How much do you/would you pay for?

A friend of my mum cleans - she charges about $25 an hour (cash). She provides her own cleaning gear. She cleans one lady's house who *insists* on paying $30/hour - makes me think I'm in the wrong job :o
My neighbour used to clean my house, two hours a fortnight for $40. In that time she'd vacuum/mop (3 brm house), do two bathrooms/toilets, clean the kitchen from top to bottom, dust and clean a window/blind or two or iron or whatever else I wanted if she had time. I provided everything. That was about two years ago.
I looked at a cleaner through a company and they had weekly minimum hours or wanted to do things I didn't need (e.g. deodorise carpets, clean oven etc) plus they were around $35/hour.
I was at work when the cleaner came, but my mum has had a cleaner and been home. I'd want to know the cleaner or have them recommended by someone I know before I'd be comfortable leaving them in my house alone...

My neighbour owns a mowing franchise - his official rate, through the business, for doing our lawn (normal sized) was around $70! It takes DH less than 45 mins... We desperately need someone, but there's no way we can afford that. I've seen local guys with ads who'll do it for half that, but we're afraid we'll get found out by the neighbour and get offended, lol!

Can't help with the pool cleaning either...

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Sorry to crash this thread, but I've also been thinking about this for ages too. Is once a fortnight enough? We have 4 b/r, study and 2 b/r but 2 of the rooms are hardly used and only DS almost 2 uses the bath downstairs. But then I find I need to clean the upstairs floor at least every second day.

Also, I'm not sure how I feel about having someone in my home. Do you stay home when they're there or go out?

Thanks.

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We are pretty tidy people anyway - eg we wipe over the stove after cooking each meal, and all the kitchen gets a good wipe down each night after loading the dishwasher etc, and we dont have much clutter, everything has its place, so maintaining the house for a fortnight is pretty easy for us. I rarely get the vacuum out in between to be honest, unless we've had a playdate and the floors get a bit trashed. A few days before cleaning day, the floors are looking ready for a mop as expected but they are not to the point that they are feral or anything.

Our cleaning lady comes while we are at work. I leave the key in the letter box which she returns and she turns the alarm on when she's done. When I'm on maternity leave I plan to keep using her and that will be my morning out :)

I used to use Absolute Domestics, and it's either 2 hours / week or 3 hours / fortnight. $30 / hour

Lawns $40 for front & back.

Our house sounds similar, our cleaner does 3 hrs a week for $60. Once a month she does 4 hrs for $80 and will do whatever extras I need eg oven. We supply equip.

I found her on gumtree. Looked at companies but they were much more $$.

Lawn - $18 for average sized front lawn includes edger and whipper snipping. Lovely old guy who put a flyer in our letter box 5.5 yrs ago when we built our house and moved in. Used to be $12 but he's had a few price rises ;)

Thanks girls! I have a guy coming our Wednesday afternoon to quote me on the jungle that is my lawn.


Cat xox

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We have a house cleaner once a fortnight (through 'Absolute Domestics') - she does exactly that and all the dusting, we have a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom + study with two living areas. She does it in three hours for $70 - a bargain. I could spend $70 on nothing easily so its money well spent and frees up much needed family time

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What is your cleaner's name. I have a friend that works for them :)

Gardens will cost me $45 I think that's fair!


Cat xox