What do you do when a cleaner is there?

[redlou123]

I'm heavily pregnant and decided to get cleaners in to do a deep-clean of the whole house before the baby comes (I just can't face doing it all myself). If they do a good job, I think I might get them in regularly (weekly/fortnightly?) after the baby is here to keep on top of the general housework whilst I'm trying to figure out how to keep a tiny human alive!

For those who have cleaners to help out around the house, my question is, what do you do when they're here? My husband has locked himself away in the office to work and I've come up to the nursery to sort a few bits and bobs out and have brought my ipad up here with me so should be able to keep out of their way for most of today, but on normal cleaning days, are you expected to move around the house to keep out of their way? Or do they work around you? What do you do when they are here? Do you make them tea/coffee or do they help themselves? I know I'm probably completely overthinking this but I've never had a cleaner in before and so I just don't know what the normal etiquette is! Any advice would be much appreciated

I am a cleaner and I'll just give you my input. On the first visit I like the owner to be available for the "What goes where " questions and what jobs are more pressing than others and how your cleaning stocks are organised. After that, the majority of my clients just squirrel themselves away - watch TV, computers, tablets, whatever - whilst I beaver away. I always warn when I'm about to hoover cos it's noisy, apart from that I'll work around the home owner. Some people leave to do other things, one lady practices her piano - which is wonderful.

What I do not like is being followed, treated as a friend around for a chat or sitting at a table drinking tea/coffee. I'm being employed, I'm not there to socialize. With regular clients we do a five minute " How the family are doing/what happened to X this week" catch up, and that's it. I never expect tea or biscuits.