peterfc

Lucky Boy she doesn't wear a uniform. You mean nothing?

Peter

bejaboz

No Peter,

Something much more modest

gedscottish

All the more for the imagination!

bejaboz

Usually, far better than reality

sagalaut

The price of anything is what one person is prepared to pay and the other person is prepared to except.

Mike

Directly comparing cleaner rates with what someone with a full time contract earns is not truly representative. A contracted worker will have tax and national insurance paid and will qualify for sick pay and holiday pay. More importantly they will have a degree of security. I would much rather have a regular income going into the bank each and every month, especially in these uncertain times.
We have worked with a number of cleaners over the years and quite frankly if you find a good one it is worth rewarding them. Trusting that you can walk into a property that is spotless and ready to go and all you have to do is say thank you to your team is worth it. Walking in and finding you have to do a 60 minute make over in the time it takes the Clients to drive from the airport is no fun. It also helps it they are bi-lingual'ish and can help the Clients.
Sometimes it is not worth cutting costs just for the sake of it.
If we had a domestic cleaner I would take the same view. I would love to come home from work, kick off my shoes and not have to worry about cleaning.....

Troia

domestic cleaners are a special service provider: IMHO there should exist a emotional connection with her/him. After all this is the person that will make the bed you sleep on, and tuck away your toothbrush.

If you find one that is good just keep her/him as a treasure...

sir recorder

Heavens. It sounds as if you have taken a wife into full domestic service.

In my experience, pretty cleaners are pretty useless. They don't work very hard and often think that their beauty adds value to their wage. Bah!

Never form an emotional relationship with a domestic. You are asking for trouble.

The best cleaners we ever employed came from the Tokaj region in badly economically-hit Hungary. Their average age was 50. They accepted low wages. Never grudgingly worked long hours. Did a brilliant job

Troia

Now, that is what is going to happen to you if you don´t treat well your cleaner:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53SCA...C6A3B9B6092B67

sir recorder

Silly girl forgot to use the toothpaste with whitener.

Squidlydidly

Got to be cheaper to employ a cleaner more local to Portugal though surely.

liveaboard

I've never employed a cleaner in Portugal, but I have in a few other countries.
My experience wasn't very positive; sometimes I wasted more time dealing with the cleaner than I would have taken doing the work myself; mostly, the work was simply inadequate.
I had tenants in rental properties hire "professionals" to do the handover cleaning. In 10 cases, 1 time the work was really good, and I didn't need to do anything. In the worst case, I had to do about 20 hours after the "professionals" had done their work. No one was happy.

When I had a cleaner for my own place, I found myself waiting for her to show up, and my personal schedule ended up working around the cleaner's schedule. I fired her and just did it myself. Not as often perhaps.
I really don't like cleaning, but for me it beats dealing with employees.

steppitoe

As always, rates depend on whether you employ someone the whole year around or on an ad hoc basis for rentals.

You cannot compare the two as there is no security or holiday pay for a summer only cleaner.

sir recorder

In our case it is our concierge service, our agent, who employs the cleaner during summer lets. Of course the agent rips the cleaner off by charging us €75 to clean our apartment after a handover. It's practically certain the cleaner they engage doesn't get the lion's share of this.

But if we engage the cleaner by ourselves without our concierge's assistance, what then?

peterfc

What a rip off. You can bet the cleaner gets less than 20€ more like national wage per hour for the hours worked. How many hours does it take to clean an apartment? times national wage rate.

Peter