Guide
How to find a cleaner who stays
The hard part of this trade is not finding somebody, it is finding somebody who is still coming in two years. What predicts that is a clear arrangement, a fair rate and a realistic scope, agreed before the first visit.
Why the turnover is the real problem
Finding a cleaner is easy in most towns. Keeping one is not, and the households that go through four cleaners in three years usually have the same three things wrong each time: the hours are too short for the work asked, the rate is at the bottom of the local range, and nobody ever said out loud what was supposed to be done.
Fixing those three before the first visit is worth more than any amount of searching.
Set the scope before the rate
Walk the property and write down what you want done each visit, then ask how long that takes. Most people are surprised, and the surprise is always in the same direction.
Then decide what comes out. A three-bedroom house in three hours cannot have every room done properly every week, and the arrangement that works is usually a fixed weekly core with a rotating extra: bedrooms one week, the oven and the fridge the next.
A scope agreed this way survives. A scope of 'just give it a clean' expands quietly until somebody is unhappy.
Where to look, in order
A personal recommendation from a neighbour is still the best single source, because the person recommending has watched the work for a year and lives near enough for the round to make sense.
Local businesses with a real address. A cleaning company based in your town has a round to protect and cannot afford a bad month.
Directories and marketplaces are useful for finding candidates and are not a substitute for checking them. Whatever the listing says, the insurance certificate and a reference are still the things that tell you anything.
The first month
Be there for the first visit, walk the property together, and say what matters most to you, because everybody's priority is different and none of them is obvious. Somebody who cares about the kitchen floor and not at all about the spare room should say so.
Then give feedback in the first fortnight rather than the sixth month. A small correction early is easy and normal. The same point raised after twenty visits sounds like a complaint about all twenty.
Paying in a way that keeps them
Pay on the day or by standing order, not in arrears in batches. Cash flow is the whole business for a sole trader, and the customer who pays reliably is the one whose slot survives when the round is full.
Pay in the middle of the local range rather than the bottom. The difference over a year is small against the cost of starting again with somebody new every spring.
Common questions
Should I give my cleaner a key?
Most regular arrangements end up that way and it works fine. Agree in writing who holds it, that it carries no address label, and that it comes back when the arrangement ends.
What about holidays and Christmas?
Settle it early. A sole trader does not get paid holiday, so many households agree a fixed number of paid or part-paid weeks, or a bonus at Christmas. Either is common and neither is expected without being discussed.
How do I end it politely?
A fortnight's notice, said directly, and payment for any visits already agreed. It is a working arrangement rather than a friendship, and treating it as one is kinder than letting it drift.