Do you have a cleaner?

[bellybabe0]

I am looking at starting a little cleaning business and need to find a few things out. If you have a cleaner could you tell me:

1.) What you pay and for how many hours?
2.) How many bedrooms/ bathrooms they clean in their hours?
3.) What you like about having a cleaner?
4.) What you don't like about having a cleaner?
5.) The area of the country that you live in?
6.) How did you hear about your cleaner in the first place?
7.) Is the money you spend on a cleaner 'money well spent'?
8.) Anything else you think might be helpful!?

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer! I hope this post is allowed

1.) What you pay and for how many hours?
2.) How many bedrooms/ bathrooms they clean in their hours?
3.) What you like about having a cleaner?
4.) What you don't like about having a cleaner?
5.) The area of the country that you live in?
6.) How did you hear about your cleaner in the first place?
7.) Is the money you spend on a cleaner 'money well spent'?
8.) Anything else you think might be helpful!?

1. £12 an hour, 2 hours per week
2. 2 bathrooms, 1 WC, 2-3 bedrooms 3)Coming home to everything shiny
3. nothing
4. East Midlands 6)Facebook
5. absolutely
6. my cleaner is NOT the best cleaner, far from it. But she does a better job than I can and crucially she is reliable. In 3 years she has never called in sick.

1. £13.50 ph. 1 morning per week.
2. 2 bathrooms, no bedrooms (4 bed home)

3.

2. Midlands
3. Friend of the family
4. Yes

1.) What you pay and for how many hours? £11/hour to the cleaner, £2.80/hour to the agency, for 5.5 hours a week. We provide all cleaning products.

2.) How many bedrooms/ bathrooms they clean in their hours? Five bedrooms, a study, one bathroom, one cloakroom, two staircases, three receptions, kitchen, hall and landing. Also some ironing.

3.) What you like about having a cleaner? Everything - it is important to me that the cleaner comes on a Friday, so that the house is clean for the weekend. It also makes me organised, so that the house is tidy for when she arrives, and the waging is done ready to be ironed.

4.) What you don't like about having a cleaner? Nothing!

5.) The area of the country that you live in? South east, within the m25.

6.) How did you hear about your cleaner in the first place? Friends recommended an agency and agency provided the cleaner.

7.) Is the money you spend on a cleaner 'money well spent'? Absolutely.

8.) Anything else you think might be helpful!? Not everything needs to be gone every week, some things can be done fortnightly and some can even be done monthly. It would be useful to know what these jobs are.

We don't have one at the moment - here are my answers.

1. We would be paying I think £13 ph for 4 hours but 2x2 as two cleaners.
2. 5 beds and 2 baths plus loft conversion.
3. Liked that everything was cleaned reasonably well in one go.
4. Didn't like that it took me ages to tidy up (my choice not theirs), quite hard to work with two people there, they didn't always come at the same time, they left early, they were a bit heavy handed with the hoover so the skirting boards got bashed, one of the pair was excellent but the other far less so.
5. South-East/Home Counties
6. Via friends.
7. I wasn't sure which is why we don't have them any more. That happened a bit before Covid so that wasn't the reason.
8. Probably useful to have a list of rolling jobs to make sure they get done. I think the (understandable) tendency is for cleaners to do whatever is their standard set of jobs but not do things which only need doing occasionally.

I'm going to have another go though as I'd like them once every few weeks just not every week. I known that probably won't work from them though.

@WellTidy - do you pay the cleaner and the agency separately?

1.) It's about £60 for three hours a week. She works for a cleaning company who employ her.
2.) Large flat, four bedrooms, living room and separate kitchen. I supply products and equipment (ie vacuum cleaner, cloths).
3.) Means I don't have to do it.
4.) She can't whistle in tune.
5.) Edinburgh.
6.) Reddit recommendation.
7.) Money well spent? Yes, definitely.
8.) Get proper insurance, even if you don't work via an agency. I discovered that if I paid a cleaner cash-in-hand, it invalidated our home contents insurance. And we have expensive furniture and art so that's a significant consideration for us. PLI would cover you if you accidentally broke something, or a product you used damaged their floor/surfaces/possessions.

Yes I do. I leave cash for the cleaner on the day, and the agency invoices once a month, based on the hours the cleaner says she has done.

I pay the cleaner more than the agency rate because she is so good, and I round up. So the agency rate is £10/hour for the cleaner’s pay, but I pay her £11/hour (as I think that is fairer) and for 5.5 hours a week, which would be just over £60, round up to £70. I wouldn’t round up for anyone else that the agency sent, but my regular cleaner is fantastic.

Thank you everyone! That's very helpful

1.) What you pay and for how many hours? £15 per hour. She comes once a fortnight for 3 hours in term time only.
2.) How many bedrooms/ bathrooms they clean in their hours? 3 bedrooms (4 bed house but she does not do my one of my DS’ room as he is away at uni so the room is quick for me to do). 2 bathrooms.
3.) What you like about having a cleaner? Knowing I’ll come home to a lovely clean and “done” house every other Friday and the time I get back to do other things at the weekend. I work full time and struggle to stay on top of “deep clean” type housework.
4.) What you don't like about having a cleaner? Tidying up on a Thursday evening in readiness for the house being cleaned on Friday!
5.) The area of the country that you live in? South East
6.) How did you hear about your cleaner in the first place? Through a friend
7.) Is the money you spend on a cleaner 'money well spent'? Definitely
8.) Anything else you think might be helpful!? She brings her own cloths and dusters etc but uses the cleaning products I provide and my hoover etc.

I would love a cleaner, I feel like I’m on a hamster wheel of keeping up with it all. I’d go by recommendation or Facebook. I’d be willing to pay up to £15 per hour (London). Things that put me off are concerns about not knowing who will be coming into my home or what to expect, so I haven’t done anything about it. I want a professional person who is clear about how they work and how they can help me, agencies seem impersonal and I imagine a revolving door of people.