[Prestige1]

Those of you who do domestic cleaning, can you advise how many houses you expect your staff to clean in a day? working in teams of 2 My girls clean around 3 houses a day (5 to 6 hr period) is that asking to much? the reason I ask is after a period of time they all get knackered and end up leaving or slacking. I think the fact I have such high standards their work has to be spot on this adds to work load, also I am not cheap and this means a higher standard is expected, I feel there needs to be a ballance, I am thinking of looking for staff who can work arround 4 hrs a day and clean just 2 houses, and even just 3 days a week. what do you do? or think? Kind regards Phil

[Art]

Hi Phil,

 Haven't ever marketed for domestic rounds, but as far as retaining staff have you ever thought about introducing a bonus scheme why is payable every quarter?

Arthur

[Prestige1]

I think you missed my point, we clean 15 plus houses a day and I distribute them to the teams, you will allways get staff who want x number of hours, I could work staff 12hrs a day but my point is after 5/6 the standard of cleaning drops. we run set systems (cleaning programmes) I don't think people would pay £66 if it was just a whip round. very similar to molly maids and merry maids and charge the same to so I need high standards.
I have tried all sorts, you force staff to take a break, they miss it and work through, you give them more time on a job, they reduce it and leave early. I am going to recruit staff for 4 hrs a day and give them 2 jobs a day and see if that works. its clear to me to clean houses to this high standard 3 a day is to many.
will see. kind regards Phil

[Bertie Boo]

Phil

I do three houses a day on my own. Start in the morning (sometime between 9 and 10) and finish about 6. I take all my own stuff and have no shortage of regular work.

Truth is, i love my job but it kills me. I could not afford to do two jobs a day, but three is a killer. I have to balance the load carefully (i.e. 2 family houses and some cleaning for 'an old dear' that doesnt take so long) so that i dont do 3 killer houses in a day.

I get paid well for what i do as i charge only a bit less that you would expect to pay Molly Maids and similar, even on small jobs i don't charge a lot less than a bigger job, and i always get my price.

I could not do my job if i didnt know the clients as well as i do, i wouldnt want to be sent into various houses 'blind', like if i were working for a company. I have a lot of ex-molly maid clients who all say the service they got all depended on which cleaners they were sent.

I applaud anyone running a domestic service using staff, although i have no shortage of working it is more than a full-time job (and a worry in many ways too) as it is.

Bertie

[domestic bliss]

I do between 2 and 3 houses a day.  However on a day that i do 3 it tends to be a old dears house,a family home and a single persons flat.  that is enough as i would run out of steam. i work between the hours of 9 and 3.  for 2 days a week i work in huge houses and that is one house per day doing the same hours.
if you are giving your staff 3 family homes a day then im not surprised they run out of steam.  if you insist on 3 houses perhaps make one a small home or flat then it's not such hard work.  However i work on my own and work very fast.

[Bertie Boo]

bertie when u say you clean 3 houses a day with the 2 family houses what would that entail? Do you clean windows and skirting boards also or just a general clean through?

Hey DG

I do whatever the client wants. So, if its an old lady/man who has me every 4-6 weeks then usually its 2 or three rooms cleaned to within an inch of their life: windows, damp-dusting, skirting and picture rails dry vacuumed, dirty paintwork wiped, through vacuuming, etc.

Fortnightly cleaning is the thing that people have most, and these are usually retired or working couples. This is what you would call 'a really good do', but usually the houses are still quite clean as they don't make the mess and they do a bit of cleaning themselves in between.

The family houses where I go once a week, well, that's a different matter...expectations are FAR lower, standards lower, really my job is to just keep them above dysentery level. Forget windows and wet paintwork cleaning, these guys just want to know someone has been in and done a bloody good once-over.

I always tell folk the only things I wont do are carpet-cleaning (not vacuuming), internal oven cleaning, and work outside that requires step ladders as I'm not insured for that. Windows and paintwork I say I will do 'by arrangement', that is to say that I do these jobs when folk are on holiday (that's if they don't cancel, I always tell people to cancel -I don't charge- if they don't need me) or tell them to leave me a note to do say a few windows if they don't want a bathroom cleaning etc. I have some clients who tell me they don't want the kitchen cleaning (fine by me...) as they say they do it themselves everyday. Its not done to my standard, but I respect their wishes.

I LOATH cleaning windows because I am so slow at it (because I can't bear to do a half-clean, I think they look much better with a uniform layer of grime than they do when someone has made a half-arsed attempt to clean it).

In some ways it is far easier for me because -being the only person doing the cleaning- I know what less frequent jobs I have and haven't done in houses, for instance when I last did a bed move or pulled the sofas out. I also note that no two houses are the same and in places where they have majority hard-floors bed and furniture moves are pretty much part of the regular cleaning as all the crap blows under. PAH!

[Bertie Boo]

 cont'
I try to do what the client wants and then a little more. Not a lot more as it probably wont get noticed. I learnt a long time ago to listen as intently as I could to any conversation I have with a client as they are constantly dropping clues out about what they do and don't expect. I feel guilty sometimes as I work far harder in some house than I do others and I know what I can 'get away with' and what I can't in every house...but then I remind myself I work hard and though I love cleaning and I love my clients I love the money more...

Also a lot of my clients have had bad and indifferent service from 'big' companies and even 1-2-1 cleaners. My time keeping is appalling but I am ultra ultra reliable and my clients know this. Luckily I am rarely off sick as well. I try to be what they want, if they want someone to come in and 'do' whilst they are out and never see me then fine, if they want to pamper me with cups of tea and a natter then that's fine too lol  As I say, they are paying.

Of course I always end up doing other stuff too, like putting washing machine on, changing beds, emptying/running the dishwasher, changing light bulbs, very occasionally ironing, changing curtains and nets, even once got a dead pigeon off a veranda roof. I did laugh at that because the lady of the house said "today I need you to vacuum everywhere, do both bathrooms, wash floors, and move a dead pigeon" like it was just another job lol.

I have been told many times by clients, ex-clients, and non-clients that I run an outstanding service and that people are lucky to have me. This embarrasses me a bit but it has to be said I do try hard to please. I only ever parted company with one client on bad terms, this was a woman I'd known since before I started cleaning as we worked for the same company. I was working for her for just under 3 years and of course going there every week for 3 years meant inevitably the odd thing got broken (and to be fair she did very well because some houses I've broken loads of stuff -rarely I might add is it really my fault, people put things in the strangest places). Well earlier this year a shelf fell down when I was dusting (I had told her before it needed attention) and it broke another shelf as it fell. I wrote her a note (I knew that it was the last time I'd be going there as I'd had a feeling she was fed up with me anyway - having never had any other cleaner before me she was now bored and I just wish she'd said please don't come anymore, heaven knows I'd known her long enough, anyway I knew this would be the straw that broke the camels back) but on the Monday she rang to ask why I hadn't phoned her and she went absolutely mental. No one deserves to hear what she said, I was very upset because I've dealt with unhappy people in other jobs but in those cases the anger was at the company and never me. This was a personal attack and one I did not like.

[Bertie Boo]

cont'

For all of my robust exterior I am a softie at heart and everyone knows this. Anyway, I got through the morning somehow and thankfully the next house I was due to go to was the Manse of the local reverend, and she was in, so over a nice cup of tea, a box of tissues and a hug she sat with me whilst I poured it all out. I felt proper daft, even more so now talking about it, but I try so very very hard to please the people I work for and felt like I'd had a right slap in the face.

Even the lady next door to that now ex-client (a lady I also worked for) said "she'll never find another one like you" and that was from a woman who's hobby was telling me (and the decorator/builder/plumber, delete as applicable) what bits we'd missed.

The only other client I ever had a problem with was that same lady I just mentioned who had said "she'll never find another one like you". She was a nice lady but she had a spotlessly clean show house which - and NO ONE believes me- was a swine to clean, at least dirty, scruffy houses look better for a good clean through. In the end she picked me up on one point too many and, though I have NEVER ever traded one client in for a new one, I vowed that the  very next person who asked me to work for them would be a replacement for this lady. And beggar me, if I didn't get someone else within a matter of weeks.

I wrote and told her that, due to the dispute with the neighbour and her broken shelf, I was still embarrassed to be in the neighbourhood and as such I was quitting. I haven't heard since. I wanted to say how hard it was to work for her -the fact that she has had so many cleaners work for her just once or twice (the last lot still working quite happily for her sister apparently) and who she stopped coming, and yet kept me on for over 18 months, says it all really. She must have been pleased or, at the very least, realised I was as good as it was gonna get.

What started out as cleaning a 4 bed house with 3 guest bedrooms and 2 guest bathrooms led to me cleaning for her daughter at her house, and when the daughter divorced I lost that job, but not only that, the daughter moved back home and so that was an extra bedroom to THOROUGHLY clean, same for the guest bathroom, and never once did I mention charging more. I just got on with it.

The person who I went to work for in her place had a house that, on the surface, was very clean, and had previously been using Molly Maids. She said she became very dissatisfied and I was recommended to her by a guy who thinks I am the bees-knees, god love 'im (its all because I'm the only person who agreed not to put a crease in his shirt sleeves, looking at the clothes you'd think I was the only person who agreed to his ironing full-stop, but he's a super guy). That house was absolutly thick with dust behind beds and units etc, and they don't tidy up much, so you always know when I've been in.

These days I am reluctant to work for anyone who has never had a cleaner before (people who have had cleaners have a very realistic expectation I find) and NEVER am I going to clean for anyone who has a super-shiny show home. Once bitten, twice shy.

Sorry for long post, and thanks for your question

Bertie

[Bertie Boo]

DG i would be very wary of working by the hour (or are you just asking if that lot is acheiveable in the time?), i was warned never to charge hourly but always by the job, this was from a lady who i have known for donkeys years and has had many cleaners and cleaning services over the years. She said that she always preferd a set-price as she never had to worry about holding up the cleaner, or the cleaning having tea breaks/fAg breaks etc (though i am very opinionated about cleaners who smoke, i myself am the worst kind of ex-smoker you will meet...).

I have different speeds i work to, and by trial and error i have worked out how and when to do what. Like the old lady i went to today, she is frail and has to sit down, and when i get there she spends the first half hour telling me all about what shes been doing, where she went, what the family did etc, so i have to start in her lounge with the dusting so that i can listen AND work at the same time.

If i only have 2 jobs i work far slower (and not always more to show for it), if i have 3 then i work very steadily so that i can get all jobs done. Different people, different speeds i guess? I am a very systematic (though disorganised) type, and i do multi-task when the houses are empty, that is to say when folk are in the house i work room by room, if they are out then i will get things started, like showers and basins sprayed, toilets bleached, etc, whilst i get on with tidying up while the cleaning stuff does the magic.

I really don't think there is a right or wrong answer, there is no doubt that if you are a company you can tailor your service to the exact way a client would want, you can only go so far otherwise it's not cost effective. Are your clients generally pleased?

Bertie