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.

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.

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.

This thread has made me really want a cleaner.

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 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.

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

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.

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!)

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?

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?

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.

I suppose in summary my problems with your position, eccentrica, are that

• the real problem is that women's work and time is undervalued, especially in the home, and by agonising primarily about the pay and conditions of the work that is at least acknowledged to exist and is paid at all, you detract from this. The paid stuff is the least of the problem

• none of your "solutions" are workable

• so you don't offer any ways for women to get out of permanent exhaustion at home and at work

• and it's more bleeding-heart stuff, where if you are MC you are supposed to feel sorry for everyone but yourself. I feel pretty bloody sorry for myself at the moment, no one is on my side, not even dp, not even me if I take up your attitudes. I feel guilty all the time and I hate it, so you are really rubbing me up the wrong way because I have nothing left

Dh does the cleaning in our house but I would still like to have a cleaner, so that we could have time to do other things

However, at the moment it's not a discussion that I'm going to have with him as we're both between jobs so there is no income coming in to the house. Once there is, I will be having that discussion with him again.

BTW - re no-one truly wanting to do the job: I've talked to one of the mums at the rugby club who runs her own small cleaning company (ie herself) and she loves her job and is proud that she provides a good service. I've also seen on MN the number of, for example, TAs who say they love their jobs but they wouldn't want to be a teacher for anything. Everybody gets energised and motivated by different things. For some, it is the ability to go to a job, see immediate results (like a clean house) and leave with no added responsibility. For others, that would be too repetitive or they want the responsibility.

I actually like ironing provided there is something decent on TV - yet there are lots of people who absolutely detest it.

The low pay goes with low skilled jobs though - jobs that most people could do if they wished to with no/basic qualifications. Also these are the type of jobs where you go to work then go home and that is it until your next shift. In a way they do deserve to be paid more as they can be unpleasant jobs but then where does this stop.

Does that mean skilled/professionally jobs should be paid even more then in comparison. I do my paid hours plus more, go home and log back on in the evenings and weekends so my hourly rate becomes lower and lower, I did years of studying to become qualified also - I just feel its all relative.

I agree its not necessarily a convincing arguement that someone who has money can access various things but there is no real comparison with having someone who can clean your house for a couple of hours or having a donor organ/surrogate baby.

my cleaner was on £12 p/h about the same money as a lot of people employed in offices but with none of the grind

"I agree its not necessarily a convincing arguement that someone who has money can access various things but there is no real comparison with having someone who can clean your house for a couple of hours or having a donor organ/surrogate baby."

Of course not but I was just trying to make the point that just because you CAN pay someone to do something for you, doesn't mean you SHOULD.

"my cleaner was on £12 p/h about the same money as a lot of people employed in offices but with none of the grind"

I can well believe it, personally I'd MUCH rather be a cleaner than work in a call centre (for example), but the interesting question is why don't any of those people quit the office job and set up as a self-employed or agency cleaner instead?

Is it because there's more to doing a job than the immediate experience of it - status, opportunities for progression, other benefits (holiday pay etc.)?

eccentrica - I understand that you are arguing for a complete structural change that will see these jobs better paid.

In the meantime, how does someone not hiring a cleaner at £10 an hour make a difference? All that will happen their is the cleaner loses business, and maybe has to get a job in a nursery or care home earning £6.50 an hour and paying childcare, missing school plays etc.

I disagree with you that no one chooses to work in childcare, care, nursing or cleaning. Really, it depends what you mean by "better options". I could earn the same as I do now working in an office but I wouldn't want to. I could earn more if I trained as a teacher but I wouldn't want the hours, pressure and stress.

I'm sure some cleaners hate their job, but some like it and would rather be doing that than something else. I know my cleaner is more than happy in her job.

If you are going to take on any sort of staff you have to be reasonable about the deal you are offering them. I take on freelancers at work and there is a going rate in most cases which works out to a decent package, allowing for insecurity and workless times even.
Sometimes, someone without an agent will say a stupidly low fee in a panic and I will raise it because it's not fair (and because I would rather pay the artist than the agent, and by paying low fees you would drive all artists without agents out of business). Some large companies, who can well afford better, pride themselves on screwing people like that, and I think they are wrong to do so, not just ethically, but because long term we all depend on having people to this work and if it becomes unviable, there will be no new people coming up.

So I do think about this a lot. I had a cleaner (still would if I could - I can't because my shitty rented house is infested with the landlord's fleas, it is vile and I can't reasonably ask anyone to work in it), she works for herself and has a few other people working for her, one of them sends her daughter to the same pre-school as mine goes to so we chat there and she doesn't seem miserable or craven, her car is a lot newer than mine and if her shifts work around the nursery hours of her child then her childcare costs are zero so pro rata she is making better money than me.

I would not be happy working with anyone whom I thought I was screwing - who could? don't answer - but in this capitalist world I think the only options open to us are to make case-by-case judgements on whether we are being reasonably fair or not, while simultaneously working towards the revolution of course, which is not going to come any sooner if I clean my own floors. Being reasonably fair to other people is not automatically casting oneself to the bottom of the heap, every heap - which is what women are socialised to do.

Some people prefer cleaning to sitting in an office. Some people would rather clean than change nappies. Some would rather work outside, some would work inside. Some would rather run their own company/be self-employed, some would rather the security of an employed position although it might mean less money/flexibility.

I don't think cleaning is an intrinsically worse job than comparable ones - childcare, call centre, admin, retail.

Eccentrica - I think cleaning is work that is easy to pick up and drop depending on family commitments. It's part time and can often be flexible to fit in with school hours etc, unlike most call centre or office jobs, which are full time or fixed hours (not always hours of your choosing) and so can be difficult to fit in with childcare and so on. It's also often very local, so no commuting.

Yes, I expect there are some people with cleaning jobs who would rather have a full-time office job, but for many, that is not an option because of family commitments or lack of qualifications (eg for most office jobs you need at least maths and English GCSE).

I really dislike the stance some people are taking, that these poor downtrodden women don't know what is good for them so we should refuse to provide them with work.

Cloverer who is taking that stance? Not me and I haven't seen anyone else suggest that either.

Perhaps quote the post(s) you're referring to, and mention the poster(s) by name, rather than making accusations and implications?

I worked as a silver service waitress during the summer holidays (and occasionally during term-time it was back in the days of grants ) when I was a student. I was paid less per hour than my parents paid their cleaner. It served my purpose at the time but wasn't something I would have chosen to do long term.

My best friend worked as a cleaner at the same time. She was a medical student.

Nowadays many students need jobs to keep them afloat. Some of those will be jobs that are low paid and wouldn't be things they would expect or want to do permanently.

There are all sorts of valid reasons why people choose to work in low paid roles. Telling others that they shouldn't employ them would do only damage their opportunities.

And incidentally why do any of these arguments not apply to lap dancers and prostitutes?

For those who enter those jobs freely, they are freelance, usually local, flexible working, and very well paid.

I'm not saying I think it's wrong, but I know plenty of people who post on here do think that. I'd be interested to know why all of the same arguments about freedom of choice don't apply in those cases.