Ask someone outright if they have a cleaner and many people will feel a bit uncomfortable admitting it. There’s still a bit of a taboo in our society about paying someone to keep your house in check – with the assumption being that you must be either rich or lazy to pay for one.
There’s no getting away from the fact that paying for a cleaner is an expense that’s out of reach for many people, but modern life is full of time pressures – particularly on women, who still do the bulk of domestic chores. So why not (if you can afford it), get someone to help with your endless to-do list.
What makes people take the plunge – and hand that sink plunger over? Three people tell us why they fork out for a cleaner, how it’s changed their life – and whether they could do without.
‘Having a cleaner keeps my anxiety in check’
“As someone occasionally prone to anxiety, it is impossible to overstate how much having a cleaner helps me,” says Christabel Cooper, a 44-year-old data analyst and Labour councillor from West London. She lives alone with her 13-year-old son and works full time – meaning time is very tight. She pays £25 a week for a cleaner who comes for two hours every Tuesday and cleans and tidies whatever needs tackling. She’s paid for a cleaner for around six years.
“We live in a small flat so it is very obvious when it becomes dirty and cluttered. Your home is the environment in which you are supposed to feel relaxed and allow yourself to re-charge and re-energise, but I find that very difficult to do if it is in a state of disorder,” she says.
“The fact I come back every Tuesday evening and my home is clean and well-ordered is such a relief to me. I am enormously grateful to my cleaner, I honestly think she does far more for my mental health than a therapist or counsellor could ever do,” adds Cooper, who justifies the expense because it’s a priority.
She forgoes overpriced drinks in London to afford it and says the idea you have to be rich to have a cleaner is outdated: “I’m definitely not, sadly – it’s not like I sit there with oodles of cash. This to me is an expense like a monthly travel card. I pay her £25 a week and pay the agency as well.”
‘I’m a time-pressed working mother and it’s saved my marriage’
Nicola Ayers lives with her partner Ben and their two children, aged seven and eight. She’s recently set up her own business as a swimming instructor while still managing the bulk of all of the childcare as Ben works long hours.
The couple have employed a cleaner on and off over the years depending on her workload, says Ayers, because it helps free up time. Cleaning used to be the only thing the couple argued about and while her husband helps more than most, she says, “there are only so many hours in the day”.
“The cleaner has probably saved our marriage - it’s an absolute must in terms of marital bliss,” she adds. “And she’s absolutely fantastic – incredibly entrepreneurial and successful.”
“The cleaning is always the thing you can put off until tomorrow and then tomorrow comes and something else comes through and before you know it you’re three or four weeks in,” says Ayers. Paying a cleaner eases the load.
“I’m trying to launch a business while making sure the kids are OK, that their homework is done and their clothes are ready and washed, and that they get to school on time. The demands on women now are so different to what they used to be and I still want my own independence and my own business... why shouldn’t we as women have successful businesses?”
Ayers says she wouldn’t give up her cleaner “for anything”, adding that she’s rather be savvy in how she shop at the supermarket or go without treats to pay for it. “Life is so busy and sometimes things can feel out of control but for me if the house is clean it makes my whole life feel happier.”
‘I live in a shared house – without our cleaner it would descend into chaos’
Joe Kelly, a 25-year-old project manager says while he wasn’t comfortable with the idea in the first place, he’s converted. His flatmates pays for a cleaner who comes once a week to sort the communal areas in their shared flat. The idea was prompted by the cleaning stalemate in his previous houseshare, which resulted in piles of unwashed dishes that everyone refused to touch.
The landlord in his current place foots the bill for the cleaner as part of their monthly rent, says Kelly – so no one’s out of pocket and nobody has to worry about a rota. And because the flat is kept at a reasonably clean level, people keep it tidier between visits, too.
“I lived in one place where we didn’t have a cleaner and there was a petty argument over whose dishes in the sink were whose and nobody cleaned anything, and the whole kitchen living area became a state as people were unwilling to clean up things they didn’t believe were theirs,” says Kelly.
Having a cleaner prevents friendships breaking down over petty things. “I know sometimes people feel a little uncomfortable and this wouldn’t have been something I’d have thought about before as there’s a perception cleaners are something rich people have. Now I’d really struggle to not have one.”