Do I find a new cleaning lady?

[Nannaboppa]

Hi all I'm new to this site and after a bit of advice.
I've had my cleaning lady for over a year now & all is well. She's very good, reliable etc. I work from home some weeks when she is here. Last week she was cleaning my cupboard doors with a cloth I wouldn't use so I passed her another and asked her to use that, then she started mopping the floor without having vacuumed first, I've asked her to always vac it first as it gets very dusty, at which she turned to me & said I'd have to trust her to clean on her own or I'd have to find someone else!
Do I sack her & find someone else? I was a bit taken aback, it's my house & I want things doing my way.
Tia

maybe honeydragon is the cleaner!!!

jane yes indeed you should tell the service provider to fuck off if they are not providing good service, we are definitely in agreement there.

I think the OP can easily find better than the cleaning she has been receiving, that is very poor service, the only objection myself and pps had with her OP was that she had tried to 'direct' the cleaner by telling her to use certain cloths etc, as if the cleaner is her employee and not a self-employed service provider.

I think the key issue is that the cleaning was sub standard and it is not her job to try to 'train' the cleaner it is the cleaners job to learn how to provide correct service before she goes out selling said service.

You cannot legally tell a self employed person 'how' to do their job or provide their service, they are by definition their own boss, but you CAN (and should) vote with your purse and not use their services any more should they prove to be below a reasonable standard, and this service sounds shockingly poor and this has created a weird dynamic where the OP has felt the need to try to step in and 'correct' the work but a professional cleaner should know how to provide correct service and should be providing it, they should have far more knowledge than the homeowner about which chemicals and equipment they can safely use and which methods are correct. If a cleaner doesn't know these basics they really need to be replaced, if people are to go out selling services they need a basic 'how to' knowledge of the service they are providing at the very least.

The cleaner sounds unacceptable at her job and that is what has created the issue here. It's kind of understandable that the OP has tried to 'correct' her but really the answer is a new service provider who knows how to do it.

I have had new trainees in the past try to mop first and it creates disastrous results, vacuum bits up first please otherwise expect a hairy dirty 'soup' on your kitchen floor that you will not be able to vacuum up.

I wouldn't allow our vacuums to touch a 'wetted mess' like that anyway, they are blooming expensive!

Maybe she was just having a bad day and was snappy. We've all done that at some point. It would be nice to give her another chance?

I think you should let her get on with the job without interfering and that she is right to stick to her own methods. If it was something I considered unhygenic or not safe that would be different. Like using same cloth for toilet and then to wipe kitchen surfaces. (Hope nobody would do that.)

But the OP's floor was left dirty because she didn't vacuum it first, surely that's not good service?

As for the cloth, no she shouldn't be told which cloth to use as she should select the best cloth for the job but given that she did that to the floor I am imagining she was indeed using a dirty cloth and causing cross contamination otherwise why on earth would the OP have stepped in and given her a clean cloth?

Maybe I'm wrong about the cloth and homeowners should definitely not be instructing cleaners how to clean, you wouldn't instruct a builder how to build a wall because they should know better than you, but floors just cannot be cleaned that way, I would think it would me made even more dirty if anything, so in this case I can understand it.

I still wouldn't try to 'direct' her service, I would just replace her for someone who knows how to do this.

This is such an interesting debate! On the one hand yes, you should really allow a professional to get on with the job, but if the basic core principles of a job are not being followed, that's a different situation altogether.

The ultimate question has to be "am I happy overall with the service on offer"? If the answer is no then changes have to be made. This could be as drastic as finding a new cleaner or cleaning service provider, or as simple as asking the existing cleaner to concentrate only on the tasks she is able to do to your satisfaction.

In almost 12 years of cleaning homes, there have been many occasions where clients asked me to talk them through my procedures. This I am happy to do as I know I have never cleaned in a way that was going to cause them a problem. And having explained how I work, they never ask again. I still have clients from 2004 so I know I'm doing something OK.