How much do you pay hourly rate for cleaning?

[AliciaSoo]

Currently in the process of finding a cleaner...
This would be for a house 3/4 bed, weekly clean 3-4h.
I used to pay around 3-4 years ago through agency around £12/h and continue that until about a year ago.
For X reasons I stopped using that agency.
Private cleaner charging £17/h, I agreed as I was desperate for some help at home.
She's left due to personal reasons needs to decrease her workload. I felt she was been overpaid tbh, the rooms were all round, I stopped picking a certain little paper etc from a corner just to see if she'd done something about when particularly asking, "please pay special attention to certain area", but still her cleaning was not very good... but again, desperate measures and really needed the help at home.
Now in the process of looking for another cleaner.. I've asked 2 or 3 people around the area the asking rate is £17.5/h.
Is the world gone mad?!
Am I been unreasonable of thinking that is a crazy asking price?
Really looking for some insight here, thanks everyone!

It's not "exploiting" someone to pay them the fee they ask for, and particularly when that fee is more or less the same as everyone else in the same area is charging.

I assume that you go into shops and pay over the advertised price if you think it exploitative? Never buy anything from Third World workshops, like mobile phones, toys, clothing?

And before you assume otherwise, all my cleaners have been my same-race and social equals, so don't try painting me as some wealthy middle class lazy sod exploiting disadvantaged desperate immigrants. My current cleaner comes from a posh middle class background whereas I am the child of an immigrant and grew up in poverty in a council flat.

Hey don’t you dare accuse me of saying you are exploiting anyone….don’t you fucking dare 😡…l.SAID your cleaner is a mug …..read the fucking thread properly

£20 an hour, London outskirts.

Oooh touched a nerve there, didn't I?

@Kitkat1523 i think @Gawjus is having a go at me..or maybe I touched a nerve. I’m not sure.

It might be that the cost of cleaning is what it is in that area because there are more people who need work than work that needs doing, and that current legislation lets the self employed effectively price themselves below the minimum wage. I am wrong for calling that out? I don’t think so. Would I avail myself of those rates knowing it was fundamentally exploitative? No. And as this sector is still, disproportionately, staffed by women I think it’s even more important to highlight the issue. Though as it happens, my cleaner is a man

For what it’s worth, where possible, I do avoid shops, manufacturers and business that are overtly exploitative, or that have business ethics I disagree with. But of course I can only do my bit, and I’m not going to bite my nose off to spite my face. I need phones, tech, cars etc and so I buy the best/least impactful I can, and I am willing to pay for that. I enjoy travelling, and always offset my carbon emissions for flights for example.

Does it really help? Probably not. Is it better than doing nothing…. Probably. It’s no more than that…. Do I judge those that knowingly underpay for a service, particularly when it’s mainly exploiting women. Yes.

Nah I just don’t like liars

if you want to accuse someone of something…make sure you got the right person next time

I hate the way some threads end up being a personal attack on me. It's not in any way my fault if all the cleaners in my town charge less than YOU think they ought to be charging! Jeeeeze.

But it’s ok for YOU to attack me and accuse me of saying something I didn’t say ……now that is well out of order

It’s not an attack. It’s a fact based observation. Are you at liberty to avail yourself do those rates? Of course you are. But the same could be said of those that exploit sex workers. Is it the sex workers fault as well, because they have no choice but to offer the service to survive? It seems to me that in both cases the supplier has no choice. Exploitation is exploitation, however you dress it up.

We hired a cleaner who told us she charger £15 an hour and I thought ok. She came to the house and suddenly it was £20 an hour because she decided to put her prices up….we asked our friend who recommended her and she was charging them £12.50 an hour!!

I understand totally that prices need to go up and if she had have charged us £15 as new customers and kept longer term customers at £12.50 that’s 100% but I think to put it upto £20 was ridiculous.

my husband calls it the Porsche tax, as soon as anyone sees our Porsche jeep the price of everything seems to go up!

£14, 3 hour booking, Yorkshire. I plan to put his rate up at Christmas because he's brilliant - he is also a terrific self-employed actor doing freelance cleaning as a sideline. He's great.

Previous lady was £17.50/ hour - we paid £35 because there were meant to be 2 of them. Then her assistant often couldn't make it so she came alone, only cleaned for an hour, and it was weirdly still £35.

£18 - £25 per hour is the going rate for a self employed cleaner.

I charge £40 per hour for end of tenancy cleaning which is all I specialise in.

All declared and above board, I pay my tax and NI in January and I contribute to a SIPP.

To those people knocking self employed people or assuming they are operating on a "cash" basis, the self employed are the back bone of this country!

The cleaner is working cash in hand and not declaring it

I hope she is for that money…..but regardless, she won’t be paid for holidays or get sick leave and won’t have a company pension to join….. so it’s still crappy pay

Sounds about right. If all cleaning products are supplied too that's a bargin and bite her hand off

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£19 per hour in Leeds. Seems fine to me.

£15 rural Worcestershire

Not really helpful to your scenario but I pay about £2.50-3.00 per hour (and that's considered a very high rate). I pay about £20 for the day and her hours vary slightly (to be honest, I am usually working in office on the days that she comes, so I don't know her exact hours each day but she's there most of the day). It's a three-bed apartment but she also does things like washing my sheets (and ironing - at least the pillowcases), remaking the bed, ironing any clothes that I leave out in the laundry room, washing any dishes in the sink.

I'm going to be so sad when I leave South-East Asia and actually have to clean up after myself.

I pay my lady £18 per hour (rural Northants) but she cleans and helps me sort out cupboards, drawers or the freezer. She also occasionally makes a lasagne or a cake for me - shes an excellent cook - which we divide into portions and freeze. She likes the variety of things I ask her to do. (I’m 80 just after Christmas)