I would dearly love a cleaner 2-3 times a week, to help out around the house, I never seem to get my house looking tidy, and there's so many jobs needing done, I work from Home, and I wish I could spend more time cleaning, but its such a chore.
Does anybody else have a cleaner, I'm not lazy, but after I tidy the house, 10minutes later, its a mess!
There only me & OH and 7 dogs in the house, how much roughly do they charge per hour, do you have to pay there fuel costs, I live 3 miles out of the village.
I used to pay my Mum to do my housework, sadly I lost her 4 years ago, and my house has never been the same since, as she was very very house proud.

i personally dont have a cleaner HOWEVER, credit crunch i reckon if you put and ad up job center, or local shops etc you could pay minimum wage. i wouldnt offfer fuel costs as everyone has to pay this for their job. i think with the lack of jobs available and things being so expensive you will have a bit of interest for a little part time job!!

£7 per hour. :)

I dont he made me choose between a gardener and cleaner so the garden won but £7 - £8 an hour is the usual around here.

try the website gumtree, its a mine of useful stuff/services/people in your area

You will find local people in a village willing to do this kind of work, ask around there.

I have been looking into a cleaner and one through an agency costs £12p/h and that includes petrol costs and all the cleaning materials.
They clean, but not tidy up and put things away. If you are looking for someone to actually tidy as well i would be looking at a housekeeper(live out), again these are hard to come by and unless you live in London then you'll find it hard to find one through an agency..

Good luck though

I think I'm paying over the odds!

£100 every 4 weeks, comes in twice a week for an hour each time, so that's £12.50 p/h.

OH pays!!!

Hi, my cousin is a cleaner, and she expects to get £7.50 per hour

I've seen adverts from cleaners looking for work and they have been between £7 and £10 per hour .
I suppose that if you are an employer you need to think about tax/holiday/sick pay etc ?

I've occassionally had a cleaner when my workload has been heavy. I was charged £10 an hour, if you can find someone who comes recommended that is even better, I employed my lady through a friend, I think that is the best way, otherwise make sure that they are police checked etc. :-)

My friend had recommended a cleaner he has, who is looking for more hours, she's like dogs, which is a bonus!
She is £8 a hour, that includes her fuel costs, and she will do any of the chores, he leaves a key for her when at work, and she just gets on with with whatever needing doing, or he leaves her a list!
Think I'll give her a phone, and meet her and see if she would like a few more hours a week.

Can't wait til I have a clean and tidy home again..!!

do you have anywhere you can put the dogs away from the cleaner whilst she is there?
i think personally i would be worried that with so many if they get excited whilst she is there they may play and nip or knock her over, then your dogs and yourself would be at fault :(

A Cleaner???  I'd have to clean first before letting a Cleaner in here!!!  :) :)

I had a cleaner for a while after my youngest was born. She did 2 hours per week for £10. That was 7 years ago though.

I don't have one at the moment but I have had one at various times and I do find you need to pay at least a bit more than the minimum rate to get someone you are going to feel confident about.  It has also worked out well with the dogs as for the same wage you have a dog sitter who cleans!  Which can allow you to have an away day if required.

You can have my MIL for free!!! She loves cleaning and tidying away things in other peoples homes (Grrrrrrrr!!!!).

> i reckon if you put and ad up job center, or local shops etc you could pay minimum wage. i wouldnt offer fuel costs as everyone has to pay this for their job.

Well all I can say is you get what you pay for.  I wouldn't insult someone paying them minimum wage to clean up my mess.   £7-£8 an hour is fair.

thats a rip off
i have worked for agencies and we had to clean and tidy up.
we got £6 hour, agency got same.
i did lots of private cleaning on my own , couple years ago
i got £7 hour then.
i would ask around and get someone privately
agency,s  staff are usually not very good,
thats what i found

i used to work 4 hrs a week for 2 ladies, and both paid me £7 per hour

Reply to TADSY -
too expensive!

i worked 16hrs a month for £112 for one lady

unless your home is actually gleaming, i wouldnt pay that much hun ;)

round here they are like gold dust. we had one for 3 years she wasfantastic...once a week for a 4 hour stint at £7/hour and worth every penny. however she left for a full time job and since then weve had 2 time wasters who only lasted one visit each....since then i see loads of ads for "cleaners wanted" in the local shops but no one wants the work :(

> You can have my MIL for free!!! She loves cleaning and tidying away things in other peoples homes (Grrrrrrrr!!!!).

                 :-D *Chuckle*

My saving grace when working fulltime was Liz, she was brilliant.  Childminder, dogwalker and cleaner all in one.  My OH paid her £10 per hour and that was 20years ago.  Now OH runs the business on his own I get to do the cleaning, dog walking and daughter now lives 200 miles away.  LOL Can't complain he puts deisel in the car and pays for the dog shows.

If you can find the right person they are worth there weight in gold.

Joan

> If you can find the right person they are worth there weight in gold.
>

:-D  Are we talking cleaners of OHs here? :-D

Like it, Isabel, "cleaners of OHs" - definitely worth their weight in gold :) :)

> "cleaners of OHs"

Oooooooops :-o  cleaners or OHs but I can see the value of cleaners of OHs too! :-D

Thanks Maggymills - that's what I thought, but on the flip side we have to ensure that they are OK with dogs. Our youngest "Monkey" thinks he needs to protect us from the world at large, and absolutely adores her - so we pay. At least that way we know when we come home we're not going to find the odd severed limb!

Plus if the OH is going to be out for longer than expected, he can give her a call and she'll pop in for half an hour and let them in the garden etc.

I personally don't think she's a brilliant cleaner, by the time I get home of an evening the place tends to look like a bombs gone off - but I can't quite seem to train the OH (who's now working from home most of the time), to actually run the hoover over, mop the floors etc. Think I'd have better luck trying to train the woofits to do it!!

I employ one for my Mother.£30 a week it is up to her how long it takes.
She knows what I want done and she does it.

I had a cleaner until I was made redundant.  A pound or two or even thrree per hour is not really important.  What is important is that your cleaner actually does a good job cleaning!   There are some that will do the minimum they can get away with and others who actually take pride in what they do and clean as well as you would (should you have the time, energy and interest.) 

Haha some of mine do!!! AND I tell them off for it! :) I charge £7-10 per hour depending on what is asked for, for cleaning, gardening, shopping.

Blimey...£12 per hour is the norm round here. I just lost mine but I'm glad actually as I was never sure what she managed to do in 2hours which cost me £24!!

Snap £7 per hour.    Mines does it all, cleaning , poo picking , puppy sitting , washing , ironing :-)  ( PS I just feel bad it is my mum but she is an employee :-D 

My sister comes in once a week for me when I work lots of hours, I pay her £20 for around 2 1/2 hours.

Cor, i think i should be a cleaner. I quite like doing it and what an easy way to get a bit of cash in your hand.
Anyone in Devon want a cleaner? :-)

Wow you are lucky to get all that for £7 an hour. I do get free childcare & dog sitting but she wont do menial tasks or lend money :-)

It's my ambition to have  a cleaner..........well at least one of my ambitions.
I loathe housework, avoid it like the plague, but some of it has to be done.
I have done 'cleaning in the past for others when I've been 'between' jobs, a bit like barwork, I've done thta and hated it but it pays.

Karen

eta...
It would cost at least £15 per hour here.

Hi Kenya, sorry I am late as usual, have you decided to get a cleaner then?! We have one and she is great, I do tidy the house in fact I have done loads of tidying and cleaning today, but our cleaner comes once a week and just does everything a bit more thoroughly. She is wonderful and the dogs love her, like you there is just me, my OH & our 3 dogs in our house.

We pay our cleaner £8 per hour but not her fuel costs, we buy all the cleaning products for her as well. We live quite out of the way. Good luck with finding one - once you have the right person you will never look back I'm sure :-)

> A Cleaner???  I'd have to clean first before letting a Cleaner in here!!!  :-) :-)

Oh how perfectly normal you sound.  For a moment there I thought I was the odd one out.

:)  :)  There is a rule in our house......we never pay anyone to do anything we are capable of doing ourselves!!! :) :)

We have a lady coming twice a week for 5 hours a week, she's very good with the dogs, and I havent seen my house so clean in many years.
I pay her £40 a week, plus as much tea and biscuits as she wants!!

> plus as much tea and biscuits as she wants!!

now you didnt mention tea and biscuits otherwise i would have applied

To get a cleaner around my way you would need to pay £10 hour.

> :-)  :-)  There is a rule in our house......we never pay anyone to do anything we are capable of doing ourselves!!! :-) :-)

lol, the rule in my house is that if you can earn more yourself than you would spend paying someone else, then get someone else to do it :)

> lol, the rule in my house is that if you can earn more yourself than you would spend paying someone else, then get someone else to do it

Beat me to it CC

That's what we earn our money for - to pay someone to do the things we don't want to do. :-) :-)

I'll only consider paying someone to do something if they can do it better and quicker than I can.

> That's what we earn our money for - to pay someone to do the things we don't want to do.

Tooolz I quite agree :-)

I only work 3 days a week and I did say to my OH that I didn't mind cleaning on my days off and we could get rid of the cleaner - but we both agreed that she does a better job and she definitely enjoys it more than I do :-)

> That's what we earn our money for - to pay someone to do the things we don't want to do.

That's what I feel.  Unfortunately I am at home too many hours at present to quite justify it :-) but I never felt any guilt employing someone when I was out more because the other issue is there are many people for who this is the only option for a bit of work due to their other commitments such as child care.  Its a postive social service you are indulging in to let them do for you :-D

> Its a postive social service you are indulging in to let them do for you :-D

Yet another positive slant on it, I'm not a lazy so-and-so after all :-)

> Its a postive social service you are indulging in to let them do for you

I agree :-) I would feel more guilty about sacking our cleaner than I would about me not doing the cleaning. Our cleaner is a retired older lady and I know cleaning our house provides her with a little extra income, she's always asking if I have friends that need cleaners or if she can do my ironing for me for an extra cost - I do draw the line at the ironing as I dont mind doing that myself !!

> Its a postive social service you are indulging in to let them do for you :-D

Ah but Isabel.............no-one would expect Gentry to do their own cleaning!!!  :)  :)