A standard domestic cleaning visit covers kitchen surfaces, bathrooms, dusting, vacuuming, mopping and bins. It does not cover the oven interior, inside the fridge, inside cupboards, limescale removal, grout, high level dust or windows. Those are deep cleaning tasks, and they are excluded because there is no time for them in a two to three hour maintenance visit.
Almost every disappointment with a regular cleaner traces back to this list. Being clear about it before the first visit prevents nearly all of them.
What is included as standard
Kitchen
- Worktops wiped and disinfected
- Sink and taps cleaned and polished
- Hob and splashback exterior
- Appliance fronts: oven door, fridge, dishwasher, microwave
- Microwave interior, in most specifications
- Cupboard fronts spot cleaned where marked
- Bin emptied and a new liner fitted
- Floor swept and mopped
- Dishwasher loaded, in many specifications
Bathrooms
- Toilet, inside and out, including the seat, hinges and base
- Basin, taps and surround
- Bath and shower, including the screen
- Mirrors polished
- Tiles wiped
- Towels straightened or replaced if left out
- Floor cleaned
- Bin emptied
Bedrooms and living areas
- Beds made, or changed if clean linen is left out
- Accessible surfaces dusted
- Mirrors and glass
- Vacuuming throughout, including under furniture that moves easily
- Hard floors mopped
- Tidying of visible clutter into sensible places, within reason
Throughout
- Skirting boards spot wiped where visible
- Light switches and handles
- Stairs vacuumed
- Bins emptied
- General tidy
What is not included
This is the important half, and the half that is rarely spelled out.
- Oven interior. A separate job at roughly £45 to £80, and genuinely a two hour task
- Inside the fridge or freezer
- Inside cupboards, wardrobes or drawers
- Limescale removal beyond a routine wipe. Proper descaling needs contact time a maintenance visit does not have
- Grout scrubbing
- High level dust: light fittings, picture rails, door tops, coving
- Windows, inside or out
- Behind and under heavy furniture and appliances
- Extractor filters
- Curtains and blinds
- Laundry, beyond putting a load on in some arrangements
- Washing up, in most specifications. Loading a dishwasher usually yes, a sink full of roasting pans usually no
- Ironing, unless separately agreed and paid for
- Outside spaces, garages or lofts
- Anything requiring a ladder beyond a small step, for insurance and safety reasons
- Moving heavy furniture, again for insurance and injury reasons
- Clearing up after pets, beyond normal floor cleaning
- Handling clinical or hazardous waste
Why the exclusions exist
Not to short-change you. A two to three hour visit on a two bedroom home is genuinely full with the included list.
Adding the oven would consume most of it, and you would end up with a clean oven and a dirty bathroom. The maintenance list is chosen because those things get dirty weekly. The excluded list is things that get dirty annually, which is why they belong in a deep clean once or twice a year instead.
The ladder and heavy furniture exclusions are different: those are safety and insurance matters. A cleaner injured on your property while doing something outside their risk assessment is a problem for everyone, and most public liability policies would not respond well to it.
What you can ask for
Most exclusions can be added if you pay for the time. Reasonable requests:
- Extra hours on a particular visit to do the oven, the fridge or the windows
- A rotating extra: one cupboard interior, or one window, or one set of blinds per visit. This is an efficient way to cover the annual list gradually
- A stated priority, such as "always do the bathrooms first in case you run short"
- Products you supply, if you have preferences or sensitivities
- Areas to skip entirely, such as a home office you would rather nobody entered
- Bed changing, with linen left out
- A specific standard on something that matters, such as the shower screen being buffed dry
What is not reasonable is expecting the deep clean list within maintenance hours. If you want it all, buy more hours rather than adding to the list.
Products and equipment
Practice varies. Some companies bring everything, some use yours, some do a mix.
Bringing their own is usually better for consistency, since the cleaner knows how the products behave and there is never a shortage.
Using yours makes sense if anyone in the house has sensitivities, if you have particular surfaces such as natural stone that need pH-neutral products, or if you simply prefer certain brands.
Either way, agree it before the first visit. If you supply, make sure there is enough, and check before each visit. A visit where the cleaner runs out of floor cleaner halfway through is a wasted hour that you still pay for.
Tell them about anything that needs a specific product: natural stone worktops or floors, waxed or oiled wood, induction hobs, or any delicate finish. Getting this wrong causes permanent damage, and it is almost always a communication failure rather than a competence one.
How long it should take
| Property | Weekly | Fortnightly |
|---|---|---|
| 1 bed | 2 hours | 2.5 hours |
| 2 bed | 2.5 to 3 hours | 3 to 3.5 hours |
| 3 bed | 3 to 3.5 hours | 4 hours |
| 4 bed | 4 hours | 5 hours |
Add half an hour per extra bathroom.
If the hours look short against these figures, the visit will either overrun or something will be skipped. Agreeing realistic hours at the start is better than discovering the gap over three months.
Getting a good result
Tidy before, not after. Clear surfaces and floors. This is the single biggest determinant of how much actual cleaning happens.
Say what matters. If the bathroom is the thing you care about most, say so on day one. Priorities are easy to accommodate and impossible to guess.
Give feedback early and specifically. "The shower screen still has marks" is useful and fixable in a sentence. Saying nothing for four months and then cancelling helps nobody, and the fix was usually trivial.
Be consistent about access. A cleaner who cannot get in has still lost the slot, and most companies charge for it.
Do not hover. Most people work better without an audience, and it slows everything down.
Walk them round on day one, for five minutes. Priorities, anything fragile, anything off limits, where the bin bags and the hoover live, and how the heating works. Those five minutes save an hour across the first month.
Frequently asked questions
Will they do my washing up? Loading a dishwasher usually yes. Hand washing a sink full of pans usually no, unless agreed and paid for.
Will they change my bed? Usually yes, if you leave clean linen out on the bed. Most will not go into your linen cupboard uninvited.
Do they clean inside the microwave? Usually yes. Inside the oven, no.
Can I ask them to do the ironing? Only if agreed and paid for separately. It is a different service and it takes real time.
What if something gets broken? Report it and expect the company to report it to you. Established companies usually replace small items directly rather than claiming, since a claim affects their premium more than a £60 lamp costs. Check they carry public liability insurance before you start.
Should I tip? Not expected in the UK. Many households give something at Christmas, commonly the value of one clean.
Can I leave a list each week? Yes, if it fits the hours. A standing list of priorities works better than a new list of extras each visit.
