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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To (privately) disapprove of my friend having a cleaner

536 replies

Unami · 29/04/2013 16:08

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 Hmm 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.

OP posts:
TrucksAndDinosaurs · 29/04/2013 17:29

I'm a SAHM to a toddler with mild SN. Thank God my cleaner came today to clean and disinfect the flat after I was up most of the night with vomiting DS. All he wants to do is BF on my lap and cry. Together we have managed to comfort him, boil wash 4 lots of bedding and sodden child and adult clothes, and I've finally managed to wash the sick out of my hair and eat something.

I am pathetically grateful to her and on days like today couldn't manage without her. Looking down on cleaners and housekeepers? Don't underestimate how bloody great their services are. I can't think of anything we could spend our money on that is so damn helpful and frankly life enhancing.

Yay for cleaners.

Goldenbear · 29/04/2013 17:32

Employing a cleaner suggests some kind of hierarchical order that some people are not comfortable with. It is also often done by women in a domestic setting which reinforces the idea of women only being fit to clean up after people.

BlingLoving · 29/04/2013 17:33

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.

I didn't. I couldn't care less if she works 3 hours a week and swans around drinking chardonay the rest of the time. If she has the money and wants a cleaner, she should go right ahead.

musickeepsmesane · 29/04/2013 17:34

But I can also see that this topic seems to have triggered a lot of very strong (maybe disproportionately strong) feelings. Which to me indicates that there might be something else at play here - maybe some other feelings as to where guilt/money/power lie in this exchange
Please let me be very clear, my feeling are that you are a shit friend. They have nothing to do with the above.

BerylStreep · 29/04/2013 17:35

You don't sound like a good friend at all, even though you disapprove 'privately'

I have had a cleaner for years and years - I suppose now that I have DC, in your eyes it is now acceptable, (just about, given that I am neither elderly or immobile) but I had a cleaner when I was single too. I don't like hoovering, dusting or mopping. If I can pay someone to do that, why not? (and I pay a good wage, well above minimum wage). In fact I am considering changing from having a cleaner who comes once a week, to a housekeeper who comes three times a week, so that I can get help with my laundry and cooking too.

If I thought for a second that my friends 'privately disapproved' they would be ex-friends pronto.

You have provided loads of spurious reasons why having a cleaner is wrong - potential accidents, cash in hand, levelling, concern about income / working conditions, no sick pay (along with every other self-employed person!), no holiday pay (I pay a Xmas bonus) and TBH, they are all rubbish. Then, having been almost unanimously told that YABVU, you have tried to intellectualise your views by suggesting the strength of responses is demonstrating some power imbalance malarky. Hmm

I think it would be a good idea for you to examine what beliefs you associate with housework. It seems to me that you think housework is 'womans' work, and that your friend is rebelling by not buying in to that myth - do you feel threatened by the fact that your friend isn't conforming to your expectations? I'm not saying this to be mean or jump on the AIBU bandwagon - really, it would be a good idea to think about it.

I just feel like my friend is just being lazy or thinks she's too good to pick up after herself. Could it just be that you don't like your friend very much? It's alright to come to the realisation that you don't like some people. But it is equally good to understand why, and how your belief system has made you think that way.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 29/04/2013 17:35

Yes, I suspect that feelings are running high because of how negatively judgemental you have been on this thread, OP - not anything else.

Unami · 29/04/2013 17:36

I don't think I am a shit friend. I don't think that being a good friend necessitates that you have to 100% approve of every single decision they make in their lives.

OP posts:
HeffalumpTheFlump · 29/04/2013 17:37

YABU! What on earth does it have to do with you if your friend has a cleaner? What right do you have to judge your friends choices in that manner? Also I really dont like the way you discribe cleaning as low status.. Your whole attitude is jealous and judgemental in my opinion.

curryeater · 29/04/2013 17:37

Unami, if you don't mind me asking, where, very roughly, are you from?

musickeepsmesane · 29/04/2013 17:38

a good friend is non judgemental and supportive. If I thought you were my friend writing this about me I would be so hurt

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 29/04/2013 17:38

Maybe - but thinking she is lazy and too good to pick up after herself doesn't make you a wonderful friend, does it?

TrucksAndDinosaurs · 29/04/2013 17:38

OP if your mate was a man with a male cleaner do you think you'd feel the same?

curryeater · 29/04/2013 17:39

I only ask because I am from the NW, grew up with cleaners and was deeply ashamed of it and never told anyone at school. It was a "thing" that real women were out scrubbing the step in a pinny. It was taken on by the girls as part of maturity. Having another woman mop your kitchen was like wearing a t-shirt saying, "posh, lazy, hate me". Now I live in the SE, and no one gives a shit.

kneedeepindaisies · 29/04/2013 17:43

I stopped reading about half way but based on what I did read YABU.

Why do you care? I would love a cleaner but as I am a cleaner I can't really pay a cleaner to be my cleaner. Smile

Kitchencupboards · 29/04/2013 17:43

YABVU how can you be bothered to even care about your friends cleaning arrangements?. If you don't like the idea of a cleaner, don't have one. I have a cleaner, I had one when I was a SAHM, I had one when I lived with DH before kids and I had one when I was single living alone. I hate cleaning, I have disposable income and I like a clean house. What's the problem?

Unami · 29/04/2013 17:45

That's an interesting reply Beryl

I really don't believe I do see cleaning as 'women's work'. I did not mention in the OP, but I've known male friends sharing flats who hired cleaners, and I thought two young, fit, men with a lot of time with their hands, getting someone in to do the cleaning was a bit much. Like they just wanted to pay their mum to come round and pick up their socks.

I do like my friend! We've been friends since uni, she makes me laugh like no one else, I don't actually hold her having a cleaner against her in any way.

I'm prepared to be convinced that this is just some hang-up I've got, and so far people have convinced me that just because a cleaner is self-employed doesn't mean that their lack of job security, holiday pay is something to be concerned about.

curryeater I am from Glasgow. Living in Edinburgh.

OP posts:
whosiwhatsit · 29/04/2013 17:46

So do men have to clean their own homes in your world to be decent people, or just women?

Schmoozer · 29/04/2013 17:47

Picking up,after yourself is a great leveller ??
Ie your pal needs taking down a peg or two for having the audacity to employ a cleaner

When i am an elderly lady i will not look back and wish i had done more cleaning !!
Good luck to your mate, she has her priorities right,
You sound odd !!

Rosesforrosie · 29/04/2013 17:49

So you feel uncomfortable because you view it as paying for a personal service?

Do you feel uncomfortable with dry cleaners, hairdressers and dental hygienists as well?

Still18atheart · 29/04/2013 17:49

Do you not agree with private cleaners in general op?? Or just the example you gave in your op and the two uni friends.

adeucalione · 29/04/2013 17:51

Well I don't work at all, and all of my children are teens, yet I hire a cleaner to come twice a week. Stick that in your pipe.

I do this because I hate cleaning and, with all the time in the world, I would still rather be doing something else.

I don't see it as a demeaning job, I think they work hard for a fair wage and I wouldn't want to manage without them - they know I appreciate them. If I showed them your OP they would laugh their heads off.

Schmoozer · 29/04/2013 17:52

Beryl, i like your thinking on the matter,
I also wonder what core beliefs this seemingly inert issue is triggering for op ? !

WildThongsHeartString · 29/04/2013 17:52

I am Envy of your friend.

You are daft.

BooCanary · 29/04/2013 17:53

I kind of know where you're coming from OP, even though I think yabu.

I am agonising over getting a cleaner. I can't seem to get my head round it. It feels wrong to me to have someone in my house 'picking up after' me. I don't know why but it does.

DontmindifIdo · 29/04/2013 17:53

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.

Hmm, I hire a cleaner, paying her £11 an hour, so it pays better than a lot of low skilled jobs. It might be low status though, but then as a society we consider cleaning to be low status, if it's done for money or done for free.

As for cleaning being an intimate job, well, as well as hiring a cleaner, I pay another woman to dye my hair for me, even worse - I pay another woman to wax the hair off my fanjo and unclog my pores. A lot of people have problems with having other people have access to those too, but then a beautician and hairdressers aren't seen as so low status, even though they might actually earning less...