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 think a lot of people don't work as cleaners because of attitudes exhibited on here.

Most adults never really examine why they feel a certain way about something. They have sensed something from their parents, education or the media that has now become their held view on a matter. They never really poke around with the idea to see if it fits their real thoughts or to examine if it is even factually correct.
For instance people used to be threatened with having to get a job as a cleaner or a bin man for poor exam grades at my school.

Being a cleaner is a decent job. It should not to be looked down upon or sneered at.

For some ridiculous reason working in an office is seen as a better option.

Do you know whether she has a severe (or otherwise) dustmite allergy? MY DH does and if he helps clean it flares up. House needs to be kept super dust free to help. His view - he cannot help, it needs to be super-clean - ergo he pays for a cleaner.

Or, has she had in the past some form of OCD? Or anxiety? Maybe the cleaner helps her control the cleanliness of her flat but without her spiralling into a cleaning frenzy.

I do not often post on here but really? Really? It is so not your business to even think about it really

eccentrica I must have misunderstood, I thought you were against people hiring cleaners?

Feckless I am, pretty much - why you are confused?

Isn't that your stance then - people shouldn't provide work for cleaners because it is bad for them?

No Cloverer, that is not my stance. Could you quote anything I've posted which says that?

eccentrica Your response to Cloverer over the page ...

Which response? If you could actually quote it I'd know what you meant.

So you are against people hiring cleaners, but you don't think people should not hire cleaners

Yes, I am confused - what exactly is your stance?

I don't think people should hire cleaners because I think people should clean up after themselves.

Not because the cleaners are "poor downtrodden women who don't know what's best for them" but because I don't think it makes you a good person to pay someone else to clean up your mess.

I still don't understand eccentrica's position: if she is against employing a cleaner, is she also against shop bought clothes (you could have made them yourself), eating out (waiting staff are not paid well so don't give them the business), shop bought meals (we could have made them ourselves plus of course the check-out operator will not be well paid ), ever staying in a hotel (both cleaner and waiting staff )..... in fact, anything where you could have done it yourself and the person doing it instead is paid less than you.

Sex work is different because sex is different. You know why, if you think about it for less than 0.002 minutes.

I try to teach my daughter that, and she's two. Anyway. I think I've said everything I've got to say. People can do whatever they want afaic, and I can have my own reaction to it, which is that I think people (men and women) should not get other people to clean their toilets and floors for them, just because they've got more money.

Must get on with some actual work now. Agree to disagree and all that. Farewell

I admit I need to go back and read more of the posts but the OP outraged me considerably and I wanted to write something straight away.

OP YABU - and I think your post says a lot more about your qualities as a friend and human being than it does about whether someone should have a cleaner.

My Grandmother (who did much of my bringing up) was a cleaner all her life and worked into her late 70s doing so. Your post implies that you yourself have a very poor view of cleaners - and I had never even considered that others would have this view of my Grandma. I've heard the "oh they have a cleaner because she's lazy" argument before and just find that annoying but am quite aggrieved at what you seem to think about cleaners themselves ie low status work etc

FWIW My Grandma was a cleaner, my Mum (single mother) has had a cleaner all my life and I've had one since I bought my first flat (aged 25, single, no kids at the time). I give my cleaner sick and holiday pay (for when both she or I am away) and I in no way view what she does as beneath me - I just hate cleaning.

eccentrica, so what are cleaners supposed to do if everyone decides it's wrong to employ them?

Why do these arguments not apply to lap dancers and prostitutes

you are really going to have to spell that out for me because if I compared my cleaner to a lap dancer or a prostitute she would lamp me with the Flash. And quite right too.

Selling sex is not the same as selling a service.

Haven't read the whole thread (got about half way through) but totally think YANBU. I completely agree with you, and often think the same thing - plus, I think you've explained your point very well and, at least up to as far as I read, have stayed calm and taken criticism exceptionally well!

I do agree with you - you're not saying cleaners per se at wrong, or that your friend is lazy or disrespectful, just that there's something uncomfortable about someone outsourcing basic cleaning up after themselves. For me, at least, getting some help cleaning windows, ovens, or maybe carpet shampooing or whatever would be one thing - but hiring someone to empty your bin and wipe your sink after you've brushed your teeth seems not right. I think when you said that it is a leveller you were right. As individuals, we should be responsible at some tiny level for the mess we leave behind us.

But I can never explain this properly in real life - have tried and everyone thinks I am a freak - but I am so glad I am not alone!

We do make a distinction in our society between selling your body, and selling your time/labour.

YABU, there is nothing wrong with hiring a cleaner if you can afford it.

And it gives someone a job.

It sounds like OP's friend's cleaner is on to a good thing. Cleaning the small flat of someone who lives alone - it's hardly going to get very dirty or untidy with the frequency with which it's cleaned.

I'd do it for £42 per week!

Those who are anti-cleaner, is it ok to outsource childcare? Babysitting doesn't involve special equipment etc, it is done in your home, usually paid worse than cleaning.

It sounds like bloody heaven to me.

But "mess" is not necessarily messy but you just want it cleaned up.

Dust falls all the time, dirt come in on your shoes (and even stocking feet), kitchen surfaces and ovens occasionally need more than a wipe over, windows need cleaned, skirting obards get dirty, fat settles on the top of kitchen cabinets.

What is wrong with getting someone else to do it?

I get someone else to service my car. I go out occasionally for a meal. We get someone in to paint the house. I buy the occasional ready meal even though I enjoy cooking. I go on holiday and have a chambermaid/man replace the sheets in the hotel. It's all about making choices about what to do with the money I have. We live in an exchange economy.

I genuinely don't understand the logic of your point - unless we all go back to caves and do everything for ourselves.

Me too Scholes