How many hours for a cleaner !?

A friend with 3 children. who needed a cleaner in an area where they were hard to find, advertised "small child not objected to."
She got her cleaner, who played quietly with the employer's children's toys - and that cleaner stayed with her long after her
own child went to school.

maydonoz

Hi Mcbab
Good morning, I know you haven't asked but I would be inclined to downsize to a 3 or even 2 bedroom house. Just for yourself and your DH, do you need so much space?
Anyway, to answer your question, I think you would need at least 3 hours per week after the initial "deep clean" has been done. My DIL and DS have 2 cleaners for 1and half hours weekly, so working together makes up 3 hrs, they pay £40 per session and do a good job, they have 2 small children so need some help.
Good luck in finding someone suitable, preferably recommended by a friend or acquaintance.

One bedroom is an office for my OH another one is where I paint and sew. My children live abroad and I need the space for when they visit with their children. This is why I cannot downsize

Gabrielle Loved your story

My mantra is that I do the middle of rooms and the cleaner does the rest.

We have a large ish house and have a cleaner 3 hours per fortnight. She dies the kitchen, utility, downstairs loo and 2.5 bathrooms thoroughly each time. She then does upstairs and one set of stairs and the hall. The next time she does the same but downstairs and the other set of stairs.

It's a balance between having someone in more often and a clean house. And, our cleaner is a whirlwind!

I find having my cleaner for 4 hrs every other week works perfectly.

Hi Mcbab
Good morning, I know you haven't asked but I would be inclined to downsize to a 3 or even 2 bedroom house. Just for yourself and your DH, do you need so much space?
Anyway, to answer your question, I think you would need at least 3 hours per week after the initial "deep clean" has been done. My DIL and DS have 2 cleaners for 1and half hours weekly, so working together makes up 3 hrs, they pay £40 per session and do a good job, they have 2 small children so need some help.
Good luck in finding someone suitable, preferably recommended by a friend or acquaintance.

Make a clear list of what you want done . I did a cleaning job for a while in a three bed house (large) and did 10/12 hours a week over two days - but I was doing beds/washing and ironing as well. I help out at my daughters now she has a four bed - a couple of hours is only enough for a quick dust and hoover and to do the bathrooms quickly and I’m a quick worker. It really does depend a lot on your expectations and it’s important to discuss it properly otherwise you can end up feeling you aren’t getting what you want and are paying for. My mother in law has a lady ‘clean’ once a week for three hours and it’s a big help to her - she just hoovers and dusts basically. Hope you find help soon ?

I think mine did three. She prided herself on her speed and occasionally broke things… She did two floors of my 3 floor house although occasionally did the staircase up to the top flat. She did the fridges too on rotation.
The halls and staircases are substantial- lots of bannisters etc.
We are untidy- so I used to spend the evening and morning before ‘putting away’ so that she didn’t spend her time arranging our stuff.. (this I felt was one of the main benefits!)

I want to add that I’ve always had good cleaning people, some better than others. My friends haven’t been so lucky. One had a cleaning woman stealing her clothes and another had items broken.

I have a two bedroom, one bath house and live alone. I do have pets who create extra work with all their fur. My cleaner comes once a fortnight and stays for four hours. I spend quite a bit of time tidying up before she arrives so her time is spent actually cleaning up. She does an extra cleaning project each time, like cleaning inside the refrigerator or the windows.

My daughter has a 4 bedroom house. She pays a cleaner 5 hours a week but this includes bed changing and ironing ( not all the bedrooms get changed every week )

At least 5 and most likely 6. Depends on how clean you want it and what you do yourself during the week. You get what you pay for, but no one can clean that size of a house to a nice ( not spotless) standard in under 5 hours. People can pretend they do or you can hope they do, but actually it can't be done.

I would add the 3 hours per weeks our cleaner does keeps everything nice and tidy and looking cared for. We don’t expect a forensic clean in 3 hours.

We have one 3 hours per week £36 worth her weight in gold.

'3 hours a week will keep most houses squeaky clean'. I can easily spend 3 hours cleaning one room. 3 hours a week would be the bare minimum of vacuuming and dusting. No washing of windows, blinds, floors, sofas, wiping skirtings, picture rails, door frames.
Just goes to show that we all have different ideas of what is 'squeaky clean'. My house would be a disgrace if I only spent 3 hours on housework.
(n.b. I often don't spend 3 hours!! There are better things to do )

I don't like housework, although we have a smallish house I have a cleaner 2hrs a week to clean the kitchen, all the bathrooms and the floors. I'm careful to make sure most things are tidy, and the washing up done otherwise it's a waste of time (and money). I pay
If you can afford it I'm sure there are more enjoyable, or better, things to do with your time!

I would suggest if it’s messy and you haven’t done much house work recently, maybe a one-off deep clean then you should be ok with a couple of hours a week for the cleaner to whizz around vacuuming and cleaning bathrooms and maybe every 6-8 weeks a deep clean as long as you can manage to keep kitchen and bathrooms on reasonable order otherwise you’ll need at least two visit a week.

I have had the most ghastly experiences with cleaners. It is too awful and long to post about it, but I do strongly urge you to get references from other people. They can only really give a good reference or none at all, so if someone is not willing to give a reference, you can guess why.

In Cornwall I have to pay £15 per hour and in London my sister pays £10. Thought it would be the other way round. Cornwall is supposed to be the poorest county in the UK.
A 4 bed house would need 3 hours for a quick total once over or 2 hours a week for say, bedrooms one week, living rooms the next.

My previous cleaner (who moved away during the first lockdown) came for two hours a week, which wasn’t really enough as she did my ironing too. So over the first year of the pandemic OH and I did the cleaning together and son who was home for some of that time, did his share. Then we had a deep clean using a company. It cost a fortune, but two ladies took four hours to clean our 4-bedroom house plus conservatory. They did an excellent job. Using the same company we now have two ladies who come fortnightly and take under 2 hours. I do my own ironing and OH does his. When OH worked overseas his cleaning ladies came in 6 days a week!

I digress-but- I once cleaned for a lady with a DH with dodgy heart so I went in once week when she went to hairdresser (think I was actually babysitter in case he had an episode, but she never actually said that!) Anyways. I used to do 2hours in 3bed. Bungalow and do all windows alternative weeks. I was very thorough and cleaned as I did my own home. However, she annoyed me by sprinkling talc on top of cupboards and high places, and would scatter a load of dressmaker pins under the sofa and chairs, put jewellery under the beds to obvs. Check I was doing what I should!! I went along with this until she left quite a sum of cash sticking out of a tallboy drawer and I thought " she's gotta be kidding me, that's it!!!!!" So I gathered all the dross she left including the wad, after finishing my clean, and dumped in in the middle of her dining table together with the contents of the hoover bag (that long ago) took my fee and left a note saying I thought she'd like to see what I'd found and wondered if she realised someone was leaving stuff under beds etc and maybe her DH was getting a bit senile? Never went back , she saw me frequently as lived round corner and looked ever so embarrassed whenever we locked eyes. Cheek!

H1954

How do you determine "messy"? Is it clutter with things that your and OH could put away or is it dust, dirt, dropped food, soiled bathroom ? Surely, once a big clean-up has been done it's just a matter of changing habits and making things easier for the cleaner and therefore reduce their hours and your costs.

Ha! A squaddie after my own heart! If one can make a determined effort to put things away in their place once finished with, and drag the vac round once or twice per week all should keep itself in order.of there's only 2 officers on duty , why is it so messy? .... And what is actually classed as "mess" ?!

My current cleaner charges £12/ hour and uses my cleaning products.
My previous cleaner charged £10/hour and brought all her own products. She was fantastic. The current one rarely dusts.
I sometimes say only one hour this week and I seem to get nearly the same results. Then I make coffee and chat.
Ask if they are flexible ie would help you plant something because that can be useful
I must say they (had others) have been lovely.

I live alone in a 4 bedroom house

My cleaner does one hour a week. I only ask for my kitchen, 2 loos and bathroom done plus vacuuming Hall stairs and landing

Lovely lady. A deep clean is pulling out furniture and cleaning behind, upending dining chairs and cleaning underneath. Tops of cupboards, inside kitchen cupboards and drawers, behind radiators, all the hard stuff that doesn't normally get touched with a weekly clean. I think it's called a spring clean !