i am investigating setting up a cleaning service

[overthemill]

having tried and failed to find a local cleaner I'm seriously thinking about setting up a local service with my sister who has been made redundant. I've been trying to get one since I moved here and the agencies locally (actually not that local) are expensive and I cant find anyone independently recommended by anyone - they all say 'wish i could get one'. BUT from the school gate I reckon there would be people who might want to clean for a few hours a week.

This would be her main income and my extra one (alongside my freelance work)

so, my questions to mumsnetters are:

if you have/would like a cleaner - how much do you pay - is it per hour or per session?
do you like weekly or fortnightly?
do you prefer using an agency or someone direct?

my idea is charge £7 - 9 an hour OR £30 for 3 bed house/£35 for 4 bed house. Extra for ironing @£5 an hour
springcleaning/one off £100
Reasonable?

would you want someone to come and 'assess' your house first/happy to call and book/prefer to visit a website?
oh and what about bringing own cleaning products - good or unimportant to you?

let me know! thanks!!!

Sorry - posted too soon. I also meant to say that here - outskirts of glasgow - it's £10 to £12 per hour, and there is a real shortage. The cleaners that there are all have waiting lists

hello

i am mumys daughter

ok!! got the keyboard back! she wanted to tell you all that she doesn't want me to be a cleaner as i will come home all covered in dust and she was drawn to the emticons like all 9 year olds....

so: if it worked as a concept i would ocme anywhere. know st albans v well. happy to do n herts, my sister is nearer n herts herself.

i think the concensus here is £8 - 10 an hour. i still wonder about £30 for 3 bed, £35 for 4 bed etc and charges for one offs. But I would be happy to take a straw poll of all of you. I think that would be £6 - 8 an hour for the cleaner, I'd have to cover admin costs.

Also, would you prefer to pay cleaner direct and me a fee or all to me and me do the paying?

and please vote on 'eco' angle, interested or just a gimick?

all my business link free courses have come through so i will be going on those through september and hope to sort out ascheme soon after that - obv have to get some cleaners too! have awful thought that instead of finding myself one i am going to end up cleaning other people's 50 hours a week!

If anybody is themselves a cleaner, please add your say, i'd want to be a good employer/agency too!

If you're in Beds overthemill would Cambridgeshire be somewhere you'd cover? If so I am interested as well.....

would cover my local area to start with and then think about world dominationexpansion after that according to demand/how successful it was

Hi overthemill, I'm not that far from you, am in Bucks.

I still think your prices are TOO LOW!

I think you ought to think of some way of incentivising cleaners so they stay and are reliable because I think that and the margins are your biggest challenge. Could you offer some kind of profit share (only if you made enough profits so we're back to prices again)?

I think people would much prefer to transfer a sum to your account every month but then ou're into admin costs, payroll costs and bank charges territory.

I think if you leaflet you should do both simultaneously so you get work AND workers. One is no good without the other.

I agree about custmer service, it's shocking in most places. I also think there's not much competition but maybe that's because cleaners are hard to find and margins are low? I think you need to check on the employment agency part of it though, there may be regs and stuff you haven't foreseen. Also employment rules re immigration, blah blah blah.

You're most welcome to CAT me or email wickedwaterwitch a t g m a i l do t c o m

I'd love to start my own business, I just haven't found anything yet that I think will make me as much money as being a contractor

I wonder if you could recruit mumsnetters as cleaners? Just because:

a) pool of parents many of whom would welcome extra income
b) UK coverage
c) Would be far more likely to be reliable IF you knew their mumsnet name etc as they mostly have something invested in this site.
d) You could make it clear that you don't mind if they want to give up the job but that they HAVE TO LET YOU KNOW.

also think about insurance, that's going to be a cost.

I recently employed someone as a cleaner who seemed nice, had 3 children, said she really wamted the job, she did a good job but I had to fire her as she failed to turn up several times at v short notice or without even telling me. Reliability is a key issue.

www - i absolutely agree with you! In my machinations yesteday driving back from some work (4 hour drive!) I was thinking about MNers and netmumsers (been lurking there this week) - because everyone always seems to be looking for some kind of work to fit around the children (dont we all). and although I wouldnt want to be a cleaner (was looking for one which started it all off) they may be keen to do soemthing for a couple of mornings regularly that brings in some money.

If they are local, they have an investment
if they are MNers then they do too I think there is a tremendous sense of community on this site.

your points about pay, regs etc are excellent and I think I will be in touch, thanks for the offer. I work freelance too you know and run another website on the side which makes no money but no longer costs me money. I cant help seeing a need and feeling i have to be the one to fill it!

I paid the agency a quarterly fee, ( must remember to cancel it!) But I was still paying it based on my cleaner's hours even when she didn't come through illness or holiday, so I ended paying a lot for nothing one month.

I am happy to pay cleaner direct, she didn't have a time sheet, my fee was based on her hours set at the beginning of the contract.

I agree Molly Maids are also

Hurry up and do St Albans please!

have to dip out now as we are off on holiday! but please continue to let me know

ok back to rl now after the fab hols. dd back at school today and once i've blitzed the house i am going to spend a bit of time looking into this.

still keen for ideas - esp about prices to chare - one off or hourly rate
and where to recruit cleaners.

i feel that sahm mums (like us) miht be interested?? any views??

Hi overthemill, Ive just found this post while looking up setting up a cleaning business. Im thinking of setting up a one woman local domestic cleaning business specialising in eco-cleaning. Im mum to a 15mth old and am sick of office work, need something more suitable for family time and want my own business. I was thinking of around the £8-10 pound an hour range, doing one-off and regular cleaning with ecover products.

Its been a great help reading the other posts and seeing what people want and what their experiences are.

I too would love to know whether people would really be interested in eco-cleaning and whether to charge an hourly fee or house based fee???

I was also thinking of doing special mums to be and new mums packages, with special advertising to mums.. any thoughts???

hey that's really similar to me and what i wnat to offer - reusable cloths ecover products, ecloths etc but their own hoovers etc. i'm thinking of £35 for 3 bed £40 for 4 bed etc and more for 'one offs'

i hope to be bigger than me only though.

where are you based? cat me and we can chat

how are you planning to advertise?

Hi I dont have cat but you can email me at
p n rickman @ hotmail . com

I'm based in Northumberland so not near you, hopefully using green products will be a success as its still very much a niche area. Haven't quite decided on whether I will use the clients own cleaning equipment or provide my own, apart from the products and cloths etc.

Im going to advertise in local free press and do a big leaflet drop in the areas I think will want a cleaner - probably the more up market ones!!

By the way what courses are you doing, sounds like a great idea.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Hello
I have just set up the exact cleaning company GFM describes!! With a friend, so when one cleans the other looks after our 2 dd's.
We are on the SE and charge £8 per hour using our own Ecover products.
We made postcards to advertise and business cards too, both from Vistaprint.

well done to you both! Now I have to get on with this really, really.
the courses are from business link free to do loads of things, small charge for others (most I've paid is £25)

i have also found WiRE really helpful too (for my other business)and worth the £40 a year cost. I am 99% certain that someone in WiRE has an ecocleaning business based in Norfolk. Take the rural bit with a pinch of salt - northumbria must count!

Idea for you (though you probably already have thought of it): cleaning holiday homes. We often stay in the area and there are 100s of holiday homes! doing this owuld concentrate your work on 1 or 2 days which might be a good source of regular/predictable income & the eco values would sit well with the area I would think?

my current dilemna is that I have just accepted a permanent role so although I want to set this up (and so need a cleaner myself) it can't take top priority this side of christmas. Please keep in touch

not sure if anyone will still be watching this but I have made tiny baby steps! I have recruited 2 people:

1)someone who wants to do either Luton or Barton le clay. (works with nursery)

2. someone who wants to do Luton up to 20 mins surrounding areas

If these places suits anyone on here let me know and we can talk - i'd like to use MNers as a testing ground before growing bigger.

btw both of these are also qualified childcarers who now have children

ok bump

Can I reactivate this thread please? Its a whole year on and I am now in teh process of setting this up. No longer working full time and aiming to do some part time work and part time cleaning business.

So, any new ideas about cleaning costs/likelihood of people still being able to afford one?

PLEASE, you were all so helpful previously!

Have a look at the tools on this website to see if the numbers work for you - www.startupdonut.co.uk

I am evangelical about the site as I helped set it up with Google!

And.... for marketing/marketresearch, use the freebies on this site

www.marketingdonut.co.uk

Good luck - great idea.

My DH has just started something similar. He was a cleaning manager in one of the only green flag hospitals in the country and LOVED his job, but worked about 20 hours a day and could not keep it up when DD was born.

We are in London and he charges £8 - 9 per hour. He does most of the jobs himself, but if there is one he can't cover for any reason he trains and CRB checks cleaners that he knows are good from the hospital. It is very recent but seems to be going well and prices people are happy with.

Hope thats of some use?

Hi overthemill,

I have been using my current cleaner for a year and she has set up her own company. I thought it might be useful to share her experiences.

She started cleaning because she couldn't get a job in her professional field. She is a complete clean-freak and has great attention to detail. She also works faster and harder than any other cleaner I have ever had.

After a couple of months she was inundated with jobs (she does domestic cleaning and also one-off cleaning jobs e.g. new houses / offices once the builder has finished), so she started trying to recruit other people to help her.

She now has 4 others who work regularly for her, and she spends half her time doing admin and half her time doing practical cleaning.

Her biggest difficulty has been finding people who are hard working and reliable. If someone is sick, then she has to fill in or get one of the other cleaners to do extra. She says she doubts whether she will get more than 6 cleaners or it will become too difficult.

She likes the mixture of domestic and contract work - she says it is easier to get people for one-off contract jobs than to get regular domestic cleaners.

I pay her £10 per hour and she pays her cleaners £7 per hour. So at the moment with 4 cleaners she is making £12 per hour every time they are working.

I pay her directly, which I like. I previously used an agency where I paid them a standing order every month and then paid the cleaner (a lower amount) when they came - didn't like that system as much.

My cleaner brings all her own equipment and uses green products. I like that, but personally I am not sure if I would pay a great premium for it. All her cleaners have to have their own transport to bring their equipment. I like that she bring her own products because it's a cost that I don't have and I don't have the hassle of remembering to check how much is left and go and buy more.

One great thing she does is clean the oven, clean the washing machine, clean cupboards etc. She has a sort of routine for this, so one week everyone is having their oven cleaned (helps her to keep track of what needs done). When I was on holiday she still came and cleaned out the cupboards in the kitchen and cleaned down all the cupboard doors and woodwork. That was great - previously I have just stopped my cleaner when I was on holiday. It was such a treat for me to come back to and kept her income completely regular too.

Sorry this is long, but hope it is useful. Good luck.

I have been thinking about this a lot too - I have 3 or 4 friends who are all looking for income to fit around school hours.

Was thinking about the green angle too - but to be honest - I use green products 95% of the time in my own house - but some stuff - just doesn't work. Esp. toilet cleaner - only bleach seems to 'clean' properly - so I try and keep it to a once a month scoosh and eco the rest of the time.

Also think of adding in a 'decluttering' service - as a one off cost?

Keep waiting for 'the right time' to push this further - but keep procrastinating.

Will watch this thread with interest.

I agree with TracyK a one off Decluttering Service would be good. I WOULD ALSO PAY SOME ONE TO HELP ME SELL MY STUFF. I have tons of stuff in my loft I would be happy to have someone trust worthy to help me sell stuff on e-bay and boot sales they could have half the profit! Right now it's sitting there. Some of the stuff really needs to go to a new home but I don't have the time to work out e-bay or sit up a boot sale.
I think in SE cleaner rate should be around £8-£9 an hour.