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.

I first got a cleaner after talking to a friend who has no DP and no DCs, I'd praised her new mascara and said her eyelashes looked fabulous, and she told me she had the semi-perm fake eyelashes done. She then started telling me about how much it cost at her salon, I nodded and smiled and thought "I could get a fortnightly cleaner for that". then I thought, I can afford this, but when would I get the time to go to the salon? She also has fabulous nails, but again, the time to actually go and get it done, not the money was what was stopping me. If I got some spare time to go to a salon, I ended up using it for a wax or something else that counted as 'maintenence'.

then it hit me, what I really wanted wasn't to be able to go get these things done, i wanted more time to myself, I'd happily have less money but be able to spend any 'me time' I got sat in the sunshine or a coffee shop with one of the piles of books I'd not got round to reading. When i get some time away from DS (my MIL takes him out for a couple of hours every other week) I'd end up using it to clean, not doing something nice for myself. If DH took DS out for a 'daddy son afternoon', I'd run round doing housework.

I buy myself 3-4 hours a week by having cleaners. As a treat to myself, that time is so much more valuable than any "stuff" I could buy with the same money. But then, there does seem to be a more of a view that there's something morally wrong as well about having a lot of free time if you're a woman. That free time should be filled with productive things, whereas the fact that having a cleaner for us also means that as well as I get a few hours to myself, DH gets to go out on his bike most Sunday mornings, but then noone thinks he should sacrifice his "me time" to clean, it's only the woman of the family who are seen as wrong to pay someone else to do what they could easily do themselves and really could make time for if they sacrificed time.

Unami- I once employed a cleaner who shared your attitude, she told me so herself. She said she wanted to work for people who were elderly or infirm and unable to clean, and she?d only come to me as a favour to the agency since my regular cleaner couldn?t come any more. She clearly felt she was a cut above cleaning as a job in its own right. Well, I say I employed her but that day she did the worst clean of anyone I?ve ever employed and I told her not to come back. The cleaners I employ are professional, they do their job well, and they get paid.

(I sort of imagine that when you stay in a hotel, you clean your own room, and the toilet too - though I suppose you're not that unreasonable )

Wow, jealous much??

MrsMelons, I know it can be done I.e more flexibility in jobs as part of my remit in my previous job was putting the measures in place to achieve this but Emloyers are reluctant to do so and not motivated to do so.

there's an unwillingness to recognise that in 99% of cases, the person paying is better off and from a 'higher' social class than the person cleaning.

Isn't that the case of any occasion when a middle-class person pays for a service from a working-class person? Cleaning is just one of a million examples.

DontmindifIdo - good post.

I do think that there's an unwillingness to recognise that in 99% of cases, the person paying is better off and from a 'higher' social class than the person cleaning

this is putting too much meaning on providing a service. I provide services in the field of X to my clients.

if my clients say jump - I say ok, how high?

because they are paying me for the service X.

it does not mean anything - other than they are paying me to do X for them. it does not mean they are correct all the time, better than me, more intelligent than me or anything at all.

it is just something they are asking me to do and I need to do if I want to be paid for doing it.

cleaning is just another type of service.

Goldenbear - I know it CAN be done - I do it myself, however if I was higher up in my job it was be physically impossible to do in the hours I am able (or willing) to work so not always black and white.

I work for public sector so they always do all they can to accomodate the staff but for instance my friend had his own business and employed 1 person as his assistant. They were full time but went on maternity leave then wanted to come back 4 days (at most) per week after that.

He tried to advertise for a job share but could not get people suitable who would only work 1 or 2 days a week who had the skills/qualifications required. He could not manage with someone helping him less hours so he ended up having to say no as could not afford to have 2 part time people working more than full time altogether. At the end of the day he shouldn't have to suffer financially himself but if he had more staff he probably could have shared the work round differently etc and I am sure he would have done.

The class thing is a complete red herring. I am a working-class woman who is now a freelancer/has own business. Of the 4 cleaners I've employed, I would say 3 of them were exactly the same as me. The woman who was an immigrant, I don't actually know what her class was in her home country, but as someone with poor English, as I said the only other jobs available to her would be factory/agricultural. I think the terms and conditions I offered were more pleasant (and better paid). Did I feel bad about that? No. (neither did I feel heroic about 'rescuing' her from stuffing the garlic butter into the chicken kievs.) It was a simple exchange of labour for money.

eccentrica You can't make sweeping generalisations about individuals based on the job they happen to be doing at the moment.

The cleaner where I work does the floors in the morning and the marketing and coach party bookings in the afternoon - I met the lady who does our house because we're both on the PTA at the local school and got chatting while minding a cake stall - My SIL cleans to fund her horses and holidays ... It's a flexible, socially useful job!

"there's an unwillingness to recognise that in 99% of cases, the person paying is better off and from a 'higher' social class than the person cleaning"

Therefore..what? Do you really think people in a 'higher' social class/with more money should never pay people from a 'lower' social class for services?

When I pay people to do my garden and lay my patio as I will be in a couple of weeks, should I check they are all better off than me and posher before I employ them? Should I require a degree from anyone who serves me in a restaurant or cuts my hair or whatever?

Sorry, I'm just not clear about what the problem is with the fact that someone paying for a service is better off than someone providing the service?

What a bizarre OP.

I'm not being obtuse. I genuinely don't understand why some posters think I should feel guilty for employing a cleaner but not, say, a gardener or window cleaner? Far as I can tell the only difference is the cleaner is a woman and the garden service and window cleaning are done by men, and the cleaner comes in the house while the others stay outside.

Am I missing something? Maybe I am.

Some people seem to think it is distasteful or exploitative to have a cleaner. They need to examine their own prejudices.

Some great posts on here!
Just one caveat to my pro-cleaner position: I HATE HATE HATE it when "get a cleaner" is presented on here (or irl) as a solution to the problem of living with a lazy git. In that case, it seems to have the opposite effect of bringing unseen unpaid labour into the economic light; when done in this way, for these reasons, it is a mechanism by which a man (usually) can persist in selfishly refusing to engage with housework. (hiring the cleaner itself is a way of engaging with housework, and putting your money towards it is a way of engaging; doing these things is always left to the woman when the suggestion is made on those threads, and I hate it so much)

And if clearing up other people's mess is demeaning ( which it isn't, it's just a job ) what do you propose we should do about cleaning schools and hospitals, or emptying the bins or sorting out fly-tipping?

I think men should pull their weight around the house all things being equal. But I'd rather pay a cleaner than have some man do half a job. The same I'd rather pay a proper decorator than have DH's drippy painting.

I think it's pretty hilarious that some people think there's no class issue at play when it comes to cleaners, that the average cleaner has lots of opportunities and has simply chosen to be a cleaner; or, that a person may well BE and cleaner and HIRE a cleaner in their lifetime. Despite there being such a person on this thread, I think it's fair to say that this is the overwhelming minority of cleaners.

This doesn't mean it's bad to hire a cleaner, but perhaps just makes it a bit disingenuous to say "what's the problem! it's a service transaction!". Sure, it is, but there's a bit more to it.

Perhaps the assumption goes along the lines of "I don't like doing X, therefore nobody likes doing X, therefore nobody should have to do X even if they are being paid".

There are lots of jobs that I don't want to do, but I don't assume that the people doing them also hate them and are being forced or exploited in some way. I could never be a chiropodist, salesperson, dentist, proofreader, cleaner or dentist - mostly because I would be so crap that nobody would be willing to pay me.

"there's a bit more to it"

Genuinely, what bit more? What else is there to it? Unless the same bit more applies to window cleaners, gardeners or handy'men', what bit more applies to cleaners only?

I'm really really not being obtuse, I just can't see the difference.

I described my GP as "wonderful" the other day. And commented that I don't know what I'd do without him.

Two of my aunts are private cleaners (they clean for my sister). Another has done it in the past. They enjoy their work, work for themselves and in no way feel exploited.

YABU and a bit weird about this OP.

I think it is the generalisations that have irritated people though Saski.

Yes it may well be that there were limited opportunities available to that person so that is all they could do or they have chosen to be a cleaner as like in my cleaners case she never worked as married young, had children then wanted to work once the children were at school so it suited as the hourly rate is high compared to office jobs for people with few qualifications.

I am not sure what has been said just applies to cleaners but to other lower paid jobs in a way like say shop assistants or childcare assistants who have a very low hourly rate and few benefits. Many of my friends do jobs like this but I don't consider myself better than them or of a higher class. I am qualified in my profession (and I am hired for private work to provide a service) and it is the job I chose, other people choose differently. I didn't have any more opportunities as a child - its just how things are.

I do understand though, that in some cases there is more to it but I am not sure it is the majority IME.

BTW - all my friends have told me they wouldn't want to do my job if they were paid 10 times more their salary of £7ph. I am an accountant and have heard this many a time. Maybe I should start feeling more exploited doing a job most people would prefer to pull teeth than do!

Oh - and my cleaner is significantly posher than me. She's a post grad law student so it is fairly likely that she will employ a cleaner at some point in the future.

It is a bit weird having someone in your house who isn't a friend or family member - for example I suspect that she knew I was pregnant before my parents did. (As I had the pregnancy book on the dining room table) But when I gave birth to dd she got stuck. We attempted a forceps delivery which failed. She then had to be pushed back up again and held there to stop her squashing the cord whilst the surgeons got in through a c-section. "Take care not to cut my hand" said the surgeon holding her - ho ho ho! To be honest once you have had strangers do that, having someone in your kitchen hoovering is really not a big deal.