How do I tell my cleaner she's doing a rubbish job?

inishowen
If I was only 80% happy with the completed work I would only be paying 80% of the wages.

Pantglas1
We're on the same page as far as windows are concerned. I can't stand dirty windows.

My dislike of dirty windows is greater than my dislike of cleaning them so easiest option is weekly wipe!

When one of my sons and girlfriend moved out of a rented flat in our neck of the woods to buy their first house, as set out in the terms of their rental agreement, it required a "professional" clean when tenants left the property. It wasn't dirty once they had moved all their stuff out, but the kitchen and bathrooms needed a buffing up. As they were both tied up with work, and the flat was near us, they asked if we could sort a cleaner out and they would reimburse us. We asked the estate agents if we could use our cleaner, but they said "only if she can produce an invoice for work done" being an individual, working for herself, with fairly broken English she didn't think that was possible So we contacted a fairly large firm of cleaners in the area and they sent two women in, to clean a vacant 2 bedroomed flat, fairly easy work I'd have thought. The standard of cleaning was pretty poor, they didn't rinse the white cleaning product marks of baths and showers. We should have challenged their charges because, the management company withheld £60 from son and girlfriend's deposit, but to be quite honest they were relieved they got the rest of their monies back, nearly £2,000 so they couldn't be bothered haggling with the cleaning company. The annoying thing was our cleaner would have done a wonderful job, but alas she wouldn't have been able to produce the all important invoice I won't name the company who did the work they are prolific in this area but their standard wasn't at all good.

I've always 'employed' a cleaner and she has never failed to live up to my expectations. No chat. No tea-breaks. White glove standard 100% of the time.
It is, of course, me. ?

Your last comment made me smile GabriellaG54.

My sister in law employed a cleaner when she worked full time. She used to run around tidying and wiping down before the cleaner arrived because she didn’t want the cleaner to think she kept a dirty house! And then she ran around after the cleaner had been as it hadn’t been done properly!

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Maybe she doesn't have time for everything? Ask her! Look up zone cleaning..perhaps you could draw up lists and rotate them out each time. Really, look up cleaning schedules. She may not be organized and going on autopilot and runs out of time.

It's not what you say it's how you say it. So have a chat and explain politely what you noticed without being rude or patronising, then she shouldn't be offended. If she is that's too bad!

When I was working I had a series of cleaners through an agency, some very good, some pretty useless. The first one was the best, so she set up high expectations.
I had them for two hours a week and made sure the place was tidy first. Bathroom and kitchen to be done every week, then upstairs one week, downstairs the next. I used to add the word Thoroughly, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. Many of them cut corners, literally. Oh and I didn’t put the teenagers’ bedrooms on the list!
Some did extra things I didn’t expect, but didn’t do basics. One was a real skiver, arrived late and left early.
I mostly negotiated by notes, or via the agency if it was really bad.
Nowadays I do my own cleaning, as little as I can get away with, but kitchen and bathroom are my priorities. Windows are done rarely! The trouble is we have so much stuff, it means so many things to pick up when I do the dusting.