Why is it so hard to find a cleaner

[OnOurWay]

preparing any readers for a horribly first world moan here - perhaps a bit light hearted in recent times.

why is it so hard to find a decent cleaner?!

We had a nice cleaner, she broke a lot of stuff but she got loads done and the house was always near spotless.

took ages to even find another cleaner. she was terrible... house needed cleaning after she left. dust everywhere...

Now the company have replaced her with one slightly better but we are wfh from this week and so caught her leaving early. And wouldn’t mind but there’s still a chocolate milkshake stain on the floor and I have just had to re hoover... Maybe time to take a break and do it our selves if we are skipping the 4hrs of commuting per day at the moment!

I think the issue is agency cleaners. You're probably paying something crazy like £15 per hr and the cleaner will only be on min wage. They won't care enough to do a decent job and probably have another job to get to in an unrealistic time frame, hence the leaving early. Find yourself a local self employed cleaner and they'll charge a fair price and do a decent job

Lots of reasons.

We have had multiple cleaners over the years, some good, some dreadful. We had one who had left executive marketing to set up her own cleaning company; she was brilliant. We’ve had one who was good at cleaning but didn’t turn up 30% of the time. Currently paying £18/hr (not even in the south east) for a mediocre cleaner through an agency.
Firstly, for the most part, if they had options, they wouldn’t be a cleaner. Who’s life goal is it to clean all day?
Secondly, their standards are often wildly different to mine. I haven’t got to where I am in life by being half arsed and sloppy.
Thirdly, they are unlikely to ever have limestones tiles and parquet flooring- how on earth would they know it needs neutral ph cleaner or that you need to change the hoover head to stop it scoring the wood floor (I hid the offending head in the end).

With cleaners you have to come to accept that the job they do is unlikely to be the standard that you would do it, especially if you are fussy, like me. But if they didn’t do it it wouldn’t get done at all....because I simply don’t have time. Our last cleaners weren’t brilliant and were expensive but we had them for 3 years (we moved) and I became rather fond of them. They did a job that I didn’t have time to do and enabled us to function better as a family, and I could appreciate them for that rather than the fact that they never vacuumed into the corners (or a long list of other things). I also could appreciate that they never planned to be cleaners either- this was the hand that life dealt them and they were making the most of the opportunities they did have. They were trying to build a better life for themselves. And I admired them for that.

There are some brilliant cleaners out there, but it’s like finding a needle in a haystack.

I have an amazing one and surprisingly she is fully booked. The good ones are like gold dust.

phivephatphish plenty of people are cleaners because it suits them and their lifestyle perfectly. Your comment sounds very snobby eg "they are unlikely to have limestone tiles or parquet..."?! Even if they don't, a good cleaner will ask or do the research to ensure they use the relevant products on your flooring!

You left a milkshake spill on the floor to stain instead of cleaning it up? I'm not surprised that you can't find a new cleaner.

Maybe but that wouldn't be satisfactory in the long term, OnOurWay. Keep trying. There are some really good cleaners. Maybe right now is not the time to be looking though.

I think carpet cleaning is a separate department... Unless you specifically asked them if they would mind having a go at said stain if they had time.

how about putting a postcard in local mini=mart/ newsagent window.
self employed tend to be better, more motivated and you have more choice. have to spend some time choosing one, but you can get a feel for whether they will suit you, rather than just accepting whatever an agency sends you.
also remember than an agency takes a big cut of every hour worked. cut out the middle woman and pay the worker well. good luck.

@fodderbeet obviously I hadn’t seen the stain pre cleaner 😂

Thanks for all the tips. I do think it’s 1. about appreciating that indeed I don’t want to clean and cleaning the corners ourselves etc. 2. yes an agency cleaner isn’t going to be as invested as someone who’s own company it is... however as this is a family company I do hope they are all paid fairly! We find it so hard to find cleaners in our area, a lot of posts on our local
fb group have lead nowhere! perhaps the local shop is an idea

I should clarify the stain is 4 dots of milk shake not a full drink all over our floor

Yes, but that could've easily been wiped up there and then. Who leaves milk on the floor? It will stink!

Also if you meet with a local cleaner beforehand and explain what you expect them to do they will happily clean in the corners, wipe skirting boards, clean up spilt milkshake etc you just need to let them know your priorities from the outset.

clearly we give advice on what is expected. as before the dots of milkshake were not seen before. And I don’t drink dairy so it wasn’t going to stink... as I said, just a little light hearted moan and interested to see what others had to say.