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I wouldn’t give anyone explicit instructions. I’d just be like, “you do such a great job for me. Thank you so much. I’m sure you haven’t noticed this but sometimes after a cleaning there are hairs left in ___.” Would you be willing to do a double check for me before you go? That would help me a lot."
I always preface everything with a sincere compliment. Then I get to the point. Then I ask “would you be willing to”
Or there’s always, “have you noticed these little hairs?” I don’t know, something like that.
But she cleans places so she knows what she’s doing, probably just hasn’t noticed it.
@happylittlehost You are right. I consider my cleaning lady to be part of the team. I meet with her once per week (she cleans our home too). We always take some time to talk about how we can improve things. And, she gives me good suggestions too. I always talk about “us”, letting her know that we are in this business together.
Up to now, I had 5-stars across the board (73 reviews), including cleanliness. On several occasions I gave her my sincere credit for that. She was visibly proud:) She deserved it.
That’s why I don’t want jump into ‘blaming mode’ but look for simple solutions how we can help each other and keep getting raving reviews.
That said, a week ago I had a guest letting me know privately that there were stray hairs in the bathroom (and some other stuff that I didn’t like). It wasn’t the first time. On some occasions I managed to fix this just before next guests arrived. But I can not always do that. I addressed this issue on some occasions before and my cleaner claimed she always double-checks. Admittedly, she is 62 years old so maybe that’s the reason.
So, I’m looking for ways how to help her making sure that there really aren’t any stray hairs left whatsoever. Reading the responses to my question here, I already got a few ideas how we can improve the process and I already talked to her today about it.
So, thank you all fellow hosts for your advice and experience shared in this forum. This forum is so valuable and my go-to resource when I don’t know what to do:)
P.S. I just got my new UV flashlight from Amazon today and i’m going to try it out. If it works, I’m going to give it to my cleaning lady.
I’m a healthy 59 year old and our faculties do decline with age. If she needs glasses or doesn’t clean with lots of light coming in or turned on she might be missing something. I have a number of things I use to clean: lint rollers, magic eraser sponge, microfiber cloth, handheld vac, a UV light and a headlight that shines onto surfaces as I clean. I look silly but it’s surprisingly effective.
@KKC I’m disappointed with my UV flash light that I just got from Amazon. My eye is much better at spotting hairs. The flashlight does discover and highlights the fluids, but it doesn’t help at spotting hairs. I need something that will illuminate the hairs like a Christmas tree;))
@jaquo I agree. Still, it’s hard to find a decent cleaner these days. So I’m eager to help my cleaner get better. I could also fire her but that wouldn’t necessarily help. I’ll find a way to make her spot even the tiniest hair (as I do). After all, it’s not rocket science;)
As a young woman I always wondered why dishes or cleaning done by middle-aged women very often seemed to miss spots, even women who seemed to care about cleanliness.
So when I house shared for several months with a friend a few years back and noticed the same thing even after said friend had cleaned the reason finally hit me - she wore glasses for all closer up work - reading, working on the computer .
Yep, but NOT for CLEANING! So of course, the little remaining dirty bits, hairs… were missed.
And I also noticed the same thing with another friend - reading glasses for everything but cleaning… thus some details like tiny hairs get blurred out of sight…
And the bit of toilet paper does magic for quick hair removal off the floor, esp. if it’s dampened first.
Technical answer: “Astigmatism is a common and usually minor eye condition that causes blurred or distorted vision. It occurs when the cornea or lens isn’t a perfectly curved shape. … It’s more common than irregular astigmatism and can be corrected with glasses or contact lenses.”
Real life: Last night during the football game, this lady wanted to show me a small picture on her phone of her ‘new baby’, and I as I looked at it, a nearly total blur, it struck me the ‘child’ had too big of a nose. I said “How cute”. A bit later in the conversation, she mentioned her new darling foal, it is then I realized the ‘newborn’ she had shown me was a horse.
