Reasonable time window for house cleaners
Hey. I know I'm just lucky to have housecleaners in the first place. But we have a recurring issue I can't seem to make any progress on. I have a wide time window for which I ask our housecleaners to arrive after and leave before. It is 1-6 pm. They are usually here about 2 hours. About half the time they wind up going over, or worse, coming early. In speaking with our housecleaner it sounds like when they come depends on what happens in the day before they get here. And I can't have them come first thing in the morning as we just cant get the house together by then. But it really stresses us out when we have to delay our dinner and short amount of evening before bed. We are just really busy. They are otherwise fantastic. I just want to know if this is a common issue for others with housecleaners. Is there anything that helped if you dealt with this? Thank you.
Parent Replies
It's not common in my experience. We've had 4 different cleaning team over the last 15 years. They all came about the same time on the same day. But, I also require the team by 2 or 3 PM, so they have to come early enough.
While I don't currently have a housecleaner, I have at various points in the past 15 years, and never had this issue. In my experience, it is much more common for them to be late within a 30 minute window, not what you are describing. I think it is a them thing and unfortunately you will have to be very firm about it, give them one more warning and say we can't continue your service if you are here before 1 or after 6. Then, let them go if they can't meet your need.
That sounds like an unusually large window. We have always had a regular arrival time for our house cleaners, and this is with several different companies/individuals over the years.
That is not the norm and it sounds very disruptive. Are you a regular weekly client? If not, maybe your housekeeper is trying to fit you into a schedule that's already full. If you are weekly or bi-weekly, and she is changing your time every week, or regularly interrupting your post-workday family time, I'd look for another cleaner. There are lots of fantastic house cleaners with reasonable, predictable hours. My own fantastic housekeeper of many years has two helpers and they take 2-3 hrs to clean a house. So that means most days they clean one house in the morning, take a break for lunch, and clean another one after lunch. They are usually done by 2:30 or 3pm and can go home to their own families. I can't remember a single time when they have been at my house past 3:30 in the afternoon. Their timing is predictable, give or take 30 minutes, because they have the same clients every week, so they know how long each house will take. Things come up sometimes, somebody is sick, a client cancels at the last minute, or adds on a time-consuming request, but it's rare, and when it does happen, I get as much notice as she can give me, and we work something out. When someone is coming in to your home to do work - whether a housekeeper or a contractor, you want them gone by the time the kids come home from school so you can carry on with normal life!
That is not usual. I've had many different housecleaners over the years and they have always had a set time to arrive. Typically they finish the job in about 3 hours. Very rarely the cleaner might arrive a few minutes early (literally, less than 10 minutes), or contact us to ask if they can start late because of car trouble or the like. Taking longer to do the job only happens when we've specifically asked for something extra (and paid extra accordingly).
I suggest instructing your housecleaners to come at 2pm. Not "between 1-6pm". They should be finished by 5pm.