Do You Tip the Cleaning Lady?

I tip her at the holidays but not every time they are at my house. That would get expensive. I have given an extra tip when they went out of their way to change their schedule to accomodate mine.

I have a cleaning lady whose name I got from a friend who has also been using her for a while. Since she is not part of a service and the entire amount goes to her, I do not tip her (except for Christmas). If you use a service, I think they get paid hourly and that's why you would typically tip them. At first I was there for a few minutes when she got there, then I left the door unlocked for her (I leave at 7:45am, she gets there at 8am) but after a while I just gave her a key. Again, she's been cleaning for my friend for a few years, if it was someone I found in an ad, I probably would not be as comfortable giving my house key to.

I tipped at Christmas and Easter. I had a team of 4 people come in for 1 hour every other week. I knew the ladies and they would bring treats for us. I don't know if it's because my hubby is polish or what. They had a great time with Luke when he was little. So I knew the people quite well. I wasn't the first person of the day, so they were a little late sometimes and that was ok. We left or hung out in the basement (they didn't clean that) when they were around, but it was only 1 hour. (We had some budget cuts, so now I am the cleaning lady).

I would request to have the same person(people) every time so you can get used to them and they know what you want. Way back when I went with a service, they always sent out different people and that didn't work well.

All the cleaning people I have had over the years do not pick up stuff, they just cleaned around it. So by having someone else clean, you will be forcing yourself to pick up before they come which is a good thing!

Good luck and enjoy it!

M.

Here is a response to a request that was posted just a few weeks ago, asking basically the same thing. Hope it helps!

I think it all depends on who you are working with.

If you are using a cleaning service/company for a one-time cleaning, you may wish to consider tipping if they do a great job. Usually with a cleaning service, the people who come to clean definitely do not receive what you are paying for the service. In other words, if you're paying $200 to have a one-time job the cleaners aren't necessarily splitting the fee; the company gets the fee and pays the cleaners either hourly or by job, but definitely not the $200 or their share.

If you are using a 'cleaning lady' who is not associated with a company, depending on how much they are charging, a tip may or may not be necessary. My assumption is based upon the fact that they get to pocket all of the money for the cleaning themselves, without "upper management" or "the house" taking their cut.

I hope this makes sense.

And, in no way am I trying to say that the cleaning service gets a tip because they are 'better' than the cleaning lady. I'm just looking at it from a "how much are you really getting paid to do this" standpoint, and making my decision based on that.

I want to echo the response below-- if you use a service it'd be nice to tip the people every time, because they are not seeing most of your money. If it's an individual then you can just tip at the holidays.