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.

FasterStronger 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.

Obviously the specifics are different but actually I think you precisely can compare them, because in all societies cleaning has been a low-status job which no high-status people have chosen to do. And that does mean something.

As for the idea that people use the toilet brush themselves when they've finished - yes but you still have to clean the outside of the bowl, the underside and top of the seat and lid, the cistern, the floor around the toilet, the toilet brush holder, etc etc. It's pretty grim getting someone else to do that for you.

Goldenbear Tue 30-Apr-13 10:56:38

"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?"

Did a degree in it thanks.

Yes there is a historical association between class hierarchy and lower paid domestic work. No one said there wasn't. But how does that translate to an 'issue' and a reason people shouldn't employ a cleaner now?

Saying 'there's a class issue' with employing a cleaner without being able to explain what the 'issue' is, and give a reason why people should therefore not employ cleaners is vague. How would things be better if I didn't employ a cleaner?

Reading more of the thread (I'd only skimmed it before): if you extend the argument that some have made about cleaners being demeaned and "lower class", which is why you shouldn't use them, then logically we should be ashamed to put our rubbish into rubbish bins and have them picked up by dustbin men, 'cos we should be taking it to the dump ourselves (as in fact you have to do in some countries, for example in South Africa)

And as others have said, is it more or less ethical to buy a dishwasher that may have been made in the Third World by people earning very little than to employ a real life person in this country? Or buy clothes rather than make them yourself? Or buy any prepared foods? Where do you draw the line

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.

Quite.

Man, I hate to do this, but anyway:
Gardening and window cleaning have been given as examples of more "skilled" work than cleaning. But, are they? Are they really?

Personally, I feel that being able to clean very well is a skill. If I compare what DH and I are able to do to what the cleaner does in a similar amount of time, she's much better than we are. And, previously house keepers were essentially a skilled role - it took years of experience and knowledge. It's just not regarded as such because it's a "women's job".

Likewise with childcare - normally viewed as "unskilled women's work" but to do a very good job of it requires a lot of skill, patience and training but generally isn't viewed as such, as it's what women do.

The reason why gardening and window cleaning are considered more "skilled" is because they're "male" jobs.

eccentrica yes but you still have to clean the outside of the bowl, the underside and top of the seat and lid, the cistern, the floor around the toilet, the toilet brush holder, etc etc. It's pretty grim getting someone else to do that for you.

but a toilet should not be grim.

High status people don't: clean, wash dishes, work behind tills, on conveyor belts, don't care for old people, disabled people, children or animals, don't go down mines or do hard physical labour. There are lots of low status, low paid jobs out there, and more people do them than do high status, high paid jobs.

I don't see why cleaning is special. And it's not just cleaning is it - it's specifically domestic cleaning. I can only assume there is a moral issue - women should be cleaning their own houses.

What I don't understand about the moral issue though is why it is ok to pay someone to wax your bikini line, walk your dog or mind your kids, but not clean your house?

Absy Gardening and window cleaning have been given as examples of more "skilled" work than cleaning. But, are they? Are they really?

Er, yes. Obviously. As I said above - there is no way I could climb a ladder to the first (let alone a higher) floor as I am absolutely shit with heights and would be shaking so much I'd drop everything (at best).

As for gardening - are you serious? I don't even think it is considered "male" work, lots of famous female gardeners and women I've known come to mind, but even if it were, it's one of the most skilled jobs there is!

My friend is a cleaner, she earns more than I did working as a carer in a nursing home. She deals with less poo than I did too!

There's no more skill involved by the man who comes to mow your lawn and do some weeding and pruning than the woman who hoovers and mops the floors.

Structural inequality is real and is a huge problem and is blatantly manifested in how certain sorts of people tend to do certain sorts of work.
I am pro-cleaner but would like to clearly dissociate myself from saying "it is not a problem"

BUT

• not getting a cleaner is not going to make inequality go away.

• one of the structural inequalities that I am most passionate about is that between men and women, and women of all classes tending to clear up after men and having a lot less time and / or meaningful leisure. Those who very anti paid domestic cleaners are often subconsciously of the unexamined opinion that women, as a class, should just suck it up and clean for free.

• having said that, the first point above is pretty inadequate (true, but inadequate to an ethical view of how we should live) so I would be interested in hearing from, for instance, Saski and eccentrica about their solutions to the problem of crappy jobs being unfairly distributed in society; and what the person should do who has paid work and domestic work to do that just add up to too much for a reasonably liveable life, and they have the money to pay for someone else to do some of this work - what should they do, and how would it be ethically better than getting a cleaner? Also, do you feel people should never outsource childcare?

(- 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".)

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!

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.

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

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?

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.

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?

" 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?

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.

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

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...

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?

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.

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.

£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 ...