Is having a cleaner worth it?

[FTMaz]

Hi
so me and my partner have lived in our home for just over a year. Before this we rented together a city centre apartment that was average size and we never had a cleaner. This home is our ‘forever’ home and we went to the top end of our budget to afford it. It is 3 floors, 5 bed 4 bathrooms and a cinema room. Since moving we have had a cleaner as we both worked full time, long hours and didn’t want to spend our weekends cleaning when we had the income to be able to afford not to.

the cleaners I have at the moment come fortnightly, charge £22 ph and do 7 hours cleaning. If you have a cleaner you know that the £22 is per cleaner so if for example 2 come they do 3.5 hours etc.

anyway I am now on maternity leave, my baby is 18 weeks old. Of course I am knackered from being a new Mum but I would be lying if I said I didn’t have more time than when I was working full time ( I normally left the house at 7 and got back around 9pm after going to the gym). I stay on top of the cleaning and my house is never very dirty when they come but they do give it a really good deep clean.

However I am thinking about just doing the cleaning myself as I feel it is a bit of an extravagant spend considering I’m now at home. Also after a few days it feels like it needs cleaning again anyway! However I have never lived in a house this big without a cleaner so am I just being naive about how much work it will be.

so my question is…those with cleaners or who had cleaners and now don’t do/did you find that it makes/made a massive difference to your quality of life or are you glad you took it on yourself?

before I get any hate for being able to afford this choice both myself and my partner grew up in council houses and worked hard for the life we have. I do not take it for granted.

Thanks!

Totally worth it. I had a cleaner before, during and after maternity leave. I’d be lost without her.

I think that's a lot of cleaning time. I'd do some and pay for one cleaner to do the basics eg kitchen, bathroom(s) and all floors throughout, and whatever you need with any extra tins. Then finish it yourself, as and when.

One million percent worth it to me. I haven’t properly cleaned my own bathrooms or toilets in years - obviously I do have to do a quick clean intermittently but bathroom cleaning was one of my most loathed household chores and now my wonderful cleaner does them properly - I spend money on many luxuries in life but I’d give up
most of the others first before I economised on this. She makes our quality of life so much better than if she weren’t here.

I think I'd prefer a weekly clean of 3.5 hours as opposed to 7 hours a fortnight. Although your house is large, presumably you're not using all the bathrooms, so only one might need doing at a time. Likewise the bedrooms presumably stay reasonably tidy. However kitchen/mopping floors/hoovering/bathroom is not what you want to be doing with a baby if you've got the money to do so! It's hard work and boring and once your baby is older, you won't have as much time.

I think the money I spend on my cleaner is the best weekly money I spend.

But I'm not paying £22 per hour, and I'm not on maternity leave.

However, if you and dh (and now the new baby) are the only people in the house, then you aren't going to be using half the rooms, so I'd shut the doors and not worry about those.

7 hours seems to be a LOT of cleaning.
Like a pp, I would (if you can afford it) have a cleaner, but for much less time - maybe 2 hours a week ?

I have 5 bedrooms and 4DC and my cleaner does 3 hours a fortnight

For me personally, it wasn’t worth it. I felt pressure (not coming from the cleaner, but from myself) to get it ‘ready’ for her by sort of decluttering so she could be more productive, and to make myself presentable before her arrival and so on. That was kind of burdensome. I also found I couldn’t really concentrate on other things while she was in the house, although she was very nice and chill.

I had convinced myself we ‘needed’ a cleaner but I felt such relief when we cancelled! We now spend the money on things that make cleaning more enjoyable (products etc.) and get stuck in when we are in the mood, and I kind of find it a bit satisfying. House is just about equally clean 90% of the time and we are more relaxed.

Plus the admin side of it (our cleaner worked through a local agency) was just one more minor time-suck, and those all add up.

We have a 7-room house including a large live-in kitchen, plus 1 full bathroom, 1 ensuite and 1 downstairs loo and cleaners every other week for 3 hours. One good cleaning company told us that experienced cleaners could do our house in 2.5 hours total but we opted for 3 hours (2x1.5 hours) allowing for extras. 7 hours seems excessive for your house, but you have several bathrooms, which takes time. Unless you have guests all the time, surely you don't use them all and they don't need an intense clean every other week. I would have thought a 4-hour clean (2 hours for 2 cleaners) would be plenty. I think you have the potential scope to significantly reduce your cleaning costs and still have cleaners. A house does not need to be deep cleaned every 2 weeks. That is something you do twice a year, with a routine focus on a thorough bathroom and kitchen cleaning every 2 weeks and dusting and vacuuming of all rooms. Interior windows every 5-8 weeks and windows can be done on rotation.

I have been in two minds about cleaners and have dipped in and out of having them. I have always worked full time and have 2 children (now young adults), and found running my household where possible to be a good example and teaching my children life skills and respect for keeping their rooms and things tidy. That said, I have not been a martyr to cleaning and life is too short to spend time scrubbing. My health has declined and I booked cleaners when I was about to have surgery and for my recuperation time, and would keep them until the relationship soured (they stopped turning up on time or could no longer get staff). I would revert to doing the cleaning myself, roping in the children to help as and when necessary and they would do their rooms. I am now medically retired through disability and cleaners are a necessity. Yesterday I had to sack my cleaners of 16 months. I am devastated because my house was not cleaned as planned, the kitchen and bathrooms desperately need doing, but also because of the aggravation of having to find new reliable cleaners including an immediate clean just before a bank holiday weekend when everyone is away on top of my usual routine and appointments.

It sounds like money is not an issue and your cleaners are within your budget. If that's the case, I would say why make life difficult for yourself especially if you have a new baby, and I would continue with the cleaners if the relationship is good and they do a consistently good job.. I think you have scope to significantly reduce the cleaning time and the cost. You say that the house "needs to be done again in a few days". Do not confuse tidying and cleaning

My cleaner does 3 hrs a week.
£15phr
It's totally worth it.

7 hrs seems a lot!

She must be a human dynamo to achieve much in that time! I would need that twice a week. We’re clean and tidy and there are two of us!

How many cleaners do it in 3 hours?

Every cleaner we've had over the past 22 years has done it in 3 hours and have done a great job. We have an additional deep clean twice a year - furniture moved etc