Do you have a cleaner?

I'm pretty surprised by the range in responses, esp the price people pay. The private cleaner I had from the paper was cheaper but hopelessly slow and therefore inefficient. We then got a husband-wife team, but they whipped thru really quickly, no attention to detail so after 2-3 cleans the house was just getting dirtier and dirtier. Then we went thru the agency. Ok so it cost a bit more but the beauty of it is if you're not happy, you can let the agency know & they mediate with the cleaner. We've had some better ones and some not so good ones but the better ones tend to stick around. My last cleaner that I had in the ACT was fantastic, really thorough & hardworking, and plus I really appreciated the person she was.

I've got one booked to come next week...we'll see how that goes.

We had a cleaner until recently. We decided not to continue because she was more into tidying then actual cleaning. I would tidy the house before she came so that she could get stuck into the cleaning but then she'd turn up and reckon there was nothing to do and go. Hopeless...

yep, i've got one. and it is absolutely a must for my house, cause my dear pet dogs.
their hairs go everywhere everyday!
cleaner works well for dust. esp. if you have carpet in your house.

I do - I have two I use, one main one and when she can't come due to family issues or other, I use the back-up one, both of which are great cleaners. The main one can only spare 2 hours and brings all her own stuff for $25 an hour. She gets so much done for me, like bathroom, toilet, kitchen, all the floors. Makes me feel great as a single mum not having the pressure to do it all, so I feel like its just buying someone else's time and giving someone else a job - a mother herself. I also think I am worth more than that doing other things like working on BB or being with my kids for $50 a week. My second cleaner charges $20 per hour but uses my things. He will happily stay as long as I need or do other things. But its just a great thing to look forward to once a week.

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wow 2 weeks between floor cleaning? do you clean it in meantime?
i have thought about hiring some one to do the bathroom, toilet, floors and kitchen.. but i dont know if i can justify it to DH :)

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Yeah that's what I was wondering too - my house would not remain clean for two weeks with just me here and I would take more than 2 hours to clean every week myself.

I take longer than two hours too, but I'm nowhere near as efficient as my cleaners (and for some reason I can't seem to get more than 15 mins without interruption when I'm at home ;)).

I have to admit, we need the weekly floor clean, which is why mine come every week. But it only ever stays 'clean' for the first two days, max. I get my house cleaned at the end of the week, at least my visitors might see it clean then! :D

In the past when we had a cleaner every fortnight we all spent most of the week out of the house (both working f/t and DD1 at school & oshc). So if anything I would run over with the carpet sweeper once or twice in between and sweep the kitchen but no heavy vaccuuming or mopping really. Some of you young 'uns might not know what a carpet sweeper is, hehehe, but I love mine. Good for a really quick tidy thru, and when I only had a bad old smelly vac it wasn't as dust-making as the vac. Now I have a dyson, and well, gotta say the dyson comes out more often.

I was thinking about this thread today...with my hours at work increasing (:angry:) I am thinking it might be worth 'buying time'. I have to talk DH into it but I don't think I'll have to twist too hard.

lol MD - I remember carpet sweepers! Awesome things they are. Can you still buy them?

Yes you can, I've seen them at Big W and Target.

My granny loves her carpet sweeper! The best thing is they make no noise and are so light. :D

I have a housecleaner..... and a gardener. :redface: I'm not telling you how much they get paid because it's embarrassing. But the house cleaner comes everyday, does all the washing and ironing, cleans bathrooms and kitchen, mops most days and cleans up after the kids (and me)! There isn't much she doesn't do. I help, but she does most things.

It is total LUXURY. :redface:

JungleMum - where do you live - Africa by any chance....just curious....when we lived in Namibia and South Africa we had a gardener and housecleaner - housecleaner came everyday....very nice!

Papua New Guinea. :)

We're planning on getting a cleaner for a while after we have baby#2 to give us some relief as we don't have family here so we don't get much day-to-day help.

I was thinking I'd like an hour a week for a quick floors and bathroom go over... but everyone seems to have 2 hours a week or fortnight. Do cleaners not like to do one hour jobs?

When I booked it was min 2 hrs.

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Yep, and I don't think I could ever turn back since I've had one. It took us awhile to find someone really good, but now that we've got her I'm never going to let you go.

She comes every fortnight and does 3.5 hours and we pay her $70. We were paying her $60 and she was only meant to be doing 3 hours but was always staying longer so I just started giving her more money. She basically does everything, dusts (including my venetians), cleans, vaccums, mops etc. I usually give the living area a quick vaccum the week that she's not here cos it does get a little grimy in between, but that's all that I do these days.

Mind you, it took us a long time to find someone good. We started off with a guy who had his own business and were paying him $80 for three hours, but he was a terrible duster and I hate dust. Then we got another woman who had her own business, she wanted to charge $125 but we talked her down to $100. She came once and then left after 2 hours cos her parking was running out (why she couldn't move her car), so we never had her back. And then we found the fabulous lady we have now!

If you're looking for someone I think it is best to go by word of mouth, at least that's what I've found. At the end of the day I see it that you are buying time. When DH and I were both working full time the cleaning took a big chunk of our weekend, we decided that it was worth paying for so that we could have that half a day iykwim? Since we've had DS money is a bit tighter, but we're not willing to risk loosing a wonder woman just so we can save a few bucks for a few months iykwim?

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she sounds fantastic Miss E! If it's alright, would you mind giving me her details?
Otherwise if there are other Melbourne mummies with fantastic cleaners I would love recommendations - I am in eastern subs - kew, balwyn etc

Thanks!!

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:redface: well we try to clean the floors inbetween, it gets swetp and vac'ed but the mop isn't our friend...

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Bahahahaha! DH cut up our mop handle about 3 months ago when I made DS2 a hobby horse to play with.... um, we haven't even missed the mop... people mop?! Crazy, crazy world.

In answer to the question. Nope, we don't have a cleaner but I WOULD LOVE ONE. In fact I often tell DH that we need a wife! (a circa 1950s wife, preferably one who can cook well, clean, look after the children and make martini's)....