I have a housekeeper

[Backtothey2k]

Didn’t have time to do this before , but as I have some time thought I would do a AMA about my housekeeper.

I’d love a housekeeper, especially when my kids were younger and I had four pets! But I would feel odd having someone in the house all the time, like I couldn’t relax and be me. Do you feel that way? Are you in the house when she is? A lack of privacy? And I guess she must have a spending allowance if she’s replacing things? It sounds like you have developed a good partnership.

If you were reincarnated as a garden gnome, would you rather be a traditional one or one of those modern minimalist ones?

Sorry. Of course that's true. I did sound rude there!

It could be of interest to someone else.

It’s equivalent of £53k FT salary. That is huge for a housekeeper and far outside the normal range, even in London.

I mean, I’m not knocking you, well done her. I’m just surprised.

My question is semantic and I hope you don't think I'm splitting hairs.

What makes a housekeeper different to a cleaner with additional duties (maybe some childcare, laundry and ironing etc.?)

Is it the range of duties you require/particular duties? Or is it that a housekeeper is a salaried employee that makes the difference? Was it a conscious marketing decision you took when recruiting to ensure you got the right candidates?

I know lots of people with cleaners, some of whom take on a range of additional duties, but I must admit housekeeper makes me think of a more Upstairs/Downstairs type arrangement!

you’re spot on You could absolutely use that analogy with loads of jobs if you just keep adding extra tasks to a role.
Think about an Office Admin if you start asking them to manage the building maintenance, handle budgets, and plan events . they’re an Office Manager not just an admin with extra bits.
In the home it really comes down to how much they manage on their own. A cleaner usually ticks off a specific checklist of deep cleaning. A housekeeper is more about managing the daily running of the house ( which I think I have already mentioned in more detail)
So yeah, calling her a housekeeper is just a realistic way to find the right person. It lets people know you need someone to actually run the day to day stuff and use their own initiative, even if the title does sound a bit fancy.
I mean, I call her by her name lol so the job title is irrelevant . But that's what she was advertised as and that's why I hired her as.

I’d have a housekeeper if I could afford one.
My cleaner has been with us for 12 years. It’s the best money I spend all week. We both work. 🤷🏻‍♀️

We have had a housekeeper for the first time in the last few months and it’s been life changing. In our case it was the response to two adults working long hours and feeling so utterly burnt out that something had to change. Luckily the success of each of our careers (due to both hard work and luck) has made it possible but it’s something we never thought achievable and is certainly a new concept to us. We feel incredibly grateful to be in this position but also slightly embarrassed that we’re able to be. None of our friends has a clue that we have a housekeeper (we refer to a weekly cleaner) for fear of judgment and I think many of the responses here highlight that we have been right to have that concern. It’s fascinating, because when people on other threads say that their mental or physical health is suffering etc, posters fortunately do suggest ways of helping and one of those is to delegate tasks where possible. This poster has done exactly that and yet has been accused of being lazy and lacking in humility…

I can’t really work out what she does which an au pair wouldn’t do for waaaaaay less money. Unless this house is an absolute mansion.

i wouldn’t trust a young inexperienced au pair who has never run a household herself to be autonomous in most of these tasks (and nor should they be). A housekeeper anticipates needs and gets ahead of them - it’s like a household assistance version of an executive assistant.

I don’t see any difficult tasks. Anticipate the need for a new pillow? You pay someone 33k for that?

Have you ever had an au pair? I’ve had many and they definitely can’t do a housekeeper role. They’ve never kept a house, have no idea how any appliances work, they can barely make their own beds!

In my experience, au pairs also lack initiative, mainly because they are so young. My housekeeper will notice that one of the bulbs in a light fitting has gone and replace it. Or that teen DD’s drawers and wardrobe have gotten out of control and so will take everything out, refold, rehang and reorganise everything. Will fillet teen DS’s sock drawer of all the socks with holes in and leave me a note to order x more pairs. In 10 years of having au pairs, I never had one that did any of that.

But thanks to Brexit, you can’t get them now anyway!

Er, no because that’s really boring. Of course I wouldn’t usually ask something so personal in real life but you entitled your thread ‘AMA’ so you know, I thought we could ask anything.

My bad.

Just tell your teens to change the light bulb and sort their socks drawer and yes au pairs can sort a sock drawer 🤣Honestly I am not knocking it, but if you actually read what you are writing it’s quite funny. “The initiative to notice I must order more socks “ 😆I am glad there are people who can earn money from people like this. I celebrate that.

I always wonder who does the housekeepers’ housekeeping? Or do they just live in chaos?

My cutlery has never vanished. Maybe you should check her pockets!

Yes, I could check the lightbulbs, and nag my kids to change them or change them myself. I could also check the kids drawers and wardrobes and nag them to sort them out or do it myself. There are absolutely loads of things in the house that I could either nag my kids to do or do myself. The point is that I don’t have the time nor the energy to do all the mundane shit. And I’m fortunate that one of their reasons I don’t have time is due to my well paying job. So I pay someone else to do all the thinking and checking and doing for me. And it’s the thinking part that I value the most.

Amen to that! Excellently put. Women have just too many tasks to do.

Are you insanely rich? Because coming from a working class background (as you said you both did), I can’t imagine that you’d allocate 33k to something that, let’s face it, isn’t a need. What do the kids think? Is it like in films where she’s like a 3rd parent during the week?

If someone is paying 33k for someone to sort a sock drawer and change a lightbulb, then that’s clearly not just having a well paying job, but being insanely rich.

Personally, I have a well paying job (not insanely rich league) and I am also “veeeery busy”, however, I prefer to raise teenagers who understand they need to take care of their own “mundane shit” as you call it. I also can’t imagine my teens wanting a housekeeper or anyone rummaging around their sock drawers.
I also wouldn’t want to have teenagers who can’t prepare their own packed lunches and find their own uniforms. Mine have managed that from primary school.

Are you not concerned that your teenagers aren't developing the initiative to do this sort of thing themselves though? What happens when they move out/go to uni?

Your cutlery "seems to vanish"? What?
I've never heard of that before. We've had the same cutlery for nearly 40 years, some of it was my parents' so even older.
Is it silver? I'd check the Housekeeper's pockets when she leaves. That's a weird one.

@Backtothey2k If I had the money, I would pay for the help. Good on you for giving somebody a well paid job where they are valued.
I get that we are all different, but my god people on this thread are offended by how you spend your money and time!
Working full time and keeping the house running is too much for me. I’m not superwoman. I also hate doing housework. I appreciate that some people enjoy it and take pride in it but I grinds me down. It grinds me down having to constantly ask others in the house to step up and help. Well done to all of you on here who are so on it that you find these things easy and congratulations for raising perfect kids who merrily skip about doing housework.
Op my question is, where do you go every weekend?

£33k plus the sale of the cutlery.
However, she anticipates pillow needs, so must be worth it. 😉

Do you organise her tasks?
Do the children request her tasks also?
Does your husband set her tasks hoo?

Who is her employer?