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.

YABU

I don't see the problem as long as she can afford it.

Surely it's better for the cleaner to have a job and clean your friends flat, than to be on benefits. Which in a way affects society more a society which includes yourself.

Anyway why does it matter to you if she has a cleaner or not?

Meh. I live alone in a 2 bed flat & have a cleaner once a week. She does my ironing too. And changes my bed. She's bloody amazing. And I, like pay her and everything.

I work 'hours as required' and frequently do 60+ hours a week. No flipping way am I able to do fewer to 'spread the work'. It's my job and it demands those hours. I'm freelance & if I refused / left early (before 6pm is very early) I wouldn't get hired. And I often do 6 days a week (increasing the hours).

If you want me to feel guilt for not wanting to spend my one or two days off cleaning, then you going to be sorely disappointed.

YABU. I can service my Landrover. I don't want to though, so I pay a technician to do it for me. Should I start doing it myself?

It must be said however that your friend's cleaner is extremely poorly paid. If she's doing the job twice a week I'd assume that she's working at least 3 hours on each of those days and if she's only being paid £45 then your friend is taking the rise.

YABU beyond the power of words to describe. WHY DO YOU CARE??? Seriously, I am baffled by these kinds of posts. Let people spend their own money how they will.

It has nothing to do with people having strong reactions = hidden guilt. I have a strong reaction because MN always has a few fuckers who are willing to tell other people how to spend their own money.

journo?

Don't like cleaners don't employ one - anyone else hires a cleaner = non of your business.

On what planet is cleaning 'low paid'?

Our cleaner gets £10 per hour , which is cheap around here. I am currently applying for jobs which pay £7.19 per hour and require postgrad qualifications. They are casual part time roles with zero contract hours. ) My cleaner has more work than she can cope with. Go figure .

OP, you are seeing cleaning as unskilled. our cleaner knows the right way to do a job to get good results quickly. she also know how to manage a house which DP and I don't.

YABU.

Most people with a little spare income will buy themselves a luxury sometimes. A couple of bottles of wine, magazines, saving for a holiday etc. Your friend chooses to pay a cleaner - good for her.

Cleaners clean the inside of our houses, and plumbers fix things indoors too.

I'm not sure why using particular equipment for a job makes it "better"? Cleaners douse the equipment they need.

Cleaners are not the only self-employed people in the world, there are a huge variety of self-employed workers from tutors to barristers.

What BlingLoving said. How condescending can you get, OP?

I have a cleaner. She does two hours a week for us. She can come whenever suits her and she is free to work at whatever pace she wishes - we have never supervised or criticised her work. For this she gets enough each month to pay a couple of bills or buy a big supermarket shop. I just can't see the problem - she's perfectly entitled to stop any time she wants and there's no coercion involved. Money in her pocket, clean floors for me.

do use, not douse!

Good grief are YBU! It's her money and since when are the moral police about where and how she spends it?

Are you jealous?!

Oh yes I also forgot to rofl heartily at the "if she worked less, there would be more work to go around".

I work in a dept a bit like the one I started out in almost 20 years ago (not quite! but still - eek!). Back then I was the most junior of 4 or 5 people and I gophered mostly. Now I am the most senior of - let me count them - ONE person, and I do everything at the most strategic level as well as gophering for myself. This change has taken place across all depts like mine, amongst all our competitors, and has very very little to do with how much work there actually is to do (a tiny amount, to do with electronic stuff replacing physical filing, but not much), and much more to do with several rounds of streamlining to increase revenue per head count. So if I decide to work 17 hours less in the week, and so does my friend who does my job for another company, there are not suddenly two part time jobs available to "lift" people out of their cleaning jobs, should they even want to do my job (or be able to); and enabling me and my friend to do 17 hours of unpaid cleaning a week at home... No, it will just mean my friend and I will get shouted at a lot more by clients who are wondering who the fuck is supposed to be getting their stuff done.

FWIW I do not think this is a goady thread - the tone of the OP when she said she would think again was very ungoady. I just think it is exposing unexamined attitudes (woman-who-doesn't-clean = uppity) which we would all benefit from examining.

I hate cleaning, ironing etc. I do it a the moment as I can't afford a cleaner, am on mat leave and DH is putting in ridiculous hours getting a business going. I don't care about people seeing my toilet - eveyrbody poops after all. The moment i can afford it again we're getting a cleaner - i hate it and would rather spend free time with my DC! It means I get a clean home without having to do it myself and put money into the economy. Take your judgy pants off. YABU

To those who asked if I would feel the same if my friend was a man. Yes, I would. If anything it would probably irk me more.

In fact when I was a student I had two of my male friends who shared a flat hired a cleaner. I disapproved of that too. Again, I didn't express it.

Other posters have also pointed out that in supply chains all around the world people are geting their hands dirty, doing low paid work essentially on my behalf. I understand that, and that doesn't make me feel good either. But it's hard to opt out of, um, every single aspect of global capitalism, whereas it is really very easy to empty my own bathroom bin, and wipe the toothpaste out of my bathroom sink.

Also, going by the rates that other people have posted (like £10 and hour+), I don't think that she is paying her cleaner very much. From what she said, it sounded like it would work out at about £7 an hour. Which is, granted, above minimum wage, but also with no contract/security.

Unami - in the real world, how many employers do you think would happily agree to their employees working less/fewer hours, so they'd have time to do their own housework??

And anyhow, if your friend doesn't enjoy cleaning, why shouldn't she get someone to do it for her, so she can do something she finds more enjoyable? I'm a SAHM and I hate and abhor housework, and if I could afford a cleaner, I'd employ one tomorrow.

My PIL's are cleaners - OP I can assure you that they are not being exploited, nor do they feel inferior to the people whose houses they clean! It's just a job, which is ideal for them as they choose their own hours and can work as much or as little as they want.
They couldn't and wouldn't want to do the jobs of the people they clean for, so I really can't see why those people should work less hours and clean their own houses!

Yabu to judge your friend but I can see where you are coming from with your personal feelings towards cleaners. I would not have a cleaner for similar reasons to those you have listed. It just feels wrong and exploitative to me. I recognise I am probably unusual in thinking that!

Oh yes and something else relating to my initial point No. 4.

Cleaning (and all housework) is skilled. Not in the sense of driving a car where you should not even attempt it without a qualification, but more in the sense of singing, where anyone can and should have a go, but some people, whether through training, effort, or talent, are really bloody brilliant at it and better than nearly everyone else.

I think it is important to note this, because I know a lot of women do housework to a much higher standard than the man of the house but because it is notionally shared (although he never re-uses leftovers, never remembers what to pick up between big shops, doesn't do any sort of tricksy laundry or hang things out so they don't need to be ironed, etc, while she does all the clever stuff) he thinks it is easy. He just hasn't noticed that he has done about a third of it to a rather sloppy standard. I think pro-cleaners work against the delusion that housework is effortless and anyone can immediately go a great job. I do a great job - when I can - when I have any time at all to spend at home - because I have been trained since I was 4, and I think about it a lot.

It is not an 'odd' opinion, it is just not one held by the typical Poster on here.

YABU

"I am a good friend and would never do or say anything judgemental" No you're not a good friend and you are judgemental. It's none of your business if she has a cleaner. I'm so pleased I don't have a 'friend' like you.

My cleaner does an hour a week for £12 and has never had to clean up my bodily mess. I'm not ga ga quite yet.

What a very boring life you must lead to get het up about such a thing.

I really don't understand why you see cleaning as a job around which the choices are moral choices rather than simply practical ones.

YABU but I'm not as eloquent as curryeater so I'll just leave you to read her posts

Also, posters are right when they point out that I'm talking in abstract when it comes to redistributing better paid/more interesting work. I wish it was possible though! A lot of us would be a lot happier.

I'm not jealous, I'm ok with my domestic arrangements. Nor am I spitting venom and bile at her for having a cleaner. I understand that it's her decision, I just have this feeling about it that I can't shake, although some posters have given me new perspectives on the issue.

I also think it is interesting that a lot of posters have assumed that she has hired a cleaner because she earns well/works hard/is very busy. She doesn't work especially long hours or have a demanding job. In fact she has only recently started working part-time, although she was doing a full-time internship before that.