Looking for a cleaner

[bunnyrabbit]

Not sure if this is the best place for this thread but...

I'm looking for a cleaner. I've decided I can't work full time in the city and do everything else (still cook all of DS's food too) and manage the housework so we will have to have a cleaner or I'll explode!!

I've used a couple of agencies before (Molly Maids and Clearwater) and they have either been useless or let me down (on News year's eve when I had guests coming for dinner and got home from work at 4pm to find a message on my home 'phone!!) and they're damned expensive, so would prefer a 'woman/man who does' as my mum would say, but am open to suggestions.

Does anyone know anyone in the Chalmsford/Essex area, or a national agency they could reccomend?

BR

I always get good cleaners by putting a card in the local newsagent shop window, obviously checking references fully though.

Unfortunately none of my friends with children work fulltime, so they don't have cleaners, and DS is only 10 months, not quite school age yet.

I'm afraid I don't belong to any mummy groups as I work full time.

Good idea about the local shop. I might try that but I'd prefer to have a reccomendation.....

BR

and the small add in the paper... might try that.

Thanks guys

BR

Damn right you need a cleaner, BR! There's nothing like a filthy house to make me contemplate divorce or husband-murder -- suddenly the fact that it's all disgusting becomes HIS FAULT. Now we have a great cleaner, my life is of course completely beautiful...

I confess I never cracked the cleaner thing until my youngest child was at school and I got plugged into a parent gossip network. Agree with you about the national chains -- expensive and tend to clean according to a fixed plan rather than seeing what needs to be done. Cards at newsagents can work, but take up references and make sure that the references are real people, ie. names and addresses, proper phone numbers, not mobiles.

In central London most cleaners are not English. If that's the case in your area you may find strange discrepancies between your ideas of what needs doing and hers, so it may need careful monitoring/training in the early days. We've had good experiences with Bulgarian cleaners, who pass you on to their sister/cousin/friend when they go back home.

Is your son in nursery? Could you get recommendations that way? If any of your non-working friends do NCT or baby groups, maybe they could sound out other mums/nannies on the subject. There isn't really a substitute for recommendation from somebody whose standards are likely to be similar to your own.

hth

Just wanted to share my favourite cleaner recruitment story, courtesy of an ex-colleague living in an affluent area of the SE, where cleaners are like gold dust.

She got a recommendation, the cleaner came round for a visit, had a good look at the house, before turning to the (prospective) employer and saying, "All right, I'll take it on. I like a challenge."

That's the attitude I'm looking for in a cleaner '

how much is a cleaner??

cleaners will vary depending on area. I'm in West London and pay ours £6 an hour.

The last agency I had in wanted £12 an hour!!! Hence would prefer a local person...

Will see if my friends can ask around for me though... getting desperate as we actually had to cleam the house on Saturday cos we had friends coming round. It wasn't pretty!!!

Usually around £6 an hour.

Our house is a SPLENDID challenge for any cleaner wishing to develop his/her skills

I pay £6 an hour for our cleaner. I got her from an ad I put in local newsagent. She was an au pair for a family in next street when she started with me so I got a reference off them.

What about your parents/parents-in law do they have a cleaner, or friends with cleaners. I know a lot of my mums friends do. My last cleaner worked for my mum and me at same time.

Also if there is a local college/language school it's worth putting an ad in there. This may be obvious but I would always go for someone who has cleaned before and can provide references.

Good luck

br, per our chat have you tried the gumtree at all - look under "work wanted"? Our lovely current Polish girl came via there - actually at the moment her equally lovely sister is doing the job, bearing out exactly what Frogs says about the networks. Yes it's a bit of a leap in the dark because not word of mouth recommendation, but corresponding with possibles by e-mail meant that we had a pretty good sense of people in advance, and only needed to interview those we felt fairly sure about. Kate is a gem - she also came at short notice to help with ds's birthday party and tried not to let me pay her!

We pay her £7 hour for 8 hrs/wk, which is on the generous side for non-agency cleaners - but she is worth it.

Agree 100% binkie that it is a bit of a leap in the dark but you normally get a good vibe off someone. All our cleaners have been like that and end up being good friends. We have only ever got them through the card in the window job. Another advantage is that our girls just love our new Polish cleaner and she now babysits for us as well. Clean House + Happy Marriage = Contented Family.

binkie,
Do you know I tried to think of every damn word I could to do with aussies, 'cos I knew the site was called something like this, and did I think of Gumtree. NO!

THnaks once again.

And thakyou ladies for the comments on £ / hr. A lot less than £12 then!!

BR

Most of Gumtree seems to be London, no cleaners in Essex unfortunately...