How much cleaning can you get done in 2 hours?

DumbledoresGirl · 22/09/2006 19:47

In my case - not much.

Are you thinking in terms of a paid cleaner?

Original poster

emkana · 22/09/2006 19:47

yes

OP posts:

SherlockLGJ · 22/09/2006 19:49

In two hours my cleaner will clean the bathroom.

Hoover the bedrooms.

Hoover the hall stairs and landing.

Clean the kitchen.

Clean the cooker.

Hoover all of downstairs.

Clean the downstairs toilet and remove finger marks from panes of glass.

Dusts.

I think that is probably it.

DumbledoresGirl · 22/09/2006 19:50

You need somoen who has a cleaner to come along and tell you. I am not in that fortunate position, but I reckon if I pulled my finger out and really cleaned, i could probably vacuum a house, do some basic dusting and maybe clean a bathroom in that time. It does depend on the size of the house and how dirty it is though of course.

hulababy · 22/09/2006 19:50

Depends how clean and what types of jobs you mean.

In two hours I can hoover and tidy my house, clean the bathrooms, wipe round the kitchen, empty and fill dishwasher, and do a load of washing or two.

However if I was to do all the othe rjobs - washing windowsn, ironing, cleaning skirting boards, etc. it'd take longer!

WideWebWitch · 22/09/2006 19:51

3 bed house kept pretty clean on 2 hours twice a week and cleaner keeps on top of all our washing for that too.

lazybluealien · 22/09/2006 19:51

it depends on the person.
some people are excellent. others uselss.
i never allowed more than two hours cleaning at a time, because i think that two hours of solid cleaning is hard work, and after that, they deserve a break. andi dont particularly want to pay for the break. iyswim.
vaccuming, dusting, mopping, tidying, bathrooms, kitchen assuming you have a dishwasher, can all be one in two hours. bedsheets changeing can take longer.
entirely depends on the personn doing it.

KTeepee · 22/09/2006 19:51

Well I'm sure everyone works at a different pace - and I would find two hours solid of housework very boring - I tend to go for shorter bursts. If I had two hours to blitz the house I would expect to hoover upstairs and down, clean bathroom, kitchen floor, playroom floor, dust venetian blinds and how much else would depend on how tidy the house was to start off - if I had to tidy and declutter as well, might not get so much done. And if I decided to pull out sofas and beds and hoover underneath I would probably not get much more than one room done!

Are you thinking how much a cleaner should get done in that time?

sugarfree · 22/09/2006 19:51

Without kids about?Bloody loads.With DS3 (2.11) here um,one load of washing and.....um,yeah one load of washing.

Original poster

emkana · 22/09/2006 19:56

Well I had a cleaner coming for the first time last week and in two hours she cleaned the kitchen surfaces and fronts of kitchen cupboards, cleaned the cooker, cleaned the shower room and the upstairs bathroom. She only did the floor in the upstairs bathroom, not in kitchen or shower room.
I thought that wasn't very much at all really, and was wondering whether I'm expecting too much.
She also misplaced the plug for ds's baby bath, so I will have to get a new baby bath now.
And all that for £10 and hour...

OP posts:

ComeOVeneer · 22/09/2006 19:56

When I had a cleaner (for some stupid reason I felt I couldn't justify keeping her whilst I was not at work - due to being on maternity leave with a newborn and a 3 yearr old (wtf?) ) she did 3 hours once a week and basically did sherlocks lst plus a bit of ironing.

On the otherhand MIL has a cleaner twice a week for pretty much 2 whole days and the place always looks untidy (mind you we beleive she raids the liquor cabinet but MIL is too soft to fire her).

morningpaper · 22/09/2006 19:57

Put a few dished away

1 hour 55 minutes MNing to recover

so, just the dishes

DumbledoresGirl · 22/09/2006 19:59

A really thorough cleaning of my kitchen (which perhaps your cleaner gave to your kitchen) would take me a day or more.

Could you try asking her to complete, say Sherlock's list next week and see how much she does of that?

hazelnuts · 22/09/2006 20:04

I dont really clean for 2 hours in 1 go. I just clean as I go. If I was to clean for 2 hours non stop, then that would be it for the day. I do 1 job (15mins) the rest for 15mins. If I dont do that them the ME will just take over.

Peridot30 · 22/09/2006 20:17

depends on what kind of mood im in.

alittlebitshy · 22/09/2006 20:20

I think it all depends on the size of the house and the amount of "stuff" you have in the house.

My friend live in a 3 bed terraced house (which i love actually) with mix of wood floors and carpets, but very little clutter (no photos, knick knacks, stuff )and she says that she can and expects cleaners to get round it EXCLUDING kitchen in 2 hours.

We live in a bloody big (though thankfully modern) vicarage with 5 bedrooms - 6 if you count our appalling lodger's pit which was used as a dining room by the previous vicar but we only have a kitchen table so we'd rather get the rent lol). I clean the kithen on one of dd's nursery mornings, and that takes me between 45 mins and an hour, on her full day at nursery i dust and hoover the living room, hall, stairs, landing and our and dd's bedroom and sometimes one of the spare rooms (depending on how dusty or if we are execting someone lol). that takes between 1.5 hours and 2 hours. then on her other morning i do the bathrooms (one downstairs loo, one bathroom with bath, sink, loo, and one shower room (pointlessly right next door to other bathroom) with shower, loo and sink. that takes me between an hour and hour and a half.

oh and we have a lot of "stuff" - books everywhere, some knick knacks, photos on surfaces.......

that is max 4.5 hours a week on specific cleaning in a BIG house, and when we momentarily had a cleaner she used to do about 3 hours but i'm not sure i was totally satisfied iyswim.

so i would say that going on scaling my house down to normal stress free proportions and going on my friend's house 2 ish hours sounds about right.

long winded? moi?

Bozza · 22/09/2006 20:38

Depends whether DD is "helping" me or not.

NotSoUselessMum · 22/09/2006 21:29

4 hours:
clean bathroom and kitchen (properly). clean all flooring (k, b, two beds, livingroom landing, stairs and entrance hall BY HAND! I know. This was not my idea, I insisted a mop would have been fine, but she wouldn't have it. I'm sure it takes a bit longer but I don't mind as with a cat and a dog it is justifiable. Ironing DH shirts and folding the clothes away. sometimes she does the windows and extra stuff. depend how much I've managed to tidy up before she comes.
She even clear the front path of weeds, and again this is not something I ever considered anyone doing but DH!

she also babysit, not at the same time of course!!

I'm sure she's fast, but even if she wasn't she does it well and super important she is trust worthy. so really no complaining.

sorkycake · 22/09/2006 22:52

It depends entirely on two things ime:

how motivated you are & perhaps more importantly, how dirty your house is to start with.

At the weekend I do 2 hrs of h/work and start in the bathroom upstairs, clean, change beds and tidy 3 bedrooms, hoover stairs, clean kitchen, living room, conservatory and utility, then mop floors.
I have dishwasher/washer on whilst doing this.

Once a month it will include something like washing down skirting, windows or something similar.

Doesn't include ironing, I do that at the end of every other day. As long as Dh manages to occupy kids, it's all done between 8-10am.

SOULGIRL · 22/09/2006 23:08

I put a teabag & hot water in a cup and start loading the dishwasher....then the phone goes - generally someone leaving a message for DH....get distracted by the TV and end up buying something on Bid TV or Gems TV....watch E for a while E News or True story...then think "I could do with a drink" & go out to find cold stewed teabag in cup and kitchen reeking of stale dishwasher.

2 Hours gone and time to pick DS 2 up from playgroup.

You may have guessed im a bit of a butterfly - I jsut float about aimlessly achieving nothing LOL

octavia · 23/09/2006 10:00

I don't know how big your house is emkana so I'll describe one of the 3 bedroomed/2reception/kitchen/2 bathroom/sep:toilet/study/hall/landing.that I clean weekly for 2 hours

starting upstairs:
master bedroom.dust surfaces,clean mirror,make bed,pick stuff up and put it on bed,hoover.

ensuite,family bathroom/toilet
clean bath/shower/toilet/bidet
wipe down shelf unit
clean mirror
hoover and wash floor

other bedrooms:
dust
pick up stuff
make bed
clean mirrors
hoover

study
hoover & dust

landing
dust banisters
hoover
hoover stairs

sitting room & dining room

polish all furniture
sweep fire places
wipe down doors(fingermarks)
plump up cushions
pick up magazines etc
hoover

kitchen

clean hob
wipe down oven door and glass
wipe over kitchen cupboards
clean all surfaces
clean doors of fridge/dishwasher etc
wipe windowsill
hoover then wash floor

Hall
dust/polish surfaces
hoover then wash

empty all bins in the rooms
spray with reasonablr nice air freshner

leave!

If they would like "proper oven cleaning" or windows then that is an extra

I do skirting boards, cobwebs, etc in a normal clean

Hope that helps