If you have a cleaner?

[being40]

Please don't shoot me. Husband and I work full time and we have a cleaner who comes in once a week.
She doesn't tidy and seems to be able to clean round our stuff.
However we don't live in a huge house and to dust, vacuum and wipe takes her at least two snd a half hours a week. If she tidied (I always make the beds!) then I might think that was okay.
I'm not sure whether I'm getting the best service as if I do it - it takes me an hour.

If it helps we’ve got a 4 bed and in 2 hours she cleans kitchen, bathroom, en suite and shower room, does the dusting, hoovers upstairs and lounge, and washes kitchen, bathrooms and hall floor. She doesn’t tidy and I make sure surfaces and floor are as clear as possible. She comes every other week.

Didn’t mean shower room, meant downstairs toilet

I also have a quick tidy up as well. She's there to clean. Not clear up my mess.

See as she's only cleaning surely it's taking too long?
She spends a lot of time hoovering. Which I'll be honest I quite like doing.
If my job wasn't so mind consuming I would go the cleaning myself as I like cleaning x

I don't know how big your house is but 2,5 hours to just tidy, dust and vacuum seems a lot.

We live in a terrace house: 2 bed, 2 bathrooms, living room, kitchen, hallway, stairs, landing and conservatory.

The cleaner comes once a week for 3 hours and does the following:

• cleans both bathrooms
• dusts/wipes every room (all surfaces, skirting boards, doors, venetian blinds, kitchen counter, furniture...)
• hoovers all floors
• mops all floors
• changes one double bed every week
• irons a big pile of laundry
• empties all the bins (bathrooms, kitchen)

She also adds some little touches here and there that I appreciate incredibly, like rearranging the cushions on the sofas or my son's favorite toys.
We are naturally tidy but I always make sure the house is in good shape so she can clean.

It takes you an hour to do a weekly clean of the whole house? Seriously what's your secret? I could do a quick spruce up in that time but proper cleaning of kitchen and bathroom, including mopping the floors, takes me a lot longer.

She's taking too long to do just that. Can't you sit down and discuss how you want her to spend the time? Surely it's up to the pair of you to reach an agreement and if tidying helps you more than her hoovering over the same carpet over and over then so be it.

We had this with a cleaner in the past. One thing she didn’t do that annoyed me was she didn’t lift up the metal stands and the circular gas hob rings so the hob looked very messy. She never moved anything and that included moving the teakettle and toaster to wipe the kitchen work surface or lift the seat to clean the loo. Plus it seemed that fit 3 hours twice a week she could only do either the down stairs or the upstairs.

She was lively so had a chat. Says she never knew you could lift up the metal stands or the circular gas rings on the hob. Hadn’t thought to move the kettle or toaster (lord knows what her kitchen looks like!). So tried again. We were sure to always tidy away things so she could just clean - but there are things that stayed on surfaces which we expected moved for cleaning (tea kettle, toaster, cup stand, soap/hand cream dispenser in loo, shampoo bottle on shower floor). The arrangement ended when she told me she had to cut her hours because she was going to look after her grandchild so would only be able to come once a week for an hour or so. Because we really liked her, says ok we can do that

But if course we needed more cleaning so asked for recommendations for a cleaner on our local mums fb page, that we needed additional cleaning on x day (the day the cleaner said she could no longer do). We had every intention of keeping in the first cleaner (solely really because she was so nice).
Well the daughter saw my list, told her mother I was firing her as I was looking for a new cleaner. Cleaner sent me a very nasty text and dumped us. For the last few years I have been using a cleaning service who do an amazing job to such a high standard, cleaning things and doing things not asked (clean out fridge, clean inside oven, refills every towel hung in bathroom, folds toilet paper) I could go on. So really blessing after all

So find someone else who is more professional in their approach. They can also tell you when viewing your house how much time they think it would take them to do to the standard you want.

It takes me at least 30 minutes to hoover my two up two down (sometimes 45. 15-20 minutes to hoover the kitchen, sitting room and vestibule). 30-45 minutes to dust the whole house, another 10 minutes to mop the kitchen and vestibule flooring with a spray mop (longer if I use the string mop and dry the floor afterwards) and at least 20 minutes to clean the bathroom, which is smaller than a bedroom.

So I do think you're being unrealistic in your expectations.

If she is cleaning around your mess it may be taking her longer. If you want her to concentrate on other stuff ask her to leave the vacuuming and do that yourself.

If you don't want her to Hoover you can just say so. Leave a list of jobs that need to be done.

Ours comes once a week for 2 hours and does half the house each week. So does bedrooms (puts new bedding on, I'll strip then beds first) and bathrooms one week, and then the next week does the downstairs. It suits us and means she does a really thorough job each time rather than rushing to finish everything on a surface level.

We have a 3 bedroomed (cluttered) apartment with 4DC. Our cleaner comes for 5-6 hours a week. She changes beds, cleans floors, puts away washing or hangs it out, tidies and cleans bathrooms/kitchen.
I love her...

We have a 5 bed house with 5 reception rooms and 3 bathrooms. My cleaner does 4 hours a week, which covers dusting and hoovering the whole house. She's particularly thorough in the bathrooms and kitchen.

I did the same cleaning during lockdown and it took me over 6 hours and didn't look as good. She doesn't usually change the beds and I leave it tidy though she does sometimes tidy the playroom a bit.

Sounds reasonable to me. I used to have a 2 bed/2 full bath flat and it would take my cleaner 2 1/2 hrs to clean.
-dusting, including skirting boards
-hoover/mop tiled kitchen floor
-clean the bathrooms
-wipe out fridge
-wash any dishes left, usually just the ones from that day, breakfast or lunch.
You said you can do it all in 1hr, you must be speedy, it takes me at least 1hr just to do all the floors!

I have a cleaner that comes for 3 hours weekly.
I have a 2 bedroom apartment all on one level quite large both bedrooms have en-suite and I have one small toilet.
I always tidy up any mess like things that have been left out or laying about before she come as I pay her to clean my the Apartment not tidy it as I can do that .

I think you're being unrealistic in your expectations.
If you're satisfied with the standard of her work then I would focus on that not how long it takes her

Does she clean (mop) the floors? Thoroughly clean the bathrooms? The kitchen? If so sounds reasonable to me

When I worked for a cleaning company, the boss made it clear that cleaners are very different from housekeepers, which charge a lot more, and do the washing, ironing, and tidying. We were instructed to only clean around the mess. 🤷‍♀️

Cleaning and tidying are two separate things. Cleaners don't (typically) tidy. It sounds like you don't tidy ahead of her visit which is possibly why she is taking longer to clean as she is having lift/clean around the mess.