Cleaner wants internet access - WWYD

[BlankProfile]

We have had our cleaner for several years. She's honest, reliable and does a reasonable job.
Our internet password is on the back of the box and at some point she has seen this and used it to sign into our network. I found out today because we have recently changed our password and she asked me for the new one, obviously forgetting she had never asked me for the password in the first place.
It's annoyed me, but we have unlimited data and in the time she's been using it, it's never caused a problem.
Should I give her the new password?

@StillWeRise the thing is - if (like me) she sees this as a completely normal thing to do - she won’t be embarrassed. She’ll just say “oh the back of the router”

For many people this is completely normal - and she already has access to the room where it’s located, probably when she set it up OP wasn’t there to ask either.

She might want it for messenger, so she can be contacted in a emergency. I am logged on to the WiFi at work for this reason.
I don't have enough data and there is no signal for a phone call.

But she should of asked first !

i can see it would be an issue NOW, when all working from home.

Before, we'd be out when cleaner came, at work or college or we went to the cinema.

Now we have to stay in. if we are therefore all working, using the network for video calls etc, then adding someone else at that time who may be downloading music/making video calls etc, is not ideal.

@burnoutbabe to be fair she says in the OP - it doesn’t affect them at all.
I think the fact that they all would have been out also shows why it’s likely she “took” the password without asking. Chances are she needed for some reason, and no one was there to ask. I wouldn’t see this as a big deal at all. It’s like if say she cut her hand and found the plasters without “asking permission”.

Bloody Hell,first world problems....
How about doing your own cleaning and get down from your ivory tower?

@BlankProfile I think it's strange that people think she has an automatic right to your WiFi password because she is your paid cleaner, or that you are a slave driver for not allowing it.

If she was walking in town, she wouldn't have WiFi, so surely it can't be an emergency situation every day.

Also, there is no automatic assumed right to WiFi at work. I've worked in plenty of places that did not have WiFi access for employees. I wasn't a slave because I didn't have this as it is my duty to be contactable if needed and to have the right data plan I need for my phone and situation.

She isn't some poorly paid skivvy, she is a well paid cleaner with a decent car and phone, I'm sure she can pay the £20 a month for 20GB data and unlimited calls and texts.

The only case in which I would say OP would BU for not wanting to give the password is if she lived somewhere with no signal and the WiFi was the only way to communicate (ICE) but even then, they should ask. I wouldn't even take the WiFi password at my parents' house without mentioning/asking. That's why there's a password. For security.

The little "stickers" that PP keeps referencing are for you to put somewhere in your house in case you forget, like in the diary. Or on your nightstand. Not to hand out to guests as they enter.

Hilarious how people are jumping in to defend this cleaner and making sarcastic comments about the OP seeing her as less than her equal.

The OP is paying her for a job! Would you think it was ok to give out your password to a surveyor, plumber, electrician, builder...where they hadn’t even asked for it?!

OP it is almost certainly harmless and as posters have suggested she wants to listen to music etc. It is incredibly rude not to ask!!

In this situation if you like them and generally trust them I would give her the password and just say... just checking you’re not downloading movies etc as I’m not sure what package we have included! Cue: laughter so it’s not awkward but you’ve made your point.

To reiterate, the OP is not questioning this because this woman is a cleaner. It is rude no matter who she is or what she does - she is not paying the OP’s internet bill.

I also don’t think I’ve ever had my friends round and they’ve just gone searching for the code without asking. It’s called manners!

Sky engineer installed our Q box and when it came to internet password, he handed the remote and turned away to not see it. It's not a WiFi "access code" or similar. It's a password which should be private. The reason it's on the router is for the owner as I can imagine when it never used to be, it was difficult if you forgot it.

I’m not sure there needs to be concerns about illegality. If the cleaner is wanking off to pornhub or the like in the en suite, I’m almost certain that police can track the device by the IP address.

Mn being fucking mental yet again. So a paid cleaner is now a slave because she doesnt have access to ops wifi which she has no reason or rights to. And this bullshit she might need the internet because of an emergency?! Pray tell, what emergency needs a wifi connection? Surely a real emergency you would, you know, use the phone for a phone call that doesnt require an internet connection.

@Shaniac. At last. Someone saying it as it is👏🏻👏🏻

In an emergency I have never ever been whatsapped, emailed or Messengered (if that is a word )

It is hardly an emergency if you are messaged rather than actually PHONED up!! So wifi not needed

Amusebouch Not that the police would be tracing anyone for using porn hub but the IP address doesn’t track the device used. It will track down the subscriber of that IP address....I.E the op.

I'm sure the OP said router was in a room cleaner doesn't normally have access to
If I had to go into a room, in someone else's house that I hadn't explicitly been told I could go in, I wouldn't do it unless there was an emergency, still less to get a password to access a service I hadn't been invited to use, when I was being employed to do something completely unrelated.

If it was me cleaning it’s like internet to listen to music / audiobooks whilst I cleaned

she's there to clean not surf the net. I wouldnt let her have the password and i would point out you hadnt given her access in the first place so she shouldnt have been using it before. She has zero right to help herself to the password. She doesnt know you have unlimited so for all she knows she is steal your data. I would never just log on somewhere without asking - it's just plain rude.

Also you have no idea what she is using it for. Could be to listen to spotify while she cleans, could be to upload photos from your house doing things she shouldnt - who the hell knows. Either way - she didnt have the manners to ask so a big fat no.

Its really weird people think the cleaner has a right to take something that isnt hers to take just because she works for the op.

I work in a retail store. We are not allowed access to the stores wifi. I have to go in an hour before the shop opens and stay an hour afterwards to deep clean, on my own. Guess what, im still not allowed Internet access to listen to music or receive messages. Thats life.

Maybe the op wouldnt have minded if the cleaner went to her first and said please can i have the internet password so i can listen to music whilst i work, but she didnt she just took it and has only asked now its been changed and she obviously cant see the new pw anywhere.

And I'll say it one last time for those posters who are still struggling with the facts - she is not treated like a slave. She's gets paid. She was paid when she couldn't come due to lockdown. She is treated with respect when she is here. Not havng internet access is really not the same thing as slavery.

Somehow, I struggle to believe that you continued to pay this woman whilst she was unable to work during covid, and yet have made such an issue of her using your wifi... If you're going to fib, maybe try to make it sound believable.

@Shaniac

Good point. If you're not careful they will want water from your OWN tap to make a cup of tea AND want to use your electricity to boil the kettle because they 'forgot' to bring their own electricity that day.

Sometimes I wonder if it is worth having a cleaner, especially when apparently the council will send a team of people round to do it for free once the rat threshold has been breached.

@Whenlifegivesyoulimoncello

Then tell her OP. Then you can get yourself a shit cleaner but one that doesn’t use your wifi. I mean you’ll presumably give this new cleaner keys to your house - but at least they won’t use your WiFi.

Am quite shocked that you have a child who’s at graduate age and don’t realise that probably every one of her friends has at some point. Had your WiFi password.

Spot on.

OP did you answer the poster who asked what you said to her when she requested the new password?
Did you say you have to think about it?

What part of manners do you people not comprehend? She didnt ask permission to use something someone else pays for.

@Shaniac by that reasoning she should ask if it’s ok to have water.

Water an internet are not the same thing at all weird comparrison. Water is a human necessity internet is not.