Cleaner has cost me £1600

Oooh, I don't know... lets say I am hoovering my clients home and I accidentally twat the side table and the priceless Ming vase falls off and smashes into a thousand tiny bits..

Do I want my clients home insurer to come after me for that bill, which they will because I am a professional and should have insurance... or do I want them to go after my insurance company.

Let me think...

Working in other peoples homes, have insurance! Particularly if you're a sole trader which most cleaners will be. Only an absolute fucking moron works without indemnity and public liability insurance, at the very least.

Stop being such a hypocrite. If you want to argue that we have to live "in the grown up world" then you need to make "grown up" points. 30 minutes? 100% manipulated? GROW UP.

You were 100% manipulated. Having to wait 30 minutes to be released from a porch would not have caused an epileptic seizure. We have to start living in the grown up world at some point and learn how to self-calm if stress is a trigger.

People are responsible for managing their own health conditions.

If you don't give me £184 right now i will have an epileptic seizure because not being able to afford a geniune Kiki Kannibal necklace is stressful...you're gonna do it, right? You're not...abliest...are you?

Having epilepsy and stress being literally a trigger isn't Snowflake behaviour omg

It’s snowflake behaviour to have a condition that has triggers? Aren’t you considerate and nice, do hope you’re not an employer too. As someone with a child with epilepsy and friends with epilepsy, believe me some people have triggers. Maybe head to one of the epilepsy charity and have a read!!

She lied to you about insurance and didn’t follow your simple instructions. Nor has she offered you anything to try and make up for her mistake. For that amount of money, and if you can prove you told her what she was supposed to do, I’d be looking into small claims court.

This. It’s your problem. 🤷‍♀️

It's snowflake behaviour. Everyone experiences stress. This is so stupid you can't just bend everyone to your will because if they don't obey it will 'cause you stress' that's not how being an adult in the world works.

Because if in doing your job you damage someone else's property, either accidentally or through your own incompetence, the onus is on you to make good the damage caused.

why does she need to have insurance? surely the onus is on you to have insurance?? i don't see how any insurance she might have can cover your house's door? sorry to say, but I would have blocked you too. on top of the hassle caused to her amid her medical condition, she shouldn't also feel stress to worry about costs.

Ok for a start I would most definetely get a second opinion on the doors.

Secondly, unless you absolutely communicated the situation with the cleaner - regarding possibly locking in - I think you are at fault. It is not normal to be able to lock yourself in like that. Even if she didn’t follow what she was meant to, it’s your house and is effectively her place of work. Did you explicitly inform her of the situation ? You should have provided that information to her and she should have taken account of it in her risk assessment, things could have been a lot worse, if you were away for a week and he had no means of phoning. I’d count yourself lucky.

i would also get a second / third carpenter round and see what they can do about the doors - that sounds crazy expensive for a door - internal solid doors start at 110 - 300 - as others have mentioned can you look at insurance.

Stress can bring on seizures, how is that manipulative? It is a known trigger as is lack of sleep, even temperature for some people.

The door set up is really poor. Many people experience claustrophobia.
Some of the language about this cleaner is awful.

She sounds like a huge drama queen and attention seeker. 'Stressful situations increase my risk of seizure' oh god this is so blatantly manipulative and this is 100% not what causes seizures.

I would just accept the loss and clean your own house from now on.

Basically she couldn't follow your instructions. Bit ridiculous she was so stressed being locked in a porch too.

Honestly, even if she did have insurance (which she should have done!) I don’t think this would be a claim on her insurance but a claim on yours. I don’t think this would be a fault on her part and if she had had a medical emergency, I think she could have had grounds to sue too, as she was stuck in your house.

Just something to keep in mind if you are going with another cleaner. You’re within your rights to ask to see their insurance certificate etc, and make sure you have a clear plan for them entering/exiting the property that eliminates the chance of them getting locked in.

I don't think that the cleaner insurance would pay for this. She hasn't damaged anything, the neighbours did, and you gave them permission to do so

She sounds a bit thick! And it was wrong of her to let you think she was insured.
i do think that this is her fault however others are right you won’t get a penny from her. Agree to try home insurance.

Next time you’re away, don’t have a cleaner round.

"She" is a human being, not a mistake. Mistakes were made by both the OP and the cleaner. Neither of these people are "mistakes".

She doesn't sound the brightest ...

Sorry OP, what an expensive mistake she has been

Haven’t read all the responses.
I have cleaned for 12 years.
If I had been doing this clean, there is no way I would have locked myself in the porch without checking I have the correct keys to I let myself out. So I think there’s a large amount of responsibility on the cleaner here.

she pressured you to get someone in so I don’t think you had a choice but to have someone break in.

I would question the link between epilepsy and cancelling her insurance. Was she refused the insurance due to lone working? Should she be working alone if she is epileptic? She drove to your house though?

A good Public liability insurance doesn’t just cover breakages within the home. It covers locks and keys.

I’m usually in the side of the cleaner but this kind of thing gives us a bad name. I’d be miffed if I thought I’d hired someone reputable who told me they were insured but then quietly cancelled it.
i doubt you can get anything back but I would get some advice re a small claim against her. Do you have anything - an email/quote/ screenshot of her FB/website where she claims she is insured?

Sounds like people panicked !
😱
That is not a good set up where someone could find themselves stuck in the porch area !
We used to live in an older property where the inner door locked when you pulled it to unless you sorted the snib so door didn’t lock .
So we changed the front door as soon as possible to a new one with a different lock , it wasn’t possible to find yourself locked in the porch although you could potentially lock yourself out of the main house .
Annoying but not unsafe .

I have epilepsy, I know that stress can be a trigger for seizures.

If stress would trigger a seizure in her then that also means that her epilepsy isn't controlled by medication, and she could have a seizure during any type of stressful event, epilepsy can be triggered by stress, tiredness and excitement, fear.. it is pretty unpredictable that way to be honest, if it's not controlled by medication then it's not controlled end of, you can try and mitigate the risk factors, but you can't choose when a seizure will happen.

If her medication isn't controlling her epilepsy and her epilepsy leads to any sort of loss of consciousness she should not be driving, she is gambling with peoples lives.