housekeepers rate of pay

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Sunshine

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I'm working on a business plan for the 'next' place and was wondering: for those of you who pay for housekeeping, what is the average rate? I'm mostly interested in the PNW and MidW areas.. (5/6 rooms).
And, with 5 rooms, how would you structure their schedule: Have two people and divide the rooms? To save $$ I'm thinking of having one person do half, and we do half? (I'm assuming it takes about an hour to clean each room-that's what it takes me. I currently don't have any housekeeping help).
Thanks!
 
Can't help with the wage part, wrong side of the country. But 2 housekeepers for 5-6 rooms? We had 1 for 7 rooms. We're not doing well on hanging on to them, tho!
We do the laundry. The housekeeper did the rooms. Other friends have the housekeeper do everything. Laundry, common rooms, guest rooms. 9 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms.
Most hotels expect one person to get thru 15 rooms in a shift. But none of them work FT.
 
hmmm I thought one was better, but a friend has two for her 5 rooms, she has a high Occ rate. i suppose she has the $$ to do that. She does no housekeeping... they do it all.
 
We have more than one housekeeper but generally not here at the same time, except in July when I have to do whole house turns and handle early check-ins for a theater festival. When I have two, they either split the tips and do the work together, or split the rooms and take the tips from the rooms they do. Tips are a crap shoot here, so either way works. It depends on how experienced the housekeeper is and/or if one of them has been working the rooms during the week for stayovers. They do all the housekeeping, including the common areas. We do breakfast, laundry and check-ins/check-outs. Usually I have one housekeeper (a university student) for weekends and one for weekdays (right now, a mom who wants to be home after school for her kids).
We pay $12 per hour, and work hours are between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. One room takes about 45 minutes - longer if particularly dirty and maybe shorter if a one-night minimal use. We are located in the mid-Atlantic area, so I don't know how that compares for you. We pay much better than the local hotels for housekeeping.
Just remember, more staff = more headaches. No one who does housekeeping work is independently wealthy, so there is always drama with transportation, kids, other jobs, etc.
 
hmmm I thought one was better, but a friend has two for her 5 rooms, she has a high Occ rate. i suppose she has the $$ to do that. She does no housekeeping... they do it all..
Are we talking huge rooms here? 700 sq ft or something? Fridges? Jacuzzis? All of those extras take more time. My rooms are small. DH & I are getting 7 of them done in 2 hours. We have showers, not tubs. But the laundry is going forever it seems!
But, like I said, I have friends whose housekeeper does close to 5000 sq ft of cleaning and the laundry. (That's too much everyday for one person, IMHO, but that's how they do it.)
 
hmmm I thought one was better, but a friend has two for her 5 rooms, she has a high Occ rate. i suppose she has the $$ to do that. She does no housekeeping... they do it all..
Are we talking huge rooms here? 700 sq ft or something? Fridges? Jacuzzis? All of those extras take more time. My rooms are small. DH & I are getting 7 of them done in 2 hours. We have showers, not tubs. But the laundry is going forever it seems!
But, like I said, I have friends whose housekeeper does close to 5000 sq ft of cleaning and the laundry. (That's too much everyday for one person, IMHO, but that's how they do it.)
.
Madeleine said:
Are we talking huge rooms here? 700 sq ft or something? Fridges? Jacuzzis? All of those extras take more time. My rooms are small. DH & I are getting 7 of them done in 2 hours. We have showers, not tubs. But the laundry is going forever it seems!
But, like I said, I have friends whose housekeeper does close to 5000 sq ft of cleaning and the laundry. (That's too much everyday for one person, IMHO, but that's how they do it.)
6 suites, one with 2 sets of bunk beds (family room), two are huge with Jacuzzis and one with a river rock shower! We're talking probably about 6,000. sq ft including common areas; not including kitchen, or breakfast area, laundry room, or conference/mtg space. There is a common area with 'apartment size' refrigerator, and microwave, coffee etc... included in that footage. I am planning on doing most of the housekeeping, esp at first until I get a handle on how things are flowing...
YES, I am really planning ahead!!! >mine's not sold yet...... But it will be!!
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hmmm I thought one was better, but a friend has two for her 5 rooms, she has a high Occ rate. i suppose she has the $$ to do that. She does no housekeeping... they do it all..
Occ rate for the friends I'm talking about is around 85% for 4-5 months. Then it drops off a bit.
I'd have 2 housekeepers overlap on the busy days and only 1 on the quieter days. So, they both work Fri-Sat-Sun and then one works Mon-Tue and the other works Wed-Thurs.
Having 2 all the time, if the rooms are small, means they're going to work 2 hours and be done. That's not enough hours to make it worth the drive to get there.
But, like muirford said, more employees = more drama.
 
hmmm I thought one was better, but a friend has two for her 5 rooms, she has a high Occ rate. i suppose she has the $$ to do that. She does no housekeeping... they do it all..
Are we talking huge rooms here? 700 sq ft or something? Fridges? Jacuzzis? All of those extras take more time. My rooms are small. DH & I are getting 7 of them done in 2 hours. We have showers, not tubs. But the laundry is going forever it seems!
But, like I said, I have friends whose housekeeper does close to 5000 sq ft of cleaning and the laundry. (That's too much everyday for one person, IMHO, but that's how they do it.)
.
Madeleine said:
Are we talking huge rooms here? 700 sq ft or something? Fridges? Jacuzzis? All of those extras take more time. My rooms are small. DH & I are getting 7 of them done in 2 hours. We have showers, not tubs. But the laundry is going forever it seems!
But, like I said, I have friends whose housekeeper does close to 5000 sq ft of cleaning and the laundry. (That's too much everyday for one person, IMHO, but that's how they do it.)
6 suites, one with 2 sets of bunk beds (family room), two are huge with Jacuzzis and one with a river rock shower! We're talking probably about 6,000. sq ft including common areas; not including kitchen, or breakfast area, laundry room, or conference/mtg space. There is a common area with 'apartment size' refrigerator, and microwave, coffee etc... included in that footage. I am planning on doing most of the housekeeping, esp at first until I get a handle on how things are flowing...
YES, I am really planning ahead!!! >mine's not sold yet...... But it will be!!
thumbs_up.gif
tounge_smile.gif

.
OK, you should have 2 people. That is way too much space for 1 housekeeper or even for you to do as a team. Once you get into suites and large fridges and soaking tubs you need extra hands.
 
hmmm I thought one was better, but a friend has two for her 5 rooms, she has a high Occ rate. i suppose she has the $$ to do that. She does no housekeeping... they do it all..
Are we talking huge rooms here? 700 sq ft or something? Fridges? Jacuzzis? All of those extras take more time. My rooms are small. DH & I are getting 7 of them done in 2 hours. We have showers, not tubs. But the laundry is going forever it seems!
But, like I said, I have friends whose housekeeper does close to 5000 sq ft of cleaning and the laundry. (That's too much everyday for one person, IMHO, but that's how they do it.)
.
Madeleine said:
Are we talking huge rooms here? 700 sq ft or something? Fridges? Jacuzzis? All of those extras take more time. My rooms are small. DH & I are getting 7 of them done in 2 hours. We have showers, not tubs. But the laundry is going forever it seems!
But, like I said, I have friends whose housekeeper does close to 5000 sq ft of cleaning and the laundry. (That's too much everyday for one person, IMHO, but that's how they do it.)
6 suites, one with 2 sets of bunk beds (family room), two are huge with Jacuzzis and one with a river rock shower! We're talking probably about 6,000. sq ft including common areas; not including kitchen, or breakfast area, laundry room, or conference/mtg space. There is a common area with 'apartment size' refrigerator, and microwave, coffee etc... included in that footage. I am planning on doing most of the housekeeping, esp at first until I get a handle on how things are flowing...
YES, I am really planning ahead!!! >mine's not sold yet...... But it will be!!
thumbs_up.gif
tounge_smile.gif

.
OK, you should have 2 people. That is way too much space for 1 housekeeper or even for you to do as a team. Once you get into suites and large fridges and soaking tubs you need extra hands.
.
Madeleine said:
OK, you should have 2 people. That is way too much space for 1 housekeeper or even for you to do as a team. Once you get into suites and large fridges and soaking tubs you need extra hands.
thumbs_up.gif
Thank you for helping me figure this out.
Like I said, we have just 3 rms (3500 sqft), and I do it all myself now. LOL! When we buy this other place I will just do the B&B, write, garden, and organize events! All things I am currently doing and love doing it, but I will quit the extremely stressful part-time job that I currently have.
 
We are in the Pac NW and have 4 rooms, but only 1 of our rooms is the size of of a typical b&b room (approx 350 sq ft.). Two suites, one of them is 700 sq ft and then a separate cottage (800 sq ft with full kitchen). Our smaller room has a regular sized whirlpool tub and the rest have the large double whirlpool tubs.
It takes myself and DH really hustling to turn all 4 rooms over in about 3.5 hours. That's not including laundry. We have a housekeeper on call, but we don't call very often because we're a bit dense and would rather save the money (I know, I know...). Housekeepers in hotels and motels get minimum wage. We start at $10, then when they prove themselves, we'll gradually up it $1.00 each time. We've gone up to $14 an hour., but that's for someone who has also been trained as an assist. innkeeper and can do reservations, check-in/check-out, etc.
If you can afford to hire 2 housekeepers and not have to do the grunt work yourself, then go for it! You won't burn out as quickly. It sounds like with the new property, it will take 2 to do the work. It all depends on the occupancy rate and what the percentage of full house turns there are.
 
We have nine cottages/houses, ranging from a ~400 sqft studio with kitchen and bathroom to a 1800 sqft 5-bedroom house with several bathrooms. We figure it takes about 30 minutes per bedroom (typically two beds), 30 minutes per living room (typically also with beds), and up to 45 minutes per kitchen and per bathroom, so our typical one-bedroom cottages take about 2.5 hours to clean. Note we're talking about after a week of occupancy. Oh, and there is a deck or porch that needs to be tended to, and we need to make sure the picture windows are clean as well. All laundry is sent out to a service. We try to pack bins with linens, towels, and other supplies for each cottage ahead of time.
We have three cleaners working for us on Saturdays (our usual change-over day), and we pitch in as needed (if, say, 8 of the 9 cottages are changing over in a day, we need at least 4 cleaners to get it all done in the time we have between check-out and check-in). Even if we're not cleaning, we're fixing dripping faucets, repairing broken appliances, or putting out other fires on change-over days! One of our cleaners works for us during the week doing landscaping and maintenance work, and any mid-week change-overs we might have; another of our cleaners is available on-call for mid-week change-overs as well. We pay $15/hour (for cleaning) once they're trained and able to clean a cottage on their own, and we guarantee a minimum number of hours per week, and offer a bonus if they've been dependable and make it through the whole season.
 
we have 1 housekeeper for 11 rooms she usually starts 9.30 and is done by 3pm at the latest works 7 days but only a half day on Sundays. DH and I bag up all the laundry and do all the common areas
 
We are in the Midwest and have 7 rooms, plus our common areas. We pay our high school workers $8 per hour, and college students start at $10 per hour. They can turn all the rooms in about 3 hours. They also do the laundry, although I sometimes keep it moving or finish it so it doesn't sit overnight. If there are only a few tidies to do, they get deep-cleaning projects, pull weeds, sweep porches, whatever I can come up with.
I clean up from breakfast as it is my preference to keep the kitchen "mine".
During the school year we are less busy, so they may only work for 1-1.5 hours each day. I try to keep two on the schedule all the time, that way if one can't make it for some reason we still have help. Costs money but saves my sanity.
 
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