To have sacked our "friend" who is our cleaner?

[Badgerina]

AND: WIBU to cool off the friendship for a bit too? Bear with me it's long...

I have a friend who does cleaning. We have been paying him to clean our flat for a couple of hours every week since January.

When he started, he was brilliant. In recent months he not only has started to get really sloppy, but there have been many times when he has phoned to postpone or rearrange the time, which we have found inconvenient. I have mentioned these things to him, in a non-confrontational way.

Last week we also asked him to come and finish a painting job that DH started - wood in the bathroom and bedroom. About 4 hours work at £10 an hour. However, he took 2 days, didn't complete the job and wanted to charge us £70 for the job so far, plus more to finish it.

I'm on maternity leave at the moment so I know that he did not work solidly, spent LOTS of time on the phone and drinking tea. I also know that in between waiting for coats of paint to dry, he simply sat and waited, instead of getting on with the other room. I usually nap in the afternoon (39 weeks pregnant) which he knows, and I got a very hunchy feeling that during that nap time, he simply didn't do any work.

DH was really pissed off to find out what he planned on charging us, and put his foot down, texting him to say that the job should not have taken that long.

At this point my "friend" became extremely defensive, and replied in a very bitchy manner saying a) he was charging that much because he did a careful, thorough job "rather than simply throwing paint around and hoping it lands on the walls like some people" (a direct dig at DH's previous handiwork) and b) he would lower the price as a favour since I'm pregnant and we clearly don't have any money. He is actually rather obsessed with how much money he thinks we do or don't have and often asks how much our things are...

I'm really pissed off at his rudeness. I texted him back and said our finances had nothing to do with it, and that it is really rather rude of him to react the way he has. He told me that my "typically Hyacinth Bouquet reply had confirmed it to him", so I told him to "Fuck off Onslow, and don't bother about the cleaning either".

I found a new cleaner later that afternoon on recommendation from a local friend.

In not so many words I might add. I didn't lower myself to actually swearing at him. It's all so pathetic really isn't it. Never mix business with pleasure as they say...

Delete this person from your life.

That is my exact instinct expat. Wondered if I might be being hormonal though

Gosh poor you OP, at 39 weeks as well,

I would get rid of this man forthwith.

My DH recently gave some decorating work to a friend.

He did 3 or so hours each day and then disappeared, some days didn't come in at all, and constantly nagged for more money to the point where i felt intimidated in my own home.

The work was a disaster, truly terrible, everything he did will have to be redone, some at much greater expense as he got paint on open brickwork etc.

The thing i realised afterwards, and from replies on MN, was this:

We gave him the work as we felt sorry for him, this chap was always short of money and not having enough work.

What should have occured to us (and didn't) was to ask why was he always short of cash and work.

The answer is that he is lazy, his work is sloppy, he is untrustworthy. No one who employs him would have him back or recomend him to anyone else.

If we had thought it through in these term, we would not have given him work, we were very naive. Lots of people on MN pointed out that good tradespeople make good money and have waiting lists, they aren't casting about for bits of work unless they are unreliable and incapable.

I don't want to cause you any anxiety, but if you lent this man keys, even if you have them back now, i'd get at least one of the locks on the doors changed as a matter of course. Asking how much your stuff costs etc not a good sign.

Good points Horatio. I'm not concerned about whether we could trust him or not (in terms of stealing etc). Both DH and I know that his constant talk about our salaries and such are born out of envy. This friend is forever going on about how "middle class" I supposedly am, compared to his own background.

He was actually very supportive of me during my time as a poor, single mum but the tide has turned since I met and married DH. Bit of a frenemy really.

He is very much taking advantage of you because he thinks he can squeeze more money out of you/is lazy.

Don't let him back into your house! I had the same thoughts as captain in regards to him asking the prices of your belongings...though maybe instead of planning to pinch said belongings, he uses their cost to gauge how much money he should be trying to extract for you. Either way, pretty shit.

many congratulations on the 'fuck off Onslow' comment.

Well played!

This is no friend.

Tell him to get fucked.

Thank Christ Mumsnet! I thought there was a smidgen of a chance that I was letting my hormones run away with me

You are paying a man for watching paint dry!

Mugs

pmsl

Sack him

Quintessential Oh no we're not! I've paid him for the 4 hours he eventually agreed to (along with the barbed comment about it being a "favour" because I'm pregnant and we don't have any money)

But you're right. That is essentially what he was asking us to pay him for.

YANBU and a lesson learnt about paying a friend to work for you. He's taken the piss and showed up the uneven nature of your supposed friendship. Get rid.

My parents paid our next door neighbour to decorate our stairs when we went on holiday when I was little. They bought all the materials, left him the stepladder, a ladder and a trestle table out, agreed a price and paid him in advance. They too felt sorry for him as his gf had left him and he'd lost his job.

We got back to a shoddy decorating job, the house smelt of smoke (he didn't smoke) and he'd left wallpaper paste all over a padded covered stool in my bedroom (wouldn't come out) and a few days later I discovered that a birthday present had gone missing (a silver necklace with a solid silver horse on it). I was devastated, but my parents quite rightly said we couldn't accuse him of stealing, but they had words with him about his friends coming over, especially as he'd said it was a one man job when they'd said about the ladder needing someone at the bottom.

I don't want to worry you, but I think you ought to change some of the locks too, you couldn't trust him when you were in the house with him, maybe he knows some disreputable people. I know a couple of people who've had houses broken into when on honeymoon or when in hospital with sick children / having babies etc.