Our (lovely) cleaner has started bringing her teenage son along to get the work done in a shorter time

[bossykate]

...the idea being that he helps her and together they get the four hours work done in (today) approx 2.5hrs. She has started doing this because she has language classes (I think) which are making it difficult for her to schedule her jobs.

now, wonderful as she is - she really is - i'm not happy about this.

good kid though the son is his productivity is simply not the same as hers - so overall less seems to be getting done in the time, although to be fair not by a huge amount.

second, i'm at home at the moment, h mainly works from home, so some days that means there are four of us in the house trying to move from room to room - it really feels claustrophobic some days.

our cleaner really is marvellous and am generally happy to be flexible to help her out if i can but this is starting to piss me off!

how do i raise the matter with her?

thanks in advance for your help.

The plus side is they are in your house for less time. Also a teenage boy has strength on his side, so good at vacuuming and scrubbing. At one stage I had a team of 4 cleaners who were in/out in an hour including the ironing. Could you quietly raise specific things he's not doing well enough?

time to re-examine your feminism

would you really mind so much if it was her teenage daughter?

just a question

my cappuccino you do leap to conclusions don't you? i've had a male nanny before now so think my "feminism" is just fine thank you perhaps you should re-examine your desire to jump in without any knowledge to speak of?

and the cleaner does have a early 20 something daughter who sometimes helps out and yes i would prefer her - because she does a better job

like I said, just a quesiton

to see if that was really the reason

wasn't deciding the answer in advance

prickly

well in that case bossy the son needs to learn to do as good a job as the daughter

but hang on your 'there are too many people in the house' argument falls if you don't mind the daughter

she has never come at the same time as her mother - or hardly ever. as i said, i don't mind being flexible if i can, but this looks like becoming a regular thing so i'll need to stop it now or risk it becoming "too late".

tbh it is the fact that some days there doesn't seem to be a room i can go into that is the most frustrating! also i have only recently stopped work so am not used to being here when cleaner is here on a regular basis - though there have been days when i have been at home (sick or WAH) when she has been here and it has worked fine. i think there is simply one too many people in the house. it was somewhat better today as dh wasn't here and he usually is on a monday.

sorry, didn't see this comment below.

"well in that case bossy the son needs to learn to do as good a job as the daughter"

pmsl! maybe so but not on my time, not on my time!

Not being at all sexist, but I don't think there is a teenage boy in the land who is enthusiastic and skilled at domestic chores. Completely sympathise with the OP that his cleaning will be half-arsed in comparison with his mother's. Think you will have to ask that your cleaner comes alone, perhaps you will be able to change days in order to suit her a little better (if that's convenient to you)

would be grateful for constructive insights

sdr - btw, sorry, forgot to acknowledge your post as i was, as she said, "prickly" about Capp's post. would hate team of 4 scenario - horses for courses. raising specific items he's not doing well... now you see, of course in theory that is the right thing to do, but imo&e that would need a list of what needed to be done... and again imo&e once you start down the road of lists you are doomed, doomed i tell you but thank you very much anyway for bothering to respond!

and thanks also to getorfmoiland (always snigger at your name btw! ). the embryonic idea forming in my mind is that i will ask her to come alone on mondays - using dh as the excuse, natch...

I ahve to admit I had similar in my cleaner came with her teenage/ early 20's daughter and her quality of work was much lower. She (for example never hoovered the far side of my bed, and didnt go round the edges of the laminate floored room. Most frustrating. Luckily jsut as I was formlating how to deal with it, it all stopped as she changed days on me and her DD obviously couldnt do that day.

Hope you get something sorted tho

Having been a cleaner for a number of years.....this may shock you but we always asked that the house owners were out when we cleaned as THEY got in our way!!!! I also took my elder dd with me occassionally, wouldn't have taken my ds, lovely as he is, he would have been useless!! It is a nightmare trying to clean when the owners are in.......

Well, I read the thread title and thought, so what, does it matter? I think the question is, are you happy with the cleaning that's done? If you are then I think you should live with it and put aside any quibbles/niggly this-wasn't-the-deal feelings and let it go and just decide that it's efficiency on her part, the job's getting done, so so what?

If, OTOH, the work standard is not as good as when she comes alone then I think you need to tell her. And if she gets him to pull his socks up and fix it, fine, if not, tell her you need her to do it. Could you dress it up as YOU do such a fab job and I'm a bit concerned that x wasn't done, did YOU do that bit? (she won't have!)

I agree, you can't spend time managing it, that's not the point of paying someone to do it, if you have to manage them too much (esp if you have never had to do so before) then it may feel like a job and imo you shouldn't have to do that kind of micro task management with someone who's previously worked for you and done a good job. They have changed the deal, not you and they need to make sure the work is the same standard.

If the issue is too many people can you change the times so it's done when you're not there?

I think it sounds like 3 separate things:
quality of work
being in your way
it wasn't the deal
And I think if the 2 former weren't a prob then the latter wouldn't be a problem.

Sorry if you've answered the qs I've just asked.

And there's definitely nothing wrong with yer feminism. I can vouch for that

www, my love, the point is not whether it matters to you but whether it matters to me

i agree with you that if the standard of work was the same and they weren't in my way, i wouldn't care either way tbh as long as it got done. even h is not pleased by this turn of events and normally i get an adolescent moody little support from him on these matters.

blossomsmine - totally get that you want people out of the way! it's in the interests of efficiency as well as not wanting to feel hovered over. i do try and keep out of the way - to such an extent that i feel there's nowhere i can go in my own home!

and i don't want to have go out just because the cleaners are coming.

dreamteamgirl - thanks for that. perhaps he will simply stop coming [hopeful].

Oh I agree bk, if it matters to you, it matters. My point was that my first reaction was why does it matter. But I realise that it does to you and therefore it needs addressing, absolutely.

So the cleaning isn't getting done, well, she needs to sort that out tbh then.
Good luck with it.