Does anyone have a fortnightly cleaner?

[milkysmum]

Hi, decided to get a cleaner in as both dh and I work full time, have two small dc and both really hate cleaning! Got somebody round who recommended 3 hours for our house and she did an initial clean last week to see what we thought and in that time she did the kitchen, bathroom, hoovered/ swept/ mopped all floors and stairs, dusted all the bed rooms, front room, cleaned the mirrors, visible skirting and inside of windows. Does this sound reasonable for 3 hours? I can't afford weekly and she thought fortnightly would be okay as the 3 hours obviously gave her time to give the place a really good clean and I'd just need to give it a quick wipe over in between. So we agreed this but now I'm thinking things like- do I really need my windows doing every 2 weeks? And if not what could I get her do instead? Or would I be better with less hours but more frequently?
I live in a smallish 3 bed terrace, kitchen diner, one bathroom. Thank for any advice

I swapped from weekly to fortnightly as I was finding that the weekly clean wasn't thorough enough for me. In principle I had planned that the cleaner would keep on top of things each week and I would do deep cleans 'as and when'...sadly 'as and when' never really happened!

So now I pay for a really through clean every fortnight and I just hoover etc in between. We are fairly tidy anyway so it definitely works better for us this way.

It is around £15 - £20 per person per hour for professional companies with employees (unless they are running an agency which can be as cheap as £10 per hour but usually with hidden costs to pay as well).

Individuals are usually £12-15 per hour but due to working solo usually have a waiting list unless they are a newish operation and you catch them in time.

Obviously cleaners avoiding tax and working without insurances can afford to do it for far less but this is an absolutely frightening scenario and is not legal to operate, given all the things that could come back on you I would strongly recommend paying the normal going rate with an above board operation.

Don't forget for self-employed cleaners operating legally their wages will be the last thing they can take from the price they charge, their hourly wage will be considerably lower than their hourly price unless they are working illegally 'under the radar' and using all their clients things in which case it all goes in their back pocket except for travel costs.

If a legallly operating person is new to the business they may well undercharge at first but it will soon register that their business model is not viable and then one of two things will happen - they will increase prices to what they need to cover all costs and make a small wage or they will fold either way the bargain will not last forever.

Thanks everyone