interviewing cleaners - what are your expectations ?

[artist67]

I am just about in interview some more local cleaners tomorrow not had much luck so far. One cleaner refused to clean the inside of some of my windows the other said she wanted set jobs each week ? other words didn?t fancy bottoming a room or working from a different list every week, which did include some ironing.
If I didn?t need these jobs doing I wouldn?t be employing a cleaner, It makes me wonder why bother turning up for an interview ? are they always this fussy or am i out of touch?
I?ve not had a cleaner for ages, starting to wonder if I was spoilt by my last one.
What do you expect your cleaners do?
What do you look for?

My cleaner only did the floors and kitchen worktops (2 h a week). Never ever dusted, but ocasionally she did the oven. I was very pleased with her.

when i used to have a cleaner she would hoover the whole house, clean 2 bathrooms, dust everywhere, do the ironing (or as much as poss).

if I had some specific jobs eg, clean the windows, clean the oven. then i just had to ask and she'd do them. no complaints

I gave up with cleaners in the end. I would just like one who didn't back chat and didn't leave the lid loose on the bleach. My last cleaner's actual cleaning was fine. I just used to ask her to clean the bathroom, dust, hoover and mop every week, then at her own discretion work a rota of giving the skirting boards/door frames a wipe, one room a week was suggested. The kids rooms were on a 'if you have enough time' basis so they were never done. She was here for three hours and what was asked was more than do-able in the three hours.

TBH I would expect a cleaner to do as asked but also to use initiative.

The backchat would drive me mad. I am asking 4/5 hours.
Generally
Clean two bathrooms
hoover upstairs and down
clean kitchen surfaces mop kitchen floor and lounge floor
dust hall way and lounge
kids rooms including change bedding

every 3 weeks perhaps bottom one room including windows.

I do it myself within this time

My cleaner does all that except only changes beds if I ask her. she also empties bins, empties the hoover when she's finished and does inside main windows- ie kitchen, living room. In 3 hours usually, but no babies, toddlers here - think they make more mess!

Sounds pretty reasonable to me artist67. If I was hiring again I would be looking for an 'old school' type cleaner or a Polish immigrant with limited English, then there certainly would be no "It's all right for you" type comments.

sounds very reasonable to me.

i would have a list of expected cleaning tasks ready to discuss at the interview, in fact i would take the prospective cleaner round and show her what needed to be done.

i wouldn't tolerate any picking and choosing (of reasonable cleaning tasks) or backchat - i wouldn't get away with it in my workplace.