Domestic Help cost/expectation - PH view requested

[anonymous-user]

[redacted]

[wedge girl]

I think you need to decide exactly which tasks you require the cleaner to do, and how often.

Bathrooms; Tiles, furniture, sanitary ware floors?

Kitchen; Do you want the oven cleaned if so how often?

Laundary; Washing & Ironing?

Windows; Inside & Out?

Then you need to decide how long it takes to complete these tasks, as most people will allow a task to expand to fill the time.

I'd speak to a few agencies first as most of them will have an insurance scheme as well, especially if cleaner uses wrong product and bleaches your carpets.

You also need to decide if you are providing cleaning products or they are.

With regard to the gardening, I go for a mature person who really loves what they do.

[ledger]

can't help with the cleaner, but our gardener costs £15 per hour. Our back garden is @ 250ft x 60ft (though we are letting the last 60ft go wild as it backs onto some downs). He comes once every 2 weeks for 4 hours. There is a small front lawn as well. He is really only doing maintenance at present as the garden is already in reasonable shape.

[Chim_Knee]

For a 4 bed house - I would say it'd be around 3 hours to do. That'd be general cleaning rather than "spring" cleaning IYSWIM. Hovering and dusting but probably not scrubing cupboards etc.

I can't remember exactly what we used to pay but it was only around £10 p.h. (maybe less?). and we had it done twice a week (Monday and Friday - meant it was nice for the weekend and then nice for the start of the week).

Trust is a problem but if you get a word of mouth recommendation - that should solve your problem. The other thing is, if anything goes missing whilst you are out and the cleaner was the only one in... the trail wouldn't be too hard to follow. Understandable concern though.

Sorry, can't help with Gardeners though. Only ever had one at a rented place and the landlady took care of all of that - it was great to have though as the garden was lovely.

anonymous said:

[redacted]

subtle, I like it!

Cheers,
Phil.

[vixpy1]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I can see where you're going wrong!

[alexkp]

We use a local cleaning firm. They are reliable and trustworthy. Standard of work is ok - and I sometimes have to remind them of bits.

Two women spend about an hour at the house. They include all cleaning materials and even bring their own vacuum. They also do all our ironing - £10 extra per 15 garments. This is taken away then dropped back the next day.

Cost is £35 per visit for the cleaning - which I think is expensive but I haven't yet been bothered to find an alternative.

Maybe I should.

[406]

How many of you live in the house, is it just you and wifey or are there sprogs involved? I ask this because if there are only 2 of you in the house, what is the problem keeping it clean if it's empty all day? I live on my own and have no problem keeping the house clean and doing the gardens

Dave

[ledger]

anonymous said:

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serves you right for having a posh girlfriend :-)

[OctaneBooster]

I pay £6 ph for a local lady to clean and iron for me for 2 hours per week. No agencies or dreaded VAT. She is very well known in the village, having lived there for 30 odd years.

[dds1]

i think we pay £10 an hour for the cleaner (in SW London - so prob same price in surrey)

Cleaner will do whatever you ask - mostly ironing/laundry and general cleaning.

I think best to get a cleaner from a referral - do any of the neighbours use one?, otherwise I would use an agency that vets.

Gardener - sorry, haven't a clue

[ledger]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I don't know, spends tens of thousands of pounds on Picasso's and complains about paying his char lady

[cliffe_mafia]

We asked one of our neighbours for the number of their gardener. Ask your neighbours with the nicest gardens who does theres. Ours comes and cuts my two lawns and weeds the beds every 2 weeks for the princely sum of £15.

I really want a cleaner too (missus works long hours and I'd rather spend my time on more enjoyable tasks than domestic drudgery (lazy git!)) but have not got round to finding one yet.

{edit: typo)

>> Edited by cliffe_mafia on Thursday 16th June 12:44

[Vee]

We have a large 3 bed house which takes our Eastern European cleaner 4-5 hours at £5ph. This involves cleaning everything, including floors (mainly wooden & tiled Kitchen & Bathroom), oven, hob, shower, bath,etc.
I do the garden myself but the Outlaws have a gardener who charges £20ph. It cost a bit to get it sorted out but now he turns up once every 3 weeks and spends no more than an hour.

[benyeats]

My cleaners cost £8 per hour and it takes them 2 hours to do a basic clean of our fairly large 3 bed house. They include all cleaning materials in this amount.

Ben

[mcflurry]

OctaneBooster said:

I pay £6 ph for a local lady to clean and iron for me for 2 hours per week. No agencies or dreaded VAT. She is very well known in the village, having lived there for 30 odd years.

Used to do exactly the same. She took pride in her work, was always on time etc. Then her daughter took over the "business" and did a rubbish job so got rid...

[h2dca]

Cleaner £26 for 3 hours per week basically hoovers, dusts, toilets etc

Gardener £12 every two weeks to cut the grass

Ironing is done by a local laundary shop at 99p per shirt which is a scoop as I het ironing

For a cleaner see if you can get a recommended one rather than placing an advert or go through a company for obvious reasons.

Good luck

[Plotloss]

£7-£12 per hour for everything from a good nanny to a woman who does.

[alexkp]

406 said:

How many of you live in the house, is it just you and wifey or are there sprogs involved? I ask this because if there are only 2 of you in the house, what is the problem keeping it clean if it's empty all day? I live on my own and have no problem keeping the house clean and doing the gardens Dave

Yes, just the two of us at the mo.

First point, my missus is messy.
Second point, life's too short. I really have so many other things to be doing than cleaning.
Third point, it is a big house on a half acre plot.

[cliffe_mafia]

cliffe_mafia said:

I really want a cleaner too (missus works long hours and I'd rather spend my time on more enjoyable tasks than domestic drudgery (lazy git!)) but have not got round to finding one yet.

I mentioned this thread to the missus this morning and it turns out that her friends mum is a cleaner looking for some more work. Result or what! Cheers PHers.

[srebbe64]

Excuse me for chuckling, Tonker. All this 'I'm too busy to cope' stuff is a little amusing when you, like me, spend most of your days surfing the net - with too much time <and money> on your hands. Why not, like me, leave denial behind you and admit to being a 'lazy git'!