How much do you pay your cleaner and/or ironing service?

[alysonpeaches]

Just started with an ironing service and I am about to set a cleaner on for a weekly clean of house. She charges £8 an hour but will tell me how long ours will take when she visits! I am going to see a couple of local ones and compare prices. My ironing service lets you fill a 90 litre box for £18.95 including collection and delivery, so Im happy with that. The other one I contacted was £3.25 a kilo and I couldnt figure that out!

No idea what the going rate is for cleaners etc. If you employ one, can you drop me a line with some advice please.

What worries me most is that I will have to tidy up before she comes!

Both sound reasonable to me. I've seen up to £13 for cleaners in the area. When she sets her hours she'll tell you what she plans on doing in that time. Obviously the day may differ, but in general, you know.

If it's too long for you why not say lets make it 2 hours a day instead of 3 and you do a) b) and c) but not d)?

Yes you will rush round like a mad woman before she comes, secret rules of cleaners, you clean more before they come. They know this. lol.

I just started having a cleaner and pay £10ph.
I tidied up before she came, but certainly didn't clean before.
I left a list of what I wanted doing, in order, as neither of us thought she would get through it all but she did which is great.

My cleaner charged £11.50, which - having read the other posts - I think is quite pricey for my area. I've since stopped using her as we can't afford it whilst I'm on ML. She wasn't very good either - used a hoover on the bathroom/karndean floor, depsite me asking her not to, and left a lot of scratches.

My cleaners charge £10 an hour- this is expensive for my area but they are very good and it is a firm rather than private person. They send 2 people so I reckon they do more doing 2 hours each than my previous cleaner on her own in 4 hours.
So am ok though not happy with cost.
ironing I send out- £8 an hour. She offers bags you can fill for set amount but I just drop off my own basket. I am fine with ironing service, compared to what I get through, the service is good

oh forgot to say, I tell the cleaners how many hours I want and leave a list of jobs, they complete as much of the job list as they can. This arrangement has always worked for me and I would prefer it to them telling me how long it will take, this way I pay what I can afford.
also, I just do my normal clean not special for cleaners (work surfaces clear, dishwasher on etc)

Cleaner is £7 an hour. She comes in for 3hrs pw. £21 per week. She doesn't tidy (we are a fairly tidy, minimalist family anyway) and cleans about 40% of the house (big house), but it is the 'public' rooms that get done. I'm buggered if I'm paying to have 17yo DS1's room cleaned ! It's his pit, he is reponsible for it.

I don't use an ironing service but my friend also uses the same cleaner (she recommended her to me) and she has the cleaner for 3hrs pw, 2hrs of cleaning and an hr of ironing.

Yes, I told the cleaner how many hours I was prepared to pay for and we worked out a do-able list for her.

£10/hour for our cleaner - but she brings her own materials and doesn't charge us travel time (v. rural location) and is also mega-efficient so I am OK with that. I am happier paying by the hour than for the job (with someone good - she got someone to cover when she was ill who got about 25% of the normal jobs done ) as I found in our previous house that firms who quoted a price for the job would start out well and then put pressure on their cleaners to finish it quicker and quicker so the quality went steadily down.

How many shirts can you get into a 90 litre box - I am thinking of trying to find an option for our ironing mountain...

I pay £7.50 an hour for two hours.

I pay £8.00 per hour, but have her as an employee, so she gets 5.6 weeks paid holiday. (Her weekly income is just ubder the NI level, so I don't have to pay NI on top)

We paid £6 an hour for both.