Put my mind at rest about employing a cleaner

HangTime

HangTime

HangTime

Man of Honour
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Hampshire
So I've never had a cleaner. Just not how I was brought up, we didn't have one when I was a kid except for a short period after my mum died. I always considered them to be something rich people would have.

In more recent times I've come to learn that quite a lot of people employ a cleaner, some people in my old workplace almost took it for granted that one would have a cleaner. Even some friends who are not massively well off have them.

Logically, it makes sense because you pay them less than your time is worth. I write this having spent about ~6hrs cleaning/tidying etc today, barely making a dent in things. As of April my wife and I now both work 5 days a week and we have two young children. We find it basically impossible to keep on top of housework and it's all a bit depressing, you work all week and then spend the weekend doing chores and trying to clean up some of the mess that was made during the week. Before we had kids it was pretty manageable but they create so much mess, whether that be drawing on things they shouldn't, food spilled on the floor, toys everywhere etc etc.

So anyway, I like the idea of having someone to help with cleaning but I have a couple of main worries about it:
1) Invasion of privacy. I would feel a bit ill at ease with someone poking around in our house, both in terms of them looking at our things (logically I realise they probably just want to complete their duties and get out, not have a nose, but it's still in my mind) and feeling on edge if I'm in the house at the same time. We are quite an 'open' household in that we don't care about each other seeing each other naked, underwear left out, we leave bathroom doors unlocked usually etc which would have to change obviously with a non-family member entering the house.
2) General trust issues about someone having a key, potentially stealing things etc. Again this fear is probably irrational if we find a reputable cleaner with lots of experience and good recommendations, but still...
3) Embarrassment at the state of our home. This is a bit of a catch-22 - we can't get the house looking like we want without inviting someone to help, but I wouldn't want to show a cleaner the state some of rooms gets in to. We also have huge amounts of clutter that would doubtless disrupt cleaning routines - I suspect every room (excluding toilets) in our house has at least 500 items in it.

So your job is to put my mind at ease about the above concerns, maybe a few practical pointers on how to avoid them.
 
Life is full of risks, maybe buy a safe or put valuables in safe place. Photograph stuff, make sure cleaning company has liability insurance and good reviews. At end of day it's in companies best interest to not het bad reviews.
 
Cleaners are employed to not care about 1, build 2 over time, and absolutely deal with 3. They'll be there for what? 1hr/2hr a week?
 
Theres nothing wrong with getting help especially if your paying it , your always going to have concerns about theft and privacy but you can test people by leaving money about.

The thing that stands out for me is the fact you have 500 items in each room so this needs to be tackled. Hire some one and tackle one room at a time to help you clear and clean that room. Yes theres going to be some embarrassment but that will be short lived to get where you want to go.

Or tackle one room at a time yourself with people who know your situation.
 
How about having the cleaners come on a day when one of you is working from home? You can ensconce yourself in your study to work and they can get on and blitz the house and you are there so they don’t need a key.
 
I had similar fears & it took us a while to find someone good - cleaner just comes when we are WFH & they only do very specific tasks so don't go through the whole house doing dusting around all your valuables etc. We have them a couple of hours a week cleaning all bathrooms, floors, & hoovering most rooms/stairs etc, & find that's enough.
 
^Yeah I'm thinking something along those lines, I WFH full time and the wife about 1 day a week average. Maybe have some rooms off-limits at least initially, focusing on specific tasks although I'd feel a bit weird working at home with a 'stranger' roaming about and maybe poking their head round to ask a question every now and then.

Probably what we need to do is both book some days off when the kids aren't here so we can do some de-cluttering, I think clearing the decks a bit will help and make it easier to give direction to a cleaner. Book like a focused 20-30hrs spring clean to clear the backlog and then move to a regular cadence.
 
We've had fun and games with cleaners at work - when I started there was a women doing it who ran a small cleaning company she was pretty good and trustworthy but then she turned the site over to her sons who were caught red handed stealing work laptops. The replacement was then arrested by the police for using work to order in chemicals used for drug production... had an old boy after that who took the job seriously but eventually retired and his replacement lasted only a few weeks before being caught refilling stuff like bottles of hand soap with cheap and nasty bulk stuff and ebaying the expensive replacement bottles (over multiple sites they were making a tidy amount). We now have the mum of one of my colleagues who seems decent.

You definitely want someone with good references IMO.
 
theone8181 said:
Interesting you say that as we are also in the same boat although our kids are 4 and 7. What sort of stuff does the cleaner do (waiting sarcastic responses:p), I assume vacuuming, dusting, wiping hobs and stuff? I'm not on about "other" services:cry:.
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They generally don’t clean up the clutter you leave out so the house has to be in a certain state of tidiness already.

Dusting, mopping, vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms, cleaning kitchen surfaces, occasionally cleaning windows and appliances or other special requests.
 
Had various ones for years without issue. We just tidy round so they can clean. Spends 3 hours on. Thursday or Friday. Well worth it otherwise we would be cleaning half of Saturday.
 
We had a cleaner for about a year before lockdown. Working 5 days each and 2 kids meant that cleaning took away from time with the family.
We went based on reviews and recommendations.

It's well worth it, yes they have access to your underwear and valuables but they don't care, they are there to do a job.

We only stopped once the first lockdown kicked in. Now working from home for us both its harder to justify paying someone else.

Once we got back to office based no doubt we will hire again
 
1)
2)
3)

4) quality of the cleaning/hygiene ?
if you are in a hotel room you dont't leave your toothbrush around for someone to pick up who has just cleaned the bathroom, with, probably, rubber gloved hands.
Also for kitchen worktops, you know how they were cleaned, so would put something that escaped the chopping board into the pan,
if worktop was cleaned in an unknown way, following the oven say, you might be more reserved - so not sure you'd want someone touching food surfaces/utensils;
with covid, too, as commented, might be concerned by that risk anyway - anyone being in the house.


but - yes ok for vacuuming/floor cleaning, some dusting, and ironing(if they know how)
 
While my wife was pregnant we had a cleaner come in once every 2 weeks for a couple of hours to help out. She did the vacuuming, dusting, general tidy and changed the bed sheets.

After my second daughter was born we kept her on and only stopped her coming a couple of months ago.

Occasionally we find ourselves muttering to ourselves that we should never have let her go :( she was an immense help.
 
I would just make sure the loo didn't have any skid marks on it -- Wife went to friends house who was a teacher -and went to toilet and she said it was filthy with skiddies - That would embarrass me.
Also remmember reading an article about cleaners -This one lad said they didn't get enough time so everything was cleaned with one cloth - toilet to kitchen worktops.
 
whitecrook said:
ummm. they clean your underwear drawer ? They do your washing ? You leave your underwear lying about that they have to pick up ? what do you mean???
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Haha, people often worry about people snooping, opening draws etc. Was just a light hearted joke.
Although, my cleaner did offer to sort washing out too.
 
We have one, we both work and would rather not spend Saturdays cleaning.

Ours is not a company it’s a lady by recommendation, she now also cleans my office so just as much as we need her she needs us with a considerable amount of her income from us. I wouldn’t use a company.

The wife does a run around the night before and clears everything away so that all she is doing is cleaning, hoovering etc

And yes my job is to clean the loos somewhat before she comes. It’s not really cricket expecting her to find the Richard the 3rds round the u bend.

Unless we seriously become skint or retire she’s here to stay we are worried about her retiring first….
 
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