about after finding living room is very dusty and longlost family is coming to stay in 3 hours time (had taken time off to get bedrooms, bed linen etc ready).
Millarkie 'Didn't you get shown to dust the shelves?'
AP - 'Oh yes, but that was a long time ago'
Millarkie

Cue Millarkie printing out the job list (yet again) and crossing fingers that this time it will work.

Because myself and DP are "clean freaks" Ap has littl,if any cleaning to do-maybe 10 mins hoovering a day and 30 mins ironing.

She does however spend about 3hrs a day eating.
No joke-she is eating us out of house and home

Model the tasks you want the au pair to do; show them how you hoover, iron, etc. That way you'll have less room for misunderstanding.

Thanks, Millarkie, I want a Roomba! Funnily enough, we have something called a Navigator that does the same for the swimming pool floor, but I never imagined you could get a dry land version!

It sounds like your AP has a short-term memory problem. What she needs is lots & lots of PRACTICE at these tasks, to shunt such skills into her long-term and muscle memory!

Just posting to take all my comments about my AP back - this week she has been an angel, carried out all her jobs and caused no problems. I have bought her a present and am hoping it's the beginning of a new era

mine do about 2hrs a day cleaning,currant aupair is fab,woke up on friday to find all downstairs rooms tidied and she had cleaned re-organised food cupboards and fridge (had not asked her to do any of this by the way)

2 hours a day Mon to Fri in the morning when everyone else is out of the house. In that time, the aupair does a light clean of all high traffic areas (bathroom, living room, kitchen) and a deep clean of one room/appliance, which I specify in the weekly calendar, so that she does the entire house over every 2 weeks.