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.

It's very vague to say 'there's a class issue'. What is the issue exactly, and how is it related to class?

Saski - It is true that society is not fair and it is true that some people are exploited more than others.
What do you think we should do about this, as individuals making choices? I think hiring a cleaner (or anyone) under fair terms of employment is doing NOTHING to perpetuate this. If you feel guilty that you have earning power that allows you to contract out things you don't want to do, and someone else has been systematically denied the opportunity to achieve that earning power, the solution is not to ... not hire a cleaner, put all your money in the bank and scrub the toilet at 1am while you sob with fatigue. That doesn't help the person who never got a chance to go to university.

If someone can afford a cleaner, is paying a fair wage, and isn't forcing the cleaner to work for her, I don't see what the problem with it is.

Regardless of whether they 'need' a cleaner, or just don't like cleaning, and would prefer to spend their free time doing other stuff.

Also, saying that someone should cutting back on FT hours so that she has time to clean and someone else has access to the surplus of work she has, is a silly argument.
There's many jobs out there which need specific qualifications. Cleaning doesn't. Even though some people are undoubtedly much better at cleaning than others. The cleaner will probably not be able to get access to your friends surplus work, if your friend were to cut her FT hours back (so she can clean herself) and sack the cleaner. The cleaner would probably just end up with less work, and therefore less money if she couldn't find another client.

Interesting thread.

I don't agree with the OP necessarily but her responses have been considered and polite.

I am a SAHM with a cleaner and I do feel vaguely guilty about it (I could clean my house myself, I just don't want to). I also have a gardener, and feel vaguely guilty about that too. I have recently had an electrician in to move some sockets and a plumber to fit a new sink. I didn't feel guilty about them.

Luckily, I have managed to suppress the feelings of guilt

In many countries, it is considered selfish to not employ people if you can afford it. It provides employment. I lived in central america for a while, in different countries, and it's completely normal to have someone (or many people) working for you, it makes money go round, it's fine and completely acceptable and not something to be embarrased about. I am a childminder and although many people feel that it is a 'bottom of the food chain' kind of job it's not and I am very proud of what I do. I also have a cleaner because I can't keep up with looking after children most days and keeping everything clean and hygenic. I def don't feel embarrased about it. And I wouldn't cut back on my paid hours to do it myself.

Flowery, there is nothing vague about the association between class, the hierarchy of 'work' and domestic hired help, do you know nothing about history at all? Those associations continue to exist for a vast majority of people doing this work whether Mumsnetters like to believe it or not. It is a nonsense to say that those doing cleaning jobs have on a whole chosen this work rather than being forced to take the work due to economic necessity. If people enjoy cleaning and want to do it as a job then that is absolutely a valid choice but if it is the only option available due to circumstances- not so fine and this is what keeps women in low paid work.

I'm in France and here if you hire a cleaner officially, meaning she gets all the benefits and social security, the fees are tax deducible. Brilliant idea I think - encourages people to provide employment opportunities even if they could do the job themselves.

I freaking LOVE our cleaner. I'd marry her if I could. She was originally hired by (male, living on their own) a friend, and then a second friend so we decided to hire her as well.

The way I see it is:

• we're providing flexible employment (she has a young daughter) to someone who needs it
• she was actually very happy when we hired her, as she was looking to pick up more hours
• we asked around about how much people pay per hour, and we pay our cleaner more than others we've heard of, as I'd rather pay someone a decent wage than scrimp
• now, instead of spending weekends cleaning, I get to spend time with DH.

The way I look at it, DH and I win (we have full on, long hours jobs - and we can't cut back on hours - spending hours cleaning is not the best use of the little time we have together) and the cleaner wins (she has work, she gets a decent pay, sets her own hours) so what's not to love?

And, this is actually the second cleaner that original friend had - the last one then went on to set up her own property management business. Very often, this kind of job is a temporary thing and doesn't necessarily mean they're "lower class"

Goldenbear there is nothing vague about the association between class, the hierarchy of 'work' and domestic hired help

yes historically but does that mean it is fixed forever?

historically a gardener would be a low status male job. DM's gardener owns a house worth over 500k. he is in his 50s and wants a later life job outside an office.

I have a cleaner and I am so happy that I do. I hate cleaning. I don't care who disapproves either

I have been forced into low paid work by necessity. Not employing a cleaner/babysitter isn't going to improve any of our lives though.

The kind of changes you want are at a structural level, not a personal level Goldenbear.

Just because someone needs a job, how is that an arguement for not employing them?

Gardening is a job that I can more reasonably envisage someone choosing as a career, rather than falling into through lack of choice.

Window cleaning seems a more reasonable service because of the equipment involved and a window cleaner can very easily achieve some economies of scale, much like a car wash - that strikes me more as division of labor than outsourcing undesirable labor.

As I've said before, I do have a cleaner - but I do really wrestle with this relationship because I find it awkward. A few things that bother me: 1. My cleaner has to clean my house and then go home and clean her house. 2. My cleaner doesn't have the option to NOT be a cleaner, because her English is too bad. 3. No matter how hard my cleaner works, she will never reach economic parity with me, not because I work harder than her but because of her own lack of social mobility.

I don't think anyone needs to agree with me, these are just my own personal issues with the whole institution. I have similar feelings about nannies - mostly because I feel that it's changed so much since I was growing up. When I was young, I babysat my neighbors and my parents were friends with the parents and I would have dinner with them, and I went on to my own career and then I was faced with having a babysitter (actually, a nanny). Nannies are now not young girls having a gap year before university; they tend to be a particular nationality and socio-economic group (note I say "tend"). They probably won't go on to have their own nannies later in life. It's the lack of social mobility that I have a problem with.

thermalsinapril 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.

Not really a million examples - there is something very specific about cleaning up dirt and mess, and it's bollocks to pretend otherwise. In India the caste of people who clean mess is the lowest of the low. For centuries and in all countries I know of, the rich have lived in nice clean houses made that way by the poor, who cleaned it for them. But suddenly it's completely different now?

People have given examples in this thread of graduates or super-successful women who happen to clean for extra cash but frankly that doesn't represent the overwhelming majority of cases and is disingenuous.

Window cleaners climb up ladders to first/second/higher floor windows. A lot of people (like me) couldn't do that, no head for heights.

Hairdressing is a skilled, qualified and prestigious job.

Gardeners have specialist knowledge and it has long been a prestigious job. The names of famous gardeners like Capability Brown and John Tradescant (sp?) have lasted for centuries. The same is not true of the chambermaids and scullery maids who cleaned the houses.

YABU.

One of your "concerns" is that she doesn't have children so surely she doesn't generate enough dirt to warrant a cleaner twice a week. Dust falls, cookers get dirty, carpets need hoovered independent of how many people there are in the house 1 or 10. Yes with more there will be more dirt, but it's not a straight correlation.

When I was young, my parents had a cleaner who came in twice a week. My mum was a student and my dad would just have qualified as a doctor (having paid his way through medical school as a foreign student) so money was tight. It was an "investment" they felt justified, so it released them to do other things - in their case spend time with their family - but in your friend's case, is her own time no less valuable purely because she is on her own? Being single doesn't mean your own time is not worth prioritising - and if you can afford to "delegate" certain tasks, why not do so.

When I was young, I used to throw strops mutter about having to tidy up before the cleaner came. Now that I'm an adult and would like my own cleaner I have finally understood the cleaner was there to clean and not to tidy

I think the OP is a good friend in that she has not said anything to her friend and has come on here and risking the flaming to get a different perspective.

Dh doesn't like the idea of a cleaner either. I did organise one for a few blissful weeks a number of years ago, but as he didn't like it, I cancelled her. As a direct consequence, dh does all the hoovering and dusting though . I do most of the cooking, washing and ironing though and will very occasionally wash the kitchen floor

YAB excruciatingly U.

Who gives a flying whatsit if she's lazy. There is no moral obligation on women to clean.

I'm a cleaner,earn good money, don't feel `put upon, glad of the work and its fits in with my life. I worked in retail for years, now that was a shit job

I have just booked a cleaner.

there are many jobs that pay less than most cleaners get and do not have particularly high status either. I don't see anybody saying that we should not use the services of all those people though?

Capability Brown - have you see the gardens at Blenheim Place? the hundreds of people who actually did the hard graft names have been forgotten

there is something very specific about cleaning up dirt and mess, and it's bollocks to pretend otherwise. In India the caste of people who clean mess is the lowest of the low

I don't think you can compare removing the poo from a drop toilet with your hands with scrubbing an already clean, flushing toilet with a brush.

I have cleaned the toilets at my work when the cleaner was on holiday and I am the boss.

these cleaner threads always seem to get down to the idea that you leave a dirty toilet for the cleaner to clean. in my house, if you dirty the toilet, you deal with it.

Saski - what nationality are nannies? Nannying tends to be quite a well paid career in my experience.

Most people don't experience "social mobility" - it's an odd argument against cleaners. Working class people by and large remain working class, middle class people by and large remain middle class.

I