The 15 rules you need to know before your cleaner comes… because she really DOES judge you

Over the past 16 years, my husband and son have come to dread Tuesday nights. It’s when I run around our four-bedroom house in the Home Counties, with a vacuum cleaner and duster, shrieking: ‘She’ll be here in the morning.’

‘She’ is not the Queen or Princess of Wales, but our cleaning lady. I love her to bits, but I cannot bear the idea of her seeing my house in a tip.

Although my husband thinks it’s ridiculous, I have talked to other friends who have cleaners and they all agree they cannot bear the shame of being thought of as ‘slovenly’. And it’s a hot topic of debate on Mumsnet too, where women have been asking exactly what you need to do – and whether your cleaner will judge you if you don’t.

According to Katrina, the cleaning lady in question, your cleaner really does judge you for the state of your house – and expects some chores to be taken care of in her absence.

She says: ‘I hate wasting time tidying piles of kids’ toys or moving dirty washing when I could be cleaning the places a customer shouldn’t have to – like skirting boards and lampshades.’ But my friends and I agree it’s still often difficult to know what you should clean, and what’s acceptable to ask your cleaner to do.

So, I asked Katrina to explain what your cleaner expects from you. Here are her 15 golden rules…

Tidy up children’s toys

I don’t have a problem tidying up a few toys, but you would not believe the mess I have to deal with in some homes. After the summer holidays, I visited one customer. Her kitchen is 20ft long by 16ft wide and there were arts and crafts everywhere. They’d covered every surface. You couldn’t see the dining table. It took half an hour to clear that away before I could get to the normal stuff like toaster crumbs. So, I couldn’t do her eighth bathroom because I’d wasted the time clearing up glitter. It’s a waste of my time and her money.

Pick up dirty laundry

I am not a maid. I don’t want to see dirty underwear or smelly socks on the floor. Laundry baskets exist for a reason and it’s not hard to put them where they belong. I understand teenagers aren’t great at it, but adults should know better. I can’t get into the utility room of one customer because of the dirty laundry on the floor. This isn’t just a one-off occurrence, there are piles of laundry every week. I bought her two big boxes for her whites and darks, but I still have to step over piles of dirty clothes.

Clean your shower after each use

I can always tell which customers don’t clean their showers in between my weekly visits. One lady has a husband and four boys, and they all use it. I try to de-scale it once a week but it’s falling to pieces, and they wonder why. I can only do so much every week. People need to take two minutes to spray a shower every time they’ve used it with a daily spray that you can either leave on or rinse off – preferably use a limescale remover that removes those unsightly water marks which build up on the shower screen.

Whisk away sanitary products and nappies

Over the years, I have found used female products littered all around bedrooms and bathrooms. I’d suggest that, if you know your cleaner is coming, you put any sanitary products in a nappy sack and them put them in the bathroom bin. The same goes for babies’ dirty nappies. If you’ve got time, then empty this particular bin yourself – but as long as sanitary products are in a bag, I think most cleaners would be fine to empty the bin.

Do basic home maintenance

I am constantly amazed by the number of beautiful homes I am asked to start cleaning that are riddled with mould and limescale, especially in bathrooms. Their kitchen worktops will be immaculate, but mould is growing in their en-suite. In some cases, the mould around the bath is black, which tells me no one has bothered to clean it in years. It’s as if they don’t notice.

These things need regular maintenance that I can’t do during a weekly visit – so spray surfaces regularly to prevent mould, buy some limescale remover and do a deep clean every so often.

One customer has a hand shower, but the hose is so corroded that water runs everywhere. I keep telling her to replace the hose. She even has a new hose, but she never gets round to changing it.

Leave counter spills and dirty pans

I absolutely expect to wipe clean kitchen surfaces – I take pride in it. That includes crumbs and spills, like sticky jam and stray cornflakes.

I’m also happy to wash pans and other items that are ‘handwash only’, but please leave them beside the sink, not sitting inside it in a pile of cold, scummy water that I need to deal with.

Run the dishwasher

If you leave your day-to-day dirty dishes and cutlery on the side to pile up and I have to load them into the dishwasher, it’s just wasting time – especially if I am also emptying it first. I could have spent that time cleaning away cobwebs in your spare room. It’s up to you how you want your cleaner to spend their time, but are you ever going to clean the cobwebs away?

Don’t leave stained sheets

I am happy to make up beds and if someone asks me, I will happily change bedsheets. I also have some very elderly customers and others who have young children – and, of course, I accept accidents do happen. But some of the beds I’ve had to change are just beyond belief, so please consider the state of your sheets and mattress before getting your cleaning lady to change your bed.

I once pulled back a duvet to find a soiled towel, covered in stains. When I lifted the towel, there were more marks on the sheet, the mattress protector and even the mattress itself.

I’m still utterly horrified by that one.

Clean your kitchen sink

It never ceases to amaze me how many people scrape food off their plates into the sink rather than the dustbin and leave it to congeal for a week. One customer’s plughole smells like an abattoir because they use raw dog food and whatever’s left over gets shoved down the plughole. I’ve tried every cleaning product to get rid of the smell, but it won’t go.

Your cleaner will judge you – and has firm ideas on what their role is in keeping your home tidy

If you don’t want somebody to see it, then put it away

I don’t go in people’s drawers and cupboards – they are private. Contrary to what many people think about cleaners, I simply don’t have the time to snoop.

But in the past, customers have left pornographic pictures and sex toys lying around in the open, and I really don’t want to see those things.

Cameras don’t bother me

There’s some controversy about having security cameras running inside your home when a cleaner comes. I don’t have a problem with them; these days, I accept people are security conscious, and I don’t have anything to hide. I can only speak for myself on this one though.

Tidy tissues – and nail clippings

This should be obvious, but don’t leave dirty tissues that present a health risk all over the floor. The same goes for things that are plain gross – one couple used to cut their toenails and leave them in a little pile on the coffee table for me to clean away. Why?

Clean up after your pets

The number of times I have been asked to clean up dog poo, or to clean carpets because a dog is in season – I may be a cleaner, but they are your pets and you are responsible for looking after them. I look at the bowls of some dogs and can see scum on the top of the water. Then there’s old, congealed dog food around the sides of their bowls, as they aren’t cleaned regularly. Also, it’s really sad when pets’ baskets stink and are covered with hair, as they have never been washed. I will wash the bowls but if you’re not keeping your dog’s bed clean, it reflects poorly on you as an owner.

Don’t ask your cleaner to clean something you really need a tradesperson for

I am a cleaner, not a window cleaner, an oven cleaner, or a carpet cleaner. If you want those things done, do them yourself or go online and find a business that supplies those services and pay them. There are exceptions – I’ll do a window near a sink, because once I’ve cleaned the sink, I’ll see the window and think: ‘It’s splashed, I want to make it look nice.’ But I try not to make a rod for my own back. Once I cleaned out someone’s fireplace and before I knew it, the customer had bought me the whole kit and expected me to do it every week. I felt like saying: ‘Do I look like a chimney sweep?’

Check your toilets

Obviously, it’s part of my job to clean toilets but do think about what you’re leaving for your cleaner to find. One very rich couple we worked for lived in London during the week, and only came to their country home at weekends. Most weeks I would open the toilet lid to find I’d been left a ‘present’ that they hadn’t bothered to flush.

Other customers leave skid marks in the bowl and urine on the seat. Boys are the worst for this. But how hard can it be to dump a little cleaning product or bleach down there each day?