Housework in Edgware costs £22 per cleaner an hour on a weekly slot and £24 on a fortnightly one, so three hours a week comes to £66. Your house keeps the same cleaner instead of taking whoever has a gap that morning. Nothing for calling us out, no VAT bolted on, nothing to sign, and about a week’s notice ends it.
The rates
| How often | Per cleaner, per hour | What three hours comes to |
|---|---|---|
| Every week | £22 | £66 |
| Every fortnight | £24 | £72 |
| Ironing, taken from the booked hours | £12 |
At the weekly rate two hours bills at £44 and four at £88. Two is the shortest visit we run, since anything below that costs more in travelling than it earns. Hourly work sits outside the £67 floor that applies to one off bookings, so the hours you book are the entire bill.
People ask about the two pound gap between the rates and there are two honest answers. Reaching the same standard after a fortnight of dust takes longer, and a slot sitting empty on alternate weeks is awkward to build a round on. Offered two hours weekly against four hours fortnightly, take the weekly one. The house holds its level better and the hour costs less.
What three hours really gets done
Being blunt here prevents arguments later. Three hours with one cleaner covers a kitchen properly, one bathroom properly, hoovering and mopping through the ground floor, dusting the surfaces, beds changed where the linen is out, and the stairs. What will not fit: oven interiors, inside the windows, inside the kitchen cupboards, skirtings on every floor, and a second bathroom to the same standard. Add an hour and the second bathroom and the skirtings come within reach. Three hours suits most unextended three bedroom semis on this patch; four where two bathrooms are in daily use.
Priorities work better than a checklist. On the first visit, name the two rooms you genuinely care about. Some households want the kitchen floor perfect every week and could not care less about dusting, and spending the money that way is entirely sensible.
The extra floor a loft conversion adds
Hip to gable conversions with a rear dormer are everywhere in these streets, and each one quietly brings a bedroom, usually an ensuite, and a second flight of stairs. That is worth an hour on a visit, which at £22 works out at £22 more a week, and it is money well spent where the alternative is the top floor getting done fortnightly by accident and nobody admitting it. A rear extension that turned a kitchen into a kitchen diner does the same. Raise it at quote stage and the hours land right first time.
Ironing, if you want the time going there
£12 an hour, and it comes out of the hours already on the booking instead of going on top. Spend an hour of a three hour visit at the board and the house gets two, which surprises people more often than it should. Some of our cleaners are quick with an iron and some would rather not, and you will hear which you have got before the first visit instead of after.
Kit, keys and the front drive
Machines and materials arrive with the cleaner and nothing is charged for them. Where a stone worktop or a waxed floor needs something specific, put the bottle out with a note and that gets used, and the same goes for allergies. Most regulars are at work while we are there, so we either hold a key or the house has a safe by the door. Keys carry a number on the tag and nothing identifying the address. Alarm codes get written down once and never discussed over a phone.
Parking is straightforward on this side of the borough because nearly every house has its own drive. Two small habits follow. Block paved drives hold jointing sand and gravel drives hold loose stone, and both travel indoors on a boot or behind a hose, so lines run round the edge and a mat goes at the door. Two minutes, and it is exactly the sort of thing you notice when a cleaner cannot be bothered.
Limescale between visits
Ignore the hard water and it will beat a weekly clean on its own. Off a supply running 250 to 350 ppm, a screen here films over inside a couple of years and a kettle furs up within the month. Screens, taps and shower heads get descaled on the ordinary visit, with a mild acid and never a scouring pad, because scoured chrome never really recovers. Anything left for years wants a one off session to reset it, and after that a weekly visit holds the line.
Fridays finish early, and the spring fortnight
Two scheduling facts to know before choosing a slot. Friday afternoons finish early on this round and Saturdays are quiet across much of it, so take a morning if Friday suits you. And the fortnight before Passover in spring is our busiest run: the diary tips towards one off deep cleans and the regular rota gets shuffled around them. Everybody on the round hears about that in advance rather than by text on the morning.
What the hourly rate leaves out
Oven interiors have never been part of a regular visit, because doing one properly takes two hours by itself. That is a separate job at £77 for a single. Outside windows are out, and so is carpet cleaning, though regulars add a room or two most springs at £36 a bedroom. Garden work, rubbish clearance and anything above a two step belong elsewhere. Where builders have just left, or a house has been let go for a while, the team deep clean from £186 is the right service rather than three hours with one cleaner.
Moving a visit, holidays and stopping
Move a visit by telling us the evening before and nothing is charged. Cancel on the morning, or leave a locked door with nobody in, and the cleaner’s time is billed, because by then they have turned other work down and travelled. Away for a fortnight in August? Mention it when the flights get booked and the slot is held. Stopping wants roughly a week of notice and nothing else, because there was never anything to sign. Households here quite often go fortnightly through the summer and return to weekly as the nights draw in.
Where the round runs
The weekly book sits mostly in the settled owner occupied streets: Canons Park, Queensbury and the bigger houses up at Stanmore, with a steady run through Edgware itself on both sides of Watling Street. It has grown slowly and almost entirely by word of mouth, which is either a compliment or a hint that we should advertise. The areas page lays the round out and the prices page carries every figure.
Questions we get asked
Is that £22 an hour or £22 per cleaner?
It is per cleaner and per hour, on the weekly slot, with the fortnightly rate at £24. Three hours weekly with one cleaner comes to £66. Send two for ninety minutes instead, same money, and you get your morning back, which suits people who would rather be out.
How many hours does a three bedroom semi need?
Three hours a week suits most unextended three bedroom semis in HA8, so £66. Four where two bathrooms are in daily use, or where a loft conversion has added a top floor and an ensuite, which is £88.
Will it be the same cleaner each visit?
Wherever the rota allows, yes. Illness and holidays happen, and then cover arrives with notes on your house and a call the evening before. A tenth visit to a kitchen always runs quicker than a second, which is the whole point.
Do you take on ironing?
Yes, at £12 an hour, drawn out of the booked time rather than added to it. Every hour at the board is an hour the house does without, so anyone with a lot of ironing books a longer visit.
Is there anything to sign?
No contract, no joining fee, no notice period beyond about a week. Moving a visit costs nothing provided we hear the evening before. Same day cancellations are charged, since the cleaner turned other work down and travelled.
Do the cleaners bring products?
Machines and materials both, with nothing charged for them. Where you would rather your own were used, over allergies or a stone worktop or a waxed floor, leave them out with a note and those get used instead.
Rather talk? Ring 020 8077 1591, seven days.