what to ask when interviewing a potential cleaner?

[miranda2]

After realising that virtually everyone on mumsnet has a cleaner (if not a nanny as well...), combined with a payrise of £100 a month, I have finally decided to take the plunge and spend the payrise on a cleaner. then, miraculously, a card appeared in the local shop window advertising a cleaner. I rang her, she can do 3 hours a week for £6 an hour (she was a bit apologetic about her pricing!), and she says she has references from previous employers - apparently she went to the states for 2 months so is now looking for new jobs. She's coming round next week to look at the house and be 'interviewed', bring her references (written). I want to make sure I can follow up the references, but apart from that is there anything I should ask or say? What do you expect your cleaners to get done in 3 hours? Would vacuuming throughout, kitchen and bathroom floors, loos, sinks and hob be realistic? Any tips gratefully received - I've never had 'staff' before!

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oooh miranda, you won't look back! We pay £5 an hour (so you are paying mroe than the local going rate!) and have 3 hours. This covers hoovering throughout, cleaning kitchen and bathroom, washing kitchen, dining room, hall and porch floors, and also quite a lot of miscellaneous tidying which we tried to discourage but is actually quite nice, and also necessary for her to clean as the place is a bit of a tip (she likes to arrange ds1's soft toy collection around his cot!). She'll also do extras like the fridge or inside windows if we ask.
p.s. how is the potty training?

miranda2, go round the house and be REALLY specific about what you want doing/how you want things cleaned/things you want left alone - and write a list. We've had some sloppy cleaners, partly our fault for not spelling out our standards. And stupid ones that scratched my brand new hob cos they couldn't get some gunk off it, rather than a bit of elbow grease, or wipe the mirrors with a wet cloth (yeah its clean but you can't see your face in it). Oh, and get them to do the things you really hate doing.

I used to work as a cleaner when I was a student, about 5 or 6 years ago? I got £5 an hour then, so don't think £6 an hour now is unreasonable! After all you're paying for the trust factor as much as anything aren't you? I used to feel the weight of this very heavily! I used to do exactly what you described in 3 hours miranda, and if the house was smaller and I had some time at th end, ironing was a good way to fill up that time. As the dirtiness can vary week to week, esp. in family home, I found it quite useful to have a flexible time filling option. But it largely depends on how much hoovering there is to do in your house. That was always the 'big job'.

We pay £7 an hour, and in the 12 years we've had various cleaners, my golden rule is to be polite but very specific about what you want (agree with helenmc). I now have a list with what I expect to be done in the 4 hours she's there (she comes every fortnight), and then some additional tasks that need to be done every so often (eg pulling out sofa cushions and vacuuming up crushed crisps etc that the dds have secreted there). It's money well spent - doesn't keep the place immaculate, but at least the basics are done once a fortnight - and it makes us all tidy up before she arrives - esp kids bedrooms.

Agree with what's been said - I'm on my 3rd cleaner ( but over 10 years !)- and 2 and 3 are great - but no 1 was keen on tidying but not on cleaning! I hadn't been clear enough as to exactly what she was to do and in what order of priority and then found it really hard to sort out the situation - especially as I was at work when she cleaned.
It is important to be very specific and also to point out that in addition to the list, ( written) that you will give her, of what you expect to be done each week, you will ask for other things to be done from time to time.
I have a great relationship with our current cleaner, I pay £6 an hour plus 4 week's paid holiday a year - plus about £50 bonus at Xmas. I have 6 hours a week and (ironing done separately) so there is plenty of lee-way to ask her to do all sorts of things, she even does some gardening from time to time as she used to be a gardener!

Thank you all very much. I'll do the list thing - I guess I need to think of all the things I'd like done once a month or once a quarter, so they are there to be done in rota or in spare moments. I don't actually mind ironing too much, so I'd rather she filled in with things like dusting the dado rail, hoovering sofa cushions/lampshades etc which I NEVER do and suddenly notice once a year look filthy! Any ideas for things to do (I do virtually no housework now so little idea of what should be done!!!).
Really hope she's OK - I'm very happy with the price (and anyway I don't pay tax and NI on it, my house being a vicarage, so its only £4 real money to me!), its the trust thats the key.

I wish I had been more specific about what I wanted from my last cleaning lady. I let her tell me what she was going to do and later found out that she couldn't/wouldn't deviate from this at all. No matter how nicely I asked her to an 'extra' one week at the expense of something else she found it difficult to change her routine. A nice/trustworthy lady but sometimes used to bring her grandchildren with her - but didn't tell me and this was before we had children and the house wasn't exactly 'childproof' (he looked in one of the cupboards and nearly took his fingers off with a mousetrap). Might be worthwhile checking that your house contents insurance covers you for the cleaner having an accident in your home - she might claim. She also used to go home early if she felt she was finished (but still took all the money!) If interviewing again I would ask the cleaner to tell me what she expected to do in the allocated time also am I supplying the equipment or would she prefer to use her own. I would certainly take up references. My neighbour found her last cleaning lady drunk, asleep on her bed!

I am rubbish at that sort of thing but I don't think any questions will really help you find out how good a cleaner she is. My cleaner has health problems so is a bit erratic but she worships my son and he loves her back. She's on a very exclusive guestlist of about five for his third birthday So it means when she comes I can go to the shops and leave him with her, which I really appreciate.

In our area its the cleaners who interview! (and she had a list..) Employ cleaners at work as well as home and good ones are very thin on the ground. Doesnt matter how many lists etc you staple to them, some just can not do it. Cleaners are born, not created.. but when you do get a good one, its opera!

Does anyone want to add how much they think a cleaner can get done in 2 or 3 hours? I am thinking to take the plunge! My mom always had a cleaner.. feels so decadent & lazy to me, but with 3 small children, I know I have an excuse.

Despite living in the NW I probably have the most expensive cleaner on mumsnet-£11 per hour. In 3 hours the following is done:

-all floors hoovered and washed (we don't have carpet anywhere)
-kitchen cleaned thoroughly (units wiped down etc)
-bathroom and loo cleaned thoroughly
-everything dusted and polished
-windows cleaned on the inside, conservatory windows and doors cleaned
-general tidying
-3 beds changed (and she does some weird thing where my unironed sheets look ironed)

We have a very average 3 bed house.

Unfortuantely there have been problems in our area with "cah in hand" cleaners working for a few weeks and then stealing stuff (same with window cleaners). Therefore we pay the extra to go through an agency where staff are checked and everything is "above board". As an added bonus the lady who runs the agency lives over the road, so I think she makes extra sure everything is immaculate.

Zebra-we found that 3 hours was the minimum any cleaner would do, and with anything other than a tiny flat I think you need that long too really see the benefits.

for us it came down to a cleaner or a divorce...

Why does it feel decadent and lazy, Zebra? Why are women expected to do everything: work, raise children, clean and be good wives/ good friends/good daughters/good daughters-in-laws. That's a lot for me--too much, in fact. I don't understand the mentality that if your life isn't EXTRA hard you're a failure somehow. But you get extra points if, say, your mother and mother-in-law live too far away to help and you're practically dying of a serious infection but you still won't pay for help or, if money is seriously lacking, ask a friend for assistance, because that would show "weakness."

Ah--yet another pressure, to join in the competition over who has the hardest life. It's strikes me as yet another social device to get women back in the home where they belong.

Sorry, Zebra, to take this out on you, but my Dutch in-laws have that very Calvinist philosphy that you must suffer to be good. They think if I have a cleaner I must be eating bon bons all day. (Yeah, right.) And from your comment, it would seem that 3 children is the magic number to deserve such a luxury. Well, I only have 2, so I guess I'm "lazy and decadent." I feel pretty bad now.

zebra, in 2-3 hours (we pay a set amount for a set amount of tasks - she is then free to spend as long as she wants on it as long as we are happy):

washing up
clean kitchen
vacuum and dust every room
empty all bins
clean bathroom thoroughly
ironing

Plus any extras (if there is not much ironing or washing up) such as clean the oven, defrost freezer, maybe once a year. If I am pg I also get her to change the sheets (it is really true, I could not get the undersheet back on the bed when I was pg - my hands just couldn't do it!)

We pay £22.50 a week. I did feel decadent, guilty etc. when we first got our cleaner, but I really am rubbish at cleaning. In 2-3 hours she does more and better than I would if I spent that every day. We always get ours through an ad in the local newsagent.

In 3 hours:

Hoover floors (kitchen , 2 recep rooms, hall, stairs, landing and 2 bedrooms which are used)
Mop all downstairs floors (3 rooms and hall)
Clean bathroom and ensuite and downstairs loo
Small tidy/clean of kitchen but it is usually clean anyhow
Ironing (10-15 items).
Some dusting

What she doesn't do : tidying - I usually tidy up the night before, makes her job easier if there isn't stuff strwen around !