Guide
How to find a good cleaner, and keep them
Finding a cleaner is usually straightforward, and the aim is finding one 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.
What keeps a cleaner coming back
Finding a cleaner is straightforward in most towns. Keeping one for years comes down to three things, and arrangements that end early usually fall short on one of them: the hours are too short for the work asked, the rate is at the bottom of the local range, or 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 find it takes longer than they expected.
Then decide what comes out. Three hours in a three-bedroom house is time for the main rooms each week rather than every room, 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 most reliable 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 local address. A cleaning company based in your town has a local reputation to keep and every reason to do the work well.
Directories and marketplaces are useful for finding candidates, and the insurance certificate and a reference are the natural next step in checking them.
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 ending it clearly is kinder than letting it drift.