Cleaner -advice needed

[Darsar111]

We've never had a cleaner before and we really struggled to find one. We finally found one that charges £18 an hour and agreed to do a fortnightly clean for three hours - great we thought and got them booked in. We agreed that they would clean one kitchen, two living rooms, two toilet, two bathrooms, hoover two flights of stairs, and an upstairs bedroom.

They completed their first clean on Friday.

When we came home, we were quite disappointed as they had only cleaned the kitchen and the two living rooms. When we queried this, we were told that they didn't have time to do the rest as they wanted to make sure that they did a proper job of the rooms that they had cleaned. We were disappointed with the quality of the clean as there were still marks in the corners of the floors, they hadn't cleaned the dining room table, surfaces still had dust on and they had wiped items in the kitchen not under them. We were told that they need more time to 'get on top of things' and for the next clean will do upstairs only. After that, they can do all the house in three hours.

Is this normal for cleaners to spend longer one only a few rooms first 'to get on top of things' ? Are we expecting too much in three hours? Admittedly, our house isn't spotless- but I can normally clean the kitchen and mop floors in around an hour. Any advice on expectations would be great.

I’ve found that they want to do a deep clean to start with, to get everything to an acceptable level and then after that a regular one to keep on top of it.

I do think that 3 hours isn’t really long enough for what you’re asking to be fair.

Defo not normal... i think 3 hours is a reasonable amount of time to get everything you refered clean. they need to be professional, anyone can say whatever, but 54 pounds for a 3 hours clean is a really good amount, so they should do what they were told, and specially if you noticed they haven't even cleaned properly, what were they doing for those 3 hours? definitely not putting all they effort cleaning, as if they were, at least those 2 areas would be brilliant and perfect.

We have a fantastic cleaner but the first couple of sessions she definitely got much less done probably because of the lack of familiarity with where everything is kept and how it all works as well as needing to do a deep clean.

We have a four bedroom 2 bathroom house that takes four hours @ £15 per hour, but she often irons too in that time so Ithink your time and money is fine.

It would be good if you could be there while she cleans to supervise and communicate what matters and what you don’t mind about. You need to give it a bit of time to establish a good working relationship in my experience. It’s worth it when you can make it work well OP good luck.

I would say the amount they are charging is fine (self employed or through an agency?).

If only cleaning once a fortnight it probably takes longer unless you are doing some bits in between?

When I did this for an agency it always took a bit longer on first visit to get to know the house. Maybe give another go before finding new.