How do you instruct a cleaner??!!

I say come on Dyson the sooner we get this done the better.

Having a cleaner is not a luxury but a real necessity. It allows us to look after each other and not worry that we are living in squalor! Neither of us is physically able to do very much and anything that we do takes a long time and even longer recovery time.
I have found that using a cleaning company is the best option as they walk round the house with you noting requirements and give a professional estimate of the length of time required each week. If you have an initial deep clean then it is easier on everyone as the standard is then set and it is easier to keep it up to that standard. It would be very difficult to bring everything up to standard on 2 hours per week.
Personally I find it is amazing just how much a professional cleaner can do in a weekly 3 hour slot. We play our part by ensuring that the surfaces are as clear as possible and everywhere is tidy. My cleaner knows that I dislike cobwebs and I don't want to see dust anywhere and hygiene is the number one priority. The main bedroom is cleaned every week including the ensuite. The sitting room, dining room, sun room, hall, kitchen, utility and cloakroom are vacuumed and dusted every week. Hard floors are steam cleaned most weeks. Each week one particular room receives special attention and so everywhere is kept up to scratch including the inside of that room's windows. We have a window cleaner on a monthly basis to do the exterior of the windows, doors and cladding. If we have visitors then clearly there needs to be extra hours or else something is not done. The spare bedrooms don't get very much attention between visitors. My family always help me by changing their beds when they leave and DH and I usually manage the laundry between us. If I want a spring clean or I want to turn out cupboards, defrost and clean fridge or freezers or similar then we need extra hours. Family will help if I ask them but I feel their visits are too precious to waste on chores as they don't live nearby. If I feel that anything is slipping I can talk to the owner of the cleaning company if the cleaner is not doing as I want but I have not yet had to do that. I pay £12.50 per hour which includes products and pay the cleaning company on the internet banking. It is a great relief to have someone come to help us every week.

Oops should read
'Can you give me a clue'?

Elegran afraid not
Can me give me a clue?
My mind is boggling at the moment

Our Polish lady is incredibly thorough! She really takes the place to bits. She and her friend used to come together and blitz the place in about an hour but her friend went back to Poland. We will soon be missing our Polish friends and helpers I'm afraid.

Cherrytree It sounds as though you heard that joke about the wire brush, which went the rounds about 60 years ago. (No, I am not going to post it)

The job market obviously expect quite a lot since my time off.

You hope you get your full 2 hours cleaning before she see's to your husband
Lottie1940

Check your husband's bank account, Lottie You may find that he has been paying her a bonus and she could well afford to clean for nothing.

I'm sure your husband agrees.

My cleaner pops round once a week and she charges £12 an hour for two hours. She’s been with me for about 6 years and is exceptional. She even gives my husband a weekly blowjob for no extra payment. This is really good as it means I don’t have to do this and my husband's more then happy with this arrangement, too. I don’t know what I’d do without her.

You have to keep and eye on people or they will take advantage of your good nature! And extra 30/40 minutes of graft would pay off with alot more cleaning

That annoys me too Mesmoptop why do people want to use the bathroom when I have spent ages cleaning it. It's funny I'm not bothered about any other room just that one. ?

I find one of those fluffy dusters on a long stick brilliant for skirting boards., I so hate housework, except for the bathroom and vacuuming. If I was ever lucky enough to have a cleaner, I think I would love her more than I love my husband ?

I had a cleaner for about 15 years and she was lovely. I could never replace her and haven´t tried to. She had a system to her cleaning, which I will never have. Came once a week on a Thursday morning and I loved coming in after her, it all smelled lovely. I never gave her any instructions and was ever so grateful for anything that she did.

I do mine occasionally because I always remember Amy Turtle, the cleaner in Crossroads who said something about always dusting the skirting boards

I did manage to do a little bit of sorting/cleaning today then we went out. Now things are sitting in little piles all around me waiting for a proper sort.

Barmey - really surprised when my old cleaner dusted the skirting boards - they were (still are) off my radar!

In your dreams kitty?

Impressed Ann, though I expect you would have kept it like that anyway!!

Yesterday I had new cordless phones fitted and my bed had to be pulled right out as the connection is behind it.
It was spotless and dust free. Well done B....a.

Having been a cleaner, let me say that everyone who either is unable to do their own cleaning or just dislikes housework is welcome in my book to employ a cleaner.

OP was perhaps asking a little too much if one room has to be turned out thoroughly over and above the other things listed all in the course of two hours. To me turning out a room thoroughly is a two hour job on its own.

But there is nothing unreasonable in expecting skirting boards to be dusted and the entire floor, not just the bits that aren't under chairs or the kitchen bin to be washed.

If you get a new cleaner, keep an eye on her work the first couple of times, and ask her politely to remember the skirting boards or whatever else she forgets.

I would tell her to get off GN and Get On With It.

ps I am the cleaner round here.

boheminan read every word and yes agree, two sides to every story. Like you the added extra,s were ironing, help clean the shed the out, and the straw that broke the camels back was being asked to 'help at a dinner party' to turn up and she was as drunk as a skunk, so dinner party was cancelled. She was married to a GP, who she informed me would send his patients round. She informed me I was number 23!

Here in Italy, it seems that EVERYBODY has a cleaner at least once a week, except me. Years back, my daughter went for private lessons in a lovely villa in our area - a much more elegant, well-furnished house than ours. I was amazed later to find the mother of my daughter's tutor cleaning the home of one of my private students! Our next-door neighbours lady always arrives in a large Mercedes or Jeep (much bigger cars than any of ours). Here, there is a joke: "I work as a cleaner in order to pay for my cleaner who cleans in order to pay for her cleaner etc etc".

The only bit of housework I like is vacuuming and cleaning the bathroom. When everything is gleaming, fresh and sparkling it does irk me if anyone wants to use it? Shame they can’t diddle among the dandelions. As for the rest, it takes me hours to work up the energy to start. I’m looking over the battlefield at the moment and it doesn’t look good ?