Help- cleaner drank my gin!

[kayde12]

Hi all,
I’m new to mumsnet, but would really love some advice!

I’ve just signed up to a cleaning company and had my first clean, which I was thrilled about.
Then I noticed that half of my bottle of pink drink has gone!
I only got the bottle given to me as a gift last week from my sister in law.
My Dh doesn’t drink and I have my two ds in the house.
It was the cleaner definitely!
The company have been awful at getting back to me and sent me a poor email saying she said she didn’t drink it and was too early in the morning.

I feel really gutted and not sure how to move forward or get some sort of justice!!

Justice for Gin

@t0tallyFuckedUpFamily that's not true - if you're spying or monitoring employees you have to tell them otherwise it's covert monitoring and usually illegal or dodgy. It's not just customers.

Lol at these posts. I used to nick my dads whiskey and decant into plastic bottle. My 13 yo however despises alcohol and refuses even a taste of beer or wine. She never goes out except to a friends house when we pick her up later. I can honestly say if half a bottle of pink gin went missing today I would not suspect her. Because she simply doesn't have the opportunity to drink it and she definitely doesn't want it. I fully expect that to change but I absolutely wouldn't suspect her. (I can't say the same for me drinking more than I thought or for DH surreptitiously drinking it though!).

I can say that cleaning and care work is woefully underpaid which means lots of opportunity for people in financial dire straits to end up in situations where they feel desperate. Desperate people do stupid things. Like nick half a bottle of gin and think it will go unnoticed. I honestly don't believe people here would 'set up nanny cams' and absolutely not accuse anyone of theft without proof because when you are the victim of a crime, even a minor one, it has a very strange effect on your mind and you begin to question everything.

OP. Obviously you don't know 100percent who has done this but if you genuinely don't suspect your family (and you're better placed than us to know) then I think you did the right thing. Of course it would satisfy my thirst for drama if you had indeed installed nanny cam and gave us hourly updates but for the sake of moving on I guess getting a new cleaner is the way forwards! I don't think you're a loon or crazy or outrageous or stupid. I do think mn is bonkers though!

When my father realised he was drinking 75% proof water I knew I'd been busted

Homeopathic vodka. You get as drunk as a skunk on that stuff!

I was the most straight-laced, straight-A student, later prefect and head girl. And even I tried some of the things from my parents’ drinks cupboard when I was a teenager. puzzled you’re not considering the possibility of your teenage son being curious. He might not have drunk it: just poured himself a glass full, taken a swig, thought “yuck” and tipped the rest down the sink. Most of us have done daft stuff like that in our teens.

My cleaner would drink everything in the house but because she is a great cleaner I now hide all alcohol before she comes. Problem solved

Don't have her back in the house, unfair on both of you!
Ps. It can be surprisingly hard to find a decent cleaner. Lots of big companies sent someone decent the first few times to real you in then start to send someone shit. Others just send you someone shit from the get go.

Cleaner has lost her job or reputation got those fretting.

Yes I feel sorry that someone has nicked your gin. I don’t like thieves.

But yes, I am fretting for your cleaner - more so if they are innocent. They may have lost their job on the strength of your accusation. If they stole it would serve them right. Wholly unjust if they didn’t.

I could have been arrested and charged if I had not been able to prove immediately that my colleague was a vindictive liar.

I hope you get to the bottom of it all. And I hope that you were not mistaken.

Ye, my first cleaner was from an agency and she couldn't clean or iron.

The thief was through facebook on a local page which she responded to. I wouldn't mind, but I paid her £50 for 2 hours and she helped herself to an extra fiver.

Who'd be stupid enough to break a seal on a bottle though-or take half the contents?

Any friend's of your son been around?

£25 per hour for a clean? Was she a naked cleaner?

You know your own child, OP.

Mine was a sneaky, gin-thriving little bugger - he would have been first on my list of "Mam's-alcohol thieves wanted to help the police with their enquiries).

DD - never. She doesn't touch the stuff - never has. She's 33 and the only booze to cross her lips is communion wine (and that not for the best part of 20 years, because she doesn't even come to church now.)

Just seen your typo update.

As another poster said, they may not lose their job but they are now ‘marked’. They’ll be petrified of anything going wrong in their next job knowing they are on a jiggly peg.

I think you know your own child. Ds3 is 13. I absolutely know that he wouldn’t touch any alcohol in our house or any other house for that matter. Neither would ds2. If ds3 was offered at school he would tell me as soon as he got home (if he didn’t txt me immediately). Ds1, on the other hand, has never done this (to the best of my knowledge) but it’s not out with the realms of possibility that he would.

It was a Sunday and on short notice. I was desperate, so was willing to pay.

If I could find a decent, reliable cleaner I’d give her the gin. I’d pour it and offer a selection of artisanal mixers. A few olives on the side. Possibly some salted almonds.

I’m unlucky with cleaners.

Got you @MaisWee

I am LMFAO at people thinking a 13 year old could drink half a bottle of gin and act normal/hide it

I am LMAO at people who don't understand how common it is for 13 years old to decant their parents' spirits to share with their mates somewhere far from adult eyes.

Same @messolini9, teens are crafty wee buggers, I was!

Get some indelible ink, or superglue

If I seriously thought my cleaner was stealing I’d have to get way more evidence than what you have (which appears to be zero)

When I was 5 I saw a bottle of something at my nan’s with cherries on it (cherry brandy)
My dad was fitting a new kitchen for my Nan. Left to my own devices for 10 minutes....whilst she left the room. I drank some of it and threw up EVERYWHERE. Nearly had to get my stomach pumped. My dad had to sell his car as he couldn’t get the stench of brandy vomit out of the upholstery.... my money is on the 13 yr old or possibly his mates.

God I even remember bunking off school going to s friends house she. They were both at work, and we all drank her parents advocat, which was disgusting, but the only booze in the house. And this particular friend was halo level good. Her parents wouldn't have believed it of her.

@babbi you are very kind, thank you!
I think the OP's sense of entitlement, & self-centred refusal to consider the shit & distress she has caused another woman with her unfounded accusations inspired my ire ...

Apparently all cleaners are moral pillars of the community who would never, ever do anything illegal or unethical!

Funny that- doesnt really account for the few people I know who HAVE had cleaners steal from them.....

Funny how is DOES account for the vast majority of people who haven't, huh @MimiLaRue?

I can't imagine a 13 yo sneaking out pink gin to share with his mates

There is a small coppice near where I live which is on my dog-walking route.

During the summer the local "yoofs" spend the balmy evenings there - drinking, sniffing glue etc. Every week or so I, or anther walker, take/s a bin bag to clear up the detritus.

I remember that on one occasion last year, I picked up 18 empty spirit bottles including Grey Goose vodka, several single malts (including a Laphroig - I noticed because that is DH's tipple-of-choice) and several of Gordon's pink gin.

I don't think these were shoplifted - we are in a middle-to-upper-middle class area (if you'll pardon the sweeping demographic statement) and I think that most of these were filched from their parents' supplies.

These are kids with every advantage in life - decent family income, private schools, ponies (not just riding lessons) - and they still go through this rite-of -passage.

The things kids do don't change - the only difference is the cost of the booze.

My cleaner regularly drinks our alcohol but we don’t mind as she’s a great cleaner and a lovely person.