Baffled by cleaners!

[Clio82]

Hi all,

I’d love some opinions, please on the cleaning agency I’m using. It’s been about three months. I booked 2 hours a week for a small 3 bed terrace (just me and my son).

First cleaner; nice older lady, a bit ditsy. Did a lovely job of tidying, hoovering and straightening up bedroom but only “cleaned around” things in bathroom and kitchen and frequently missed obvious dirt and rogue hairs. Got back from hols the day she’d been and she’d left dust, dead insects and cobwebs as well as food stuck to surfaces. Didn’t seem to be able to see it. Broke my hoover and used to chuck water all over the floor with a cup and then apologise for it being wet. Asked me to be honest with her so I would gently point out the bits she’d missed. I never moaned at her about the hoover cos she was so upset about breaking it. Even brought her husband over to fix it and he couldn’t. Changed her day nearly every week, which drove me mad.

If I wasn’t in, the job could be very poor. One week it looked like she had done nothing. I asked her about it and she said “yeah, I had a migraine, it will be better next time.”

Eventually kicked off at me after I asked her if she left a cup of what looked like cleaning fluid on the counter. (Someone did and my 4 year old grabbed it and took a swig before spitting it out, which was dangerous. Turned out to be diluted washing up liquid). Told me I’m obvs not happy with her work and it’s not her job to pick up toys. Added a couple of digs like “I bet you’ve had a lot of cleaners” and “your house is what is dangerous.” Quit.

I sent the agency photos of her poor work and her reason for quitting and they never acknowledged; just sent me a new cleaner (Cleaner 2), who was ill the first week and then couldn’t work the second week cos I hadn’t been able to give her the keys when arranged (cos she was ill and didn’t contact me when arranged).

Temp cleaner; amazing! But not available weekly.

Cleaner 2: does an excellent job of whole house and leaves it looking like a hotel. Says it’s a lovely house and a great job for her. But keeps telling me things are “deep clean” so not her job. This includes kids’ finger marks on stair rail and dusting skirtings. I told her the agency very clearly includes dusting skirtings as standard and she agreed and said “oh ok, must be my other agency that doesn’t.” This time she turned up with a young woman who she said she brought to him her. The job was good but not as good as normal.

She also pulled me aside and said the house needs to be tidier. My kid was off sick from school and I was working from home, so we were dishevelled, but nothing unreasonable. (I got up at 06.30 to straighten it up for her). One of them dumped a huge pile of dirty sheets and cloths on my dining table and left it there (which I had left in a corner near the washing machine as my next washing load. She knows I leave stuff there as I have told her.)

Is this normal? It’s becoming so stressful managing these people that I think it’s taking more of my time than cleaning!

I think there are two issues here:

1. via an agency the cleaners are probably getting minimum wage and don't give a shit
2. 2 hours is not enough. It should be 1 hour x no of bedrooms + 1 hour extra for hallway, bathroom. My cleaner spends 5-6 hours in a 4 bed 2 bath house

It's ok to trial cleaners for 2-3 sessions then change if you're not happy but can you find an independent through facebook, neighbours etc rather than agency?

5-6 hours?! You're absolutely being conned. My friend works at a cleaning agency and she does a house that size in 3 hours and they run a kennels from it! It doesn't take more than five minutes to hoover and dust a bedroom.

They don't give them anywhere near that time for hotel room turnovers and that includes changing the bedding etc.

The problem with not using an agency is 99 times of out 100 the person gets bored of being a cleaner and starts to bring in all the excuses. Next thing a month has gone by and they've haven't turned up at all, then they continue to make excuses until you get annoyed and find someone else. The 1 in 100 that continues cleaning reliably for more than a year is like gold dust. We were paying one £30/hour at one point and she still ditched us because she found a client who was closer (we are in a city and no one is more than 3 miles away, and we have safe parking on our drive and excellent public transport links).

Our cleaner cleans our 4 bed, 3 bathroom house beautifully in 3 hours a week.

First cleaner was shit. Second cleaner is good, you just need to clear all clutter up before she comes. Done

£13 an hour is virtually nothing really if you are expecting her to really work hard in that time though.

It doesn't take more than five minutes to hoover and dust a bedroom

and this is exactly why it’s so difficult to find decent cleaners. it would take me significantly longer than 5 minutes to hoover and dust a bedroom and mine get done at least once a week (Cleaners are here four days and do upstairs twice, but exactly what varies) so it’s not like they’re particularly grubby but people clearly have completely different standards.

That’s what she charges though. I don’t think the OP has set the price.

My cleaner comes for 3 hours once a week for our 4 bedroomed, 2 bathrooms house. There’s only me and DH so only one bedroom and one bathroom is used on a regular basis. House is tidy before she comes. She does a fantastic job, my bathrooms look like a posh hotel after she’s been, she cleans skirting boards and windows on a rota, dusts and hoovers everywhere, mops hard floors and cleans the hob. We have 2 dogs so paintwork downstairs needs wiping regularly.
She takes my ironing away and brings it back the following day. We may her £50 (in the south east) plus the ironing and she’s been with us for 12 years so we must be doing something right.
We’re flexible on days as DH works from home and she sometimes brings her 9 year old with her in school holidays.

It’s cash in hand; equivalent to an annual amount over £30k. I know it’s not a high wage but they’ve agreed to it and yes I do expect them to actually stick to their days and to not leave cobwebs and bits of food everywhere.

The last agency I used were a huge waste of time. Almost every week, there was some change to be accommodated- a new cleaner who I needed to show round or changing to a different day. The quality also varied hugely! Like you said, it was really eating into the extra time I was supposedly buying myself with the cleaning!

I now have an independent cleaner my friend recommended and she is amazing. Nice to have a chat with and she cleans to a great standard. As someone else said - the agency cleaners are probably not getting paid that well (and I find the agencies are not transparent about how much staff get paid) whereas I know my cleaner is paid decently (£15ph in London) and it’s more worth her while. I would get rid of the agency and find some local to you through word of mouth.

We had a cleaner for a number of years. Used an agency at first but kept getting different people who did a varying level of job. Then we had an independent cleaner for a number of years, at first she was great but gradually her standards slipped. She was meant to do 2 hours, but SIL saw her leaving the house after 1.5 hrs.
Then we got a dog and covid meant we were working from home so we cancelled the cleaner (thankfully pre covid so we didn't end uo having to pay her during that time).

I have a robohoover that works well for most things apart from the stairs, I use one of those mops that you attach the cloth to for the floor so it's pretty quick , I use bathroom cleaning mousse which is pricey but cuts out a lot of the scrubbing and I use those foamy things you put down the toilet once a week to keep it reasonably clean.

The house is never spotless but it doesn't take too long and it's generally liveable

The economy would grind to a halt if we all stopped paying for things we can do ourselves.

I’m not convinced that 2 hours isn’t enough. I’ve always told them not to bother with the spare room and I’ve never asked them to do windows.

They often leave 15 mins early, which doesn’t bother me if they’ve done it well.

It’s more about them fixating on tasks like cleaning windows which I haven’t asked for and don’t need done every week, then refusing to dust and getting annoyed about a bit of tidying.

@timeforanewmoniker
I agree,an hour to hoover and light clean a bedroom even changing a bed does not take an hour, I'm mystified why anyone wastes money like this, the 'it's 2 hours I could spend with my child nonsense'
What these cleaners are being paid for is just basic tasks you do as you go along.

@TorroFerney
I'm referring to this instance, it's very little, that OP could easily run through herself in about an hour, save all the angst of this.

I also pay for someone to wash and hoover my car, clean my windows and do the weeding in my garden. All stuff I could do myself, I just don’t want to.

Oh it's definitely worth the money, I hate cleaning and am terrible at it. One of the best things I've paid for - when it's gone right.

I work 18 hour days every single day, the last thing I want to do is clean - I don't even cook.

OK op: large house here 3,500 sq feet. Cleaner does 6.5 hours a week.

3 hours: steam mops hard floors, (kitchen, family/dining room, hall, dd's rooms, laundry room, utility, boot room) hoovers main carpeted areas. (Stairs x 2, drawing room, 2nd reception, main bed). Cleans 3 bathrooms and the downstairs bog. She works very hard.

3.5 hours: About and hour and a half to two hours ironing, polishes mirrors and dusts.

The house is never, ever untidy. I don't tidy for her, we are always just tidy.

Twice a year I pay for two cleaners to come in and wipe all paintwork, give the kitchen a thorough going over, pull things out to go under, dust/light vacuum lampshades, tops of curtains, etc, dust all parts of all furniture.

I think you are expecting too much.

To be fair though you can probably half that amount of time for the size of the OPs house (a 3 bed isn’t likely to be bigger than 1700sqft) plus take away the 2 hours for ironing as she isn’t asking them to do that, so 2 hours doesn’t sound completely unreasonable?

This is what riles me the most , comments from people who slate cleaners as unreliable , lazy and just can’t be bothered . Not to mention it takes 5 mins to hoover and dust a bedroom . Yeah it would be if it was empty and the size of a postage stamp. I’ve been a cleaner now for 10 years , I have clients that have been with me that length of time. You become a friend in that time and go above and beyond to accommodate your client. Because you actually like them. Sometimes you have to remember when cleaning not everything goes to plan . Clients vacuum cleaners are not always the best and bathrooms can take longer than expected .

Look I haven't read all the thread but from your first few posts OP, it is NOT a cleaner's job to tidy!!!!

It is clear to me you would be getting a better standard of cleaning if you tidied up more. You are part of the problem here, it's not just the cleaners.

You can if there's no tidying involved. I think it sounds as though the op needs three hours and a deep clean a couple of times a year.

I've been using the same agency fir 10 years, before that I was plugged into the same network of cleaners for 20 years and prior to that had the same local lady for ten years.

As the pp says, the cleaners become close acquaintances if not friends over time.

Really?!

Right, I will have to say it again.

Brief is to hoover two bedrooms, clean one small bathroom and one small kitchen, bit of dusting on rotation . Leave spare room untouched. Agency has agreed to this. I specifically tell them to prioritise kitchen and bathroom but they regularly opt to start upstairs. The first one spent 1.5 hours on bedrooms leaving 30 mins for all the priority stuff.

Second one says she always starts upstairs every alternative week.

Both cleaners frequently leave a bit early. (I can see this on my Ring door cam). Neither have ever said it’s too much to do in the time, they’ve just said they want to do windows (which I don’t want) and no dusting and moaned about tidying. One of them also got annoyed cos I said I needed need polishing done and I didn’t want my hardwood floors mopped, only hoovered.

Only two of us live here and over the summer we were away often, so clean effectively took place every 2-5 days of use.

Temp cleaner did more than either of them and left half an hour early with my permission cos house was spotless.

House is 914 square foot. Third bedroom is tiny.

Sorry, meant didn’t need polishing done. She wanted to polish my furniture but said no to dusting.