Sacked the AP, atmosphere in house.

Good luck. Hope she's lovely.

LUKYMUM we generally find that the older girls who speak good English only want to come for six months - often as part of a semester out from college. Being 22+ is essential for us owing to the cost of insuring them to drive.

Hopefully, I've found a lovely Spanish girl who wants to come from 1 June until Christmas.

overtiredandconfused Why such short contracts?

BoffinMum I forgot to thank you for the link to your book. Also, I need to tell you that i have copied your list of things that are/n't important into an email to dh to keep for posterity until we interview our next AP in Oct/Nov. And bloody sensible it is, too.

I need to know: has the hamster turned up? And how are you getting on in your hunt for the next AP?

Hi everyone wanted to thank you for all your suggestions and give you an update. I have now had enough replies to have sorted out about 6 hopefuls. Had first skype interview today and I think she is "the one". I even went to get one of our beloved guinea pigs to show her during the interview and she genuinely seemed to think they were lovely.

OP, I've only just caught up on this thread and wanted to say thank you! I'm going through AP nightmares atm - sacked one at Easter after she wrote off the car (!) and now can't recruit for love nor money.

We've also had lots of APs - about nine I think - on six month contracts. Mainly good news but some horror stories too.

This thread has helped me see the bigger picture again as well as making me smile.

And boffy glad spiffing nanny is working out :)

I still think your children should be capable of feeding a gp

Do you do it now?

Make them

It's a responsibly and one that teenagers can do easily

Bet if you banned phones internet tv time they would manage it

Clarey - maybe it's the pig bit in guinea pig that's putting people off. We put feeding the hamster occasionally in our ad and no-one queried it. You may have lots of potential applicants imagining they will have to feed an actual pig!

I'd consider just putting small pet feeding in the ad and then translating Guinea pig when you contact people.

When I was an AP in Switzerland, I made friends with a lovely Aussie girl. She arrived from Australia only to find that the "converted garage accommodation" she had been promised wasn't converted at all. It was drafty, and had a bare concrete floor, and a bed in the corner! She also had to share it with family German Shepherd dog!

She packed her bags and left in the middle of the night three days after she arrived.

I took a nanny job having only had one conversation on the phone. I moved 300 miles to live with them. Kids were 2 boys ages about 2-4 and names I couldn't pronounce. They asked me to sit down and when I did the seat fell through and they all laughed. Around midnight the mother went out having had some visitors. I wasn't spoken too all night. There were beds everywhere. "My" room was tiny, literally a single bed with a tv balancing on the end of it and iirc some drawers. I decided I couldn't stay. I sneaked one bag out and when I went back for the other the man asked me what I was doing. It was about half past midnight and I said I was going to look around the area. I got my other bag and did a runner. Bit of a drama to get home which led to more unplanned life choices and I never went home again after that. Makes me a bit emotional actually.

Thankfully I have had some great jobs since. One family was so great I stayed for four years and only left as they moved away. The dad gave me away and his son was my page boy. My next family was great too.

I quite miss nannying.

Anchorage lol!

As for clarey I'd just leave the teens with an emergency number. Admittedly my DS is only 2, but conversely I'm barely past that age myself (and have DBs younger than me). It would certainly be fine by NSPCC guidelines to leave the 19 or even 16 yo in charge.

Thanks everyone your advice is really helping me put other things in place so will be attractive to an au pair. 19 yr old son is not around very often so he would be in the house sometimes but not require any help. He comes and goes and just eats lots of food and does his laundry then off again to uni.

Think I will maybe say 24+ so a bit older than 19 yr old son so not too awkward when he is here.
I think paying extra for an overnight is a good idea. It is not often.
about becoming engaged to the au pair.

love that story!

at Anchorage's au pair. Did his English get better?

Car dealer confessed he suspected it was a massive cock-up but had been about to put in a request to DVLA for ownership details in the hope that he had indeed come across a bat-shit bonkers owner happy to give away his car for free...

Anchorage pmsl @ car story- was funny - though tbh why did the garage then drive off with the car, esp without payment, or did they pay the ap thousands?

Clarey - majority of au pairs are 18/19/20 years ie same age as your son. So could end up engaged to your son tbh :)

A 28-30 year old who wants to stay working with children usually started as au pair at 18, and at 30 years has over 10 years childcare experience so likely to be getting paid highly as an experienced nanny

I can't imagine anyone wanting to babysit a 19 year old

Clarey: you are asking for a lot of things that would normally be a minor compromise on a normal ap job, that's not to say that nobody will do it, but you'll really have to work hard to find them. I really don't think that your teens need as much babysitting s you think they do at that age, they are old enough to cook, care for the pets and so on. A helping hand in the house maybe and somebody to keep the peace, but not a full on childcarer.

Most ap would be back on Sunday night for a Monday morning start, if the overnight isn't often then maybe you could ask them to do it occasionally and pay them extra for it? Your 19yo should be able to hold down the fort occasionally too.

By limiting your age gap for the ap you are shooting yourself in the foot as that is a very limited gap.

Finding a 27-30yo AP is pretty rare though. Some APs will do overnights but they're fairly rare too, although your DC are teens. It's bit that it's an unworkable situation but you really will need to find the right person. PhD student?

swlondonnanny I would want to know they are in the house on Sunday night as would worry they would not be back by 7 am on Monday morning. Both me and DH have to be careful as we have had childcare fall through on several occasions and we both had big problems with work. We may also need overnight care some Sundays. I was hoping an au pair aged about 27-30 could do it otherwise will have to get an overnight babysitter for those nights. We have just laid our cards on the table as we really need to be careful with childcare now. Friends have suggested my sensible 19 year old could babysit them overnight but I am not happy about that.

A friend of mine is a nurse and her au pair does overnights when she is on nights so did not think it would be a problem.....

Postscript, by the way. We call up number on card and very nice car dealer returned it and told us the whole story.