To (privately) disapprove of my friend having a cleaner

[Unami]

Ok. This may be long, but I will do my best to explain where I am coming from. My friend has a cleaner and I privately disapprove. I would never make an issue of it to her, or even bring it up. It was brought up by another friend when we were at her place for drinks. She was a bit about it, and it led to a big discussion, but I didn't say anything committal. I do recognise that she can hire a cleaner if she likes. If she likes she can hire a troupe of jugglers and have them juggle in her kitchen all day, if she likes. It's none of my business, I get that.

But I still privately disapprove. AIBU?

Her cleaner comes to her two bedroom flat twice a week and gives it a full clean, and that apparently includes hoovering all carpets and upholdstry, dusting all surfaces, polishing wood, sweeping and cleaning wooden floor in hall and kitchen, emptying waste bins in the house and taking kitchen bins round the back, cleaning mirrors, cleaning the inside of windows, full clean of the kitchen including inside the fridge, full clean of bathroom. Once a month she also gets the oven cleaned, extractor fan cleaned and polished (!?), cupboards dusted inside and out. She says she pays £45 a week for this.

It's just her in the flat. She doesn't have kids and doesn't live with her bf.

Here's my perspective. People say that having a cleaner is just like hiring any other service provider. But it's not. Domestic cleaners clean intimate, private parts of our houses, and clean up our bodily mess, and it's low paid, low status work. Yes, people hire gardeners and window cleaners, but these are roles which require specialist equipment and insurance, and they only work on the outside and periphery of your home. Yes, I recognise that cleaners are employed in offices I use, cafes I eat in and so on, but it's not really the same either. Most commerical cleaners are employed as staff and so get holiday pay, sick pay, NI etc. Agency workers don't have it so good, and I disagree with the terms of their employment too. But domestic cleaners are often paid cash in hand because employers think they are doing them a favour. But they have no holiday, sick pay - what happens if they have an accident in the house they are cleaning in. I know there are some well organised small cleaning companies, but I think they are the exception.

But most of all, I just feel like my friend is just being lazy or thinks she's too good to pick up after herself. If you are elderly or disabled or immobile, then I see nothing wrong with getting the help that you need. Likewise, if you have a busy family, and don't want to be stuck being the person who picks up after everyone else - get the help you need and show the family how much your time costs. But if you have a quiet life and are fit and healthy, I don't see why you think it's ok to have someone over to clean your toilet. I also think that people who say they are so impossibly busy with work that they can't lift a duster once a week really ought to think about cutting back their ft hours, and give others access to the surplus of work they have.

I'm not going to have a go at my friend. But I just don't think it's right.

[eccentrica]

Not in my house it isn't. I suggest that women don't have houses and kids with men unless they are confident they'll do their fair share of housework and childcare.

[curryeater]

yes I do mean one's own house and one's own kids. the work associated with having a house and / or children is unfairly and oppressively distributed. What suggestions do you have about that?

[prettybird]

I actually don't have an issue with dh cleaning the loo.

It's the rest of the cleaning - the hoovering, the dusting, the plumping up of the sofa cushions that it is lovely to have done by someone else. One day I will have a cleaner again

My dad has a cleaner who comes in once a fortnight. He's retired, has time to spare, but actually comments how Elizabeth cleans so much better and quicker than him. He is very houseproud his oven is miles cleaner than mine 'cos he cleans it after every use - but she gets round to doing the things like cleaning the inside of the windows of the grandchildren's sticky finger marks (some of the internal doors are glazed) that he just doesn't get round to doing. When he was away on holiday, he paid her to come in and give the house a deep spring clean.

Even when Mum was alive and they were both retired, they continued to have a cleaner. Both of them preferred to be out doing things like cycling than doing the cleaning. They had disposable income, they paid/pay well - what else should they have spent their money on?

As relatively wealthy retirees, it's a bit of wealth re-distribution.

I wonder if there would be the same angst if we were talking about a guy getting in a cleaner? Or, as some have said, why aren't we expected to clean our office or working environments? What's the difference?

[eccentrica]

curryeater OK, perhaps commercial cleaning not relevant, but I brought it up because people keep saying in this thread that "people only object to domestic cleaners, because they're sexist". I wanted to point out that I personally find it uncomfortable in public/commercial spaces too. It's just that you don't have a choice about it outside your own home.

When you say the work that is not paid at all, do you mean cleaning your own home and looking after your own kids/grandkids?

(really must get on with my own work!)

[ExRatty]

Tripe

Who rates what jobs provide happiness?

Why is it that a woman could not be perfectly happy being her own boss and working as a cleaner? She could chose clients she likes, work hours she wants and suit herself.
Why is that a worse job than any other?

I've enjoyed cleaning. It was physical, I achieved something and I didn't have to consider loads of other bollocks whilst I worked. I was happy.

My granny was also a cleaner and she was very proud of the work she did and the service she provided.

There is a great deal of faux concern for the plight of cleaners by those who want to gripe and sneer.

[eccentrica]

FasterStronger I'm very aware of that which is exactly why I suggested you eat your dinner off it.

'Toilets are grim' is precisely not science, it's - anthropology, psychology, call it what you will. It's grim to clean someone's toilet not because it will actually make you ill but because of what it means/represents.

[Fecklessdizzy]

Right, I've wasted enough time on you nest of vipers - I'm off to submit to biological determinism and clean me loo.

[curryeater]

eccentrica, the diversion into commercial contexts like care homes is not directly relevant to this thread. I think.
OP, do you think that care homes should have cleaners? Or do you think that the residents should do the bits of light dusting they can manage, and the rest of the work should be done by doctors and nurses and managers, who will take time away from doctoring and nursing and managing to do this, so the care home will employ more doctors nurses and managers to make the hours up, thereby providing more prestigious employment more widely?

Or is it just domestic cleaning you think should be done like this? If a woman lives on her own, because if there is a man involved, well that would be different, because men don't have to clean, do they?

eccentrica, the shorter hours / more time off the economic treadmill is not going to happen. What do people do in the short term?

Also (and yes, this is tangential too, so ignore if you don't think constructive): how do you feel about the relatively low status of the work, cleaning work, childcare etc, that is not paid at all, and what would you do about that?

[FasterStronger]

eccentric your toilets are grim thing is bad science.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6647137.stm

In the home the toilet is not the principal location of bacteria: there were more harmful germs on light switches, door handles and the kitchen chopping board.

[squoosh]

This thread has made me really want a cleaner.

[eccentrica]

And no, I think men should clean up after themselves just as much as women should. I've said that several times but people keep saying "oh you think it's wrong for a woman not to clean her own house." No, I think it's wrong for a PERSON not to clean their own house.

[Fecklessdizzy]

£15 an hour sounds lovely, I'd go for some of that! and decent hours/ sick pay/ conditions for people who don't have them ...

[eccentrica]

But I do feel that way about cleaning outside the home. I go into a lot of organisations and I hate the fact that you go in and there will be at most a couple of Minority Ethnic staff members in the office, but ALL of the cleaners will be black. (I realise that's bringing race in and complicates things but I'm from London and there is a strong correlation between race and class here.)

And no, it is no-one else's business, but neither is prostitution or lap-dancing, if it's between two consenting adults - still seems like a lot of people are uncomfortable about that by its very nature. it seems that there are certain jobs and tasks which people are not entirely comfortable about trading for money. Just because you have money and can use it to get someone to do something for you, doesn't make it right.

That's why for example you are not allowed to pay for surrogacy, blood or organ donation in this country. Because it puts poor people under pressure to do it. I'm sure some would say "well I want a baby and she has one, I've got money and she needs it, it's a mutually beneficial agreement so it's no one else's business" and indeed that is an argument. But not one which I personally find convincing.

[WilsonFrickett]

Oh come on. Just because you don't have a head for heights does not mean climbing a ladder is a skilled job. It just means it's a job you couldn't do. I agree with Curry on this one, people are conflating manly steel tools with skills.

[Fecklessdizzy]

I reckon Cloverer has put her/his finger on it - it's not the cleaning of streets or public buildings that people get worked up about - it's cleaning of private houses. The subtext is " You're the woman, they're your floors - get scrubbing! " Well fuck that. If two consenting adults want to come to a mutually beneficial arrangement over who scrubs what it's no-one else's business!

As for social mobility, education does that - and money. As I mentioned up thread my SIL is a cleaner. She left school early and had her first child very young. She's been doing an OU degree now both her kids have left home for university. She's working class but her children probably won't be. Same is true for DP and our boys. The ones who really have no chance of a better future are the families where no-one's working! A job's a good thing, it gives you cash and self-respect, how can you argue against that?

[eccentrica]

I wish that nurses, care home workers, cleaners (commercial and domestic) were in a position to collectively refuse to work until they get paid a wage that reflects the fact that these are hard and often unpleasant jobs which people generally don't want to do.

Of course there can be some satisfaction in getting a mirror sparkling clean or looking at a polished floor or indeed nursing someone back to health (I imagine) but really, people get paid shit money to do these jobs because they don't have the power not to take them. Perhaps with nurses/care workers it's vocational, but so is being a doctor and they are not exploited in the same way.

How much money would be enough? God, I don't know, that's a specific rather than a principle. It depends on where you live and that sort of thing. But more.

Ideally, if we're talking about utopian visions- I think it would be better if people in skilled jobs worked shorter hours, for their own sake and for the sake of all the unemployed/underemployed people with skills and qualifications, whose lives are being wasted, maybe then they could clean their own houses, spend more time with their families and give more people a chance to work/move up in the world. Not going to happen any time soon but you asked...

[Bonsoir]

There are lots of dull and sometimes dirty jobs. Cleaning people's private homes is not the worst of them, by far.

[flowery]

x posts

Skilled or unskilled, there are loads of jobs no one would choose to do given better options. But someone has to do that work. Not everyone can have the perfect, easy, well paid job.

[curryeater]

" I kind of wish that everyone would just refuse to do it" - at all, or for the current going wage?
What about at home?
How much money would be enough?

[flowery]

I'm not convinced climbing a ladder is skilled work, but arguing that gardening or window cleaning are skilled is avoiding the point a little I think. There are loads of unskilled, low paid jobs. And for those who are worried about historical associations, most of them have traditionally been associated with lower class, often uneducated people.

But even if we stick with just cleaning, what's the big issue around domestic cleaning? Why should I feel guilty about the cleaner who gets paid for cleaning my home but not the cleaner who gets paid for cleaning my office? What about low paid staff who clean premises other than private homes?

[eccentrica]

I often earn less than £15 an hour but it's for things like proofreading, copyediting, and other frankly easy, comfortable tasks.

I think people who do bum wiping type jobs should be paid a hell of a lot more. I kind of wish that everyone would just refuse to do it and then they'd have to pay what it deserves. It's not just domestic cleaners who are exploited in this way, contrary to many posts above, it's also commercial cleaners, nurses, care home workers, etc etc. All really underpaid and I'll say again no one chooses to do these jobs if they have a better option available.

[Cloverer]

So what's the solution to structural inequality - no one should hire anyone earning less than £15? an hour, or anyone doing a traditionally female job (cleaning, caring, bum wiping)? How does that help anyone?

[curryeater]

I couldn't be a window cleaner, or a gardener, I am not strong or skilled enough. But I don't think it is easy to do a great job cleaning, either

[eccentrica]

curryeater btw the "but window cleaners have ladders!" is the most stupid argument on this thread. You are buying into all sorts of pro-patriarchy unexamined prejudices when you say "oh well that is not demeaning because it is done with Manly Hardware".)

er no, it's skilled because many people - MALE AND FEMALE - don't have a head for heights and couldn't successfully climb up several floors carrying lots of stuff. It's absolutely zero fuck all to do with gender.

[eccentrica]

FasterStronger but a toilet should not be grim.

But, umm, it is. Otherwise why not eat your dinner off there when the cleaner's finished?

A toilet doesn't have to be actively smeared with faeces and menstrual blood to be a bit grim. It is by its nature. All societies divide things into clean and dirty places, high and low, sacred and profane. Toilets are grim. It's sort of the point of them.And getting someone else to clean up the place where you and your family excrete (and vomit, and change tampons, and the rest of it) is pretty disgusting. Which is why you don't find anyone doing it who has better options.

I feel like people are twisting things a long way from reality to try to justify this. People who say - I don't want to do it, it's unpleasant, I can afford to pay someone else so I do - fine, at least that's honest, and why not? It's your prerogative. But the people who are trying to make out that there's nothing yuk about cleaning someone else's toilet, that it's no less skilled than gardening or hairdressing - what a joke!