Okay, so as previously stated almost everywhere, H has chickenpox. This has effectively put our lives on hold while we look after her – she’s in good spirits though has got cranky, so we’ve been able to do little bits here and there, but generally we’re in the front room giving plenty of cuddles and watching endless episodes of Peppa Pig. Cleaning the house has taken a back seat, I’m afraid.

So when I received an approach in my inbox to try out Cleaning Gift Vouchers it really couldn’t have come at a better time.  Basically, you can buy cleaning gift vouchers (or indeed anyone else can for you) – and with that voucher select the service you require.

We chose a one-off three-hour clean of our house; this is just a general clean – dusting and hoovering, which for three hours comes in at £39 – so £13 an hour.

I cashed in our voucher yesterday and waited… but nothing arrived straight away… so I waited, then wondered if I’d missed the small print, and maybe we’d get the voucher the following day. As luck would have it, that’s exactly what happened – and within ten minutes of the voucher arriving in my inbox (which is the quickest method), I had a phone call to arrange my booking. So with it booked for today all we had to do was make sure things were accessible (surfaces, carpets) for our cleaner to work her magic.

She arrived around 2.30 and set to work straight away. I’ve never had a cleaner before, so told her what we would like doing – and she was straight on the case. It was all done in just under the three-hour mark and we’re really happy with the results – under the bread maker and microwave were clean, even the front of the oven and washing machine were cleaned – basically, it’s exactly the kind of service you’d expect from someone cleaning your house.

I think it’s a brilliant idea being able to gift someone a clean (they also do deep cleans of ovens, end of rental cleaning and many other options – we don’t have any family locally, and when I hurt my back badly last year we had almost two months without a proper clean here. Had I known about this service (if it had existed then!) we’d have definitely used it. Also, supposing you’re a new mum, again no family near – but they wanted to help. You can be sent a gift voucher to then use to have a one-off clean – and I think that’s great!

At the moment the service covers Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire – they work with several local firms in this area, so are able to arrange for a clean at short notice too (we booked for the following day). I’m impressed, and would definitely use them again in the future.

We received a credit to purchase a service of our choice – all opinions are our own.