Ok, so I know this was stupid, but oh-wise-mners, help us get out of this one!Please?

[Butterflyface]

A few months ago, Dh and I were in a pretty bad place - although he'd arranged to work at home for some of the week, with 4dc's and me unable to do almost everything, the house was falling down around us. Mount Nevervest (the undone washing) pretty much covered the entirety of our bedroom. So, a friend, who was currently out of work, offered to come round and help out. Of course we said we'd have to give them something for helping out on a regular basis, so we offered the absolute maximum we could afford, which wasn't much, but does cover MW.
It has helped us a lot, but basically he comes on the days DH isn't here, does the washing up, tidies the front room, puts on a load of washing, and hovvers and sweeps the front room floor. In 3 hours.
Now Dh hasn't been here this week, so I've been doing the cooking, which as I'm pretty incapable, has meant more convenience meals and a lot less washing up. So there's been no washing up, and a lot less mess in general.
We've long known he's really taking the piss a bit, saying he's hoovered the stairs when he blatently hasn't. Today, he said he'd done the bathroom, but when I went to the loo after he'd gone, the mirror hadn't been cleaned, the bottom of the pedestal hadn't been touched, and I'm now quite cross.
But, because he's a friend, I just feel I can't say anything, and if I did, there's no way it wouldn't come out in a bad way.
DH has said we'll just have to leave it until Adult SS direct payments start, whereupon we can end it because he's claiming ESA and doesn't want to claim he's earning another £40/week. But I'm just sick of hearing his 'oh woe is me, I'm so strapped for cash', and feeling like we'd be the biggest bastards in the world to tell him to fuck off, but I can't think of a nice way to end this. Please help me - I'm pretty much at the end of my emotional tether with everything going on anyway, I really need some good, (gentle!) advice on this one!

Thank him profusely and say you have run out of money, and are not prepared to ask him to clean for you for nothing.

Thank you very much for your help Friend. You helped us into a much better situation. We will always be grateful for your help however it's not necessary any more. Next week will be the last week. Again, thank you.

What 3littlefrogs said.

£40 for three hours?

That is a rip off. I pay my cleanre 21 for 2 1/2 hours work.

Agree, what Littlefrogs said.

You're paying him too much. If you're struggling to cook why don't you get him to cook some food for you en batch and freeze it? Then all you need to do is reheat it. Utilise his time to make your life easier. If not, there's really no point. Just tell him that he isn't needed.

No, it's £20 for 3 hours, twice a week.
If I ask him to cook, he'll do it his way, and quite frankly, it's shit. I've tried saying there's a list of stuff I wanted to get done that day (he ignored it) so I generally use the time to sleep with DS while the other DS is at nursery. Don't get me wrong, it's been invaluable to have someone else here on the days where DH isn't, but I just think he does a quarter of what I used to do when I was fit and able. I don't want to say 'it's because he's a man', but it's just weird - he'll use 3 times the amount of washing liquid/fabric conditioner that we would, but spend an hour hoovering one room it seems. The problem is that I don't feel I can sit in the same room without chatting (which of course distracts him from doing stuff,) so I sit in another room, whereupon I have no idea what he's actually doing, iyswim.

And it's been better than having a cleaner, because he'll do stuff like pick up prescriptions, pick up DS from nursery when necessary, put a washing load on. I'm pretty sure a cleaner wouldn't do most of that, and a home help wouldn't clean, so I'm not quite sure what we'll do when we switch to direct payments.

Hmm. You need to get rid of him. I don't think hiring friends works out, this is why. You need a mother's help.

(So £40 a week, just to clarify)

Do you have space for an au pair?

yeah, it's been a bit weird having him handle my massive apple catchers, tbh!

Not really, Sybil, and not sure we could afford one either!

As we're getting Direct Payments soon, I'm guessing that'll cover a Personal Assistant, but I'm still not sure what you can and can't ask them to do. Anyone know?

'I'm really sorry, I can't go into details but we've had a bit of a financial emergency which means we're going to be really really strapped for cash for the next three months at least. We're going to have to call it a day with the cleaning - will let you know when/if things improve!'

Ah. I don't know what Personal Assistants are allowed to do, I'm assuming it's anything you need them to do.

BUT can you manage without him op,while you look for someone else?

That's the thing, Slarty, I'm not sure. Technically, we should be ok, it's two days in the week that aren't together, so I only have to cope with that day. I think we could if we have to, but I desperately don't want things to slip back again. I can push myself to get through those days, but then I suffer for 2 or three days afterwards, so on that front, it's doable, but not really ideal. Maybe we'd have to suck it and see?

It sounds like (as well as getting rid of him) you need a shit hot system.
Things like planning food in bulk and having someone cook for the freezer, to enable you to manage on days with no direct help.

This week, with no DH, I've had to do a lot more than I normally would - thankfully my mum's covered the school and nursery runs (which was very kind of her, even if she did moan about it!) so I've just had to manage with the 2 younger Dc's, the cooking, the washing up, and the washing. The regular, must-do things would probably be ok, but it would be things like sweeping/hoovering/cleaning the bath/mopping floors etc that I would struggle with.

Anxious, I'd so love to have a system - I think DH and the kids would kick up a fuss about being 'managed' though - we're all arty-farty types, so systems, rotas, any kind of organising I try to do generally gets ignored by all of them. I have tried to talk to them about this (and the general way they ignore me as a physically incapable person,) but it's like water off a stone.

You can get a cleaning company to do this once a month for you, it'll cost you less then your 'cleaner'. I'm also a fan of the robot hoover. You can use a remote and it will clean the floor for you.

I do keep dreaming about having a system in mind for the PA, where I get to say what gets done, when and where, but then I realise I'm probably living in cloud cuckoo land - after all, if I can't get other people around me to listen, then who am I kidding?

Could you put an ad up at your newsagents/local uni/college/library if you have one?

A student might be happy to come in and help out a few times a week?