Cleaner - what would you want cleaned weekly & monthly

[Missus2ndwife]

We have had our lovely cleaner for over a year now. On a whole I am very happy with her but have recently noticed her standards are slipping - Eg I ask her weekly to dust corners and wipe dusty ledges but these seem to go ignored. I have also asked her if she has enough time and she has always said yes (I should also mention she does spend about 45mins each visit having tea breaks & chatting to me which I have never complained about).

We live in a large house and ask for our bedroom & bathroom, kitchen & living room to be cleaned weekly and all other rooms be cleaned on rotation. With the imminent arrival of our baby, she has offered to include the baby's room in the weekly rota.

I am putting a new rota together and want to be as fair and realistic as possible. So my question to all you lovely mumsnetters is what would you expect your cleaner to do in 4hrs?

My cleaner does 2 hours a week and cleans family bathroom, 3 bedrooms, kitchen, 2x reception rooms and downstairs loo each time. She's not the best cleaner we've ever had, but she's not bad. Surfaces are dusted, she sometimes misses things like cobwebs in light fittings etc, and she doesn't pull out furniture and clean behind/under.

Thanks for responding Lizzie. When you say clean bedrooms - is that just vacuuming or does she tidy up too? I want mine to dust and Hoover.
Occasionally (and I think this is twice in a year) I have asked her to change bed linen when I've stripped the bed.

Think how much you can do in 4 hours. What you're asking doesn't sound enough tbh.

in the bedrooms (kids rooms) she dusts, hoovers, straightens up toys, straightens beds (and changes if I leave stuff out for her, which I rarely do) and arranges the cuddly toys in a nice row on the bed! It's usually pretty tidy but if there is anything lying around she will tidy it up.

I think you could be right Tippy! I don't want to be a task master or a slave driver but at the same time I don't think it's unreasonable to expect her to dust weekly. The skirting boards should not be caked in dirt either.

Just chatted it through with my husband and we estimated how long at the most it will take to clean certain rooms (eg Kitchen) weekly. Will have a chat with her when she's here next to get her view on timings etc and work out a schedule from there.

Ps Hubbie wasn't happy she was having tea breaks and chatting to me. He feels she is being paid to work not chat. Feel bad now

In 4 hours a short 20 minute tea break seems fine to me but not 45 minutes.

Also you have a problem I used to have myself- being over friendly with the cleaner, leading to them taking liberties and also leading to you not wanting to tackle it.

At the end of the day it is a transaction. By all means treat her with respect - of course you should-but she is there to do a job of work, nothing more.