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.

Brilliant offending people who have cleaners, cleaners holding those menial positions and totally misunderstanding salaried positions all in one post.

Bravo

And p.s. your post is a bit insulting to cleaners as well. It is perfectly respectable honest work that suits a lot of people's circumstances.

YABU I would do the same if I could afford it. Twice a week for a 2 bed flat and a deep clean once a month does seem a bit OCD.

property I am really interested to know why you think cleaners are exploited. I certainly do not feel exploited, I get paid a decent rate to do a job, I know I am valued by my customers as they regularly tell me. The hours totally fit around my family and I can pick and choose my customers.

Why are people pretending cleaning is not 'low' status, smacks of reassuring your own conscience.

curryeater I am from Glasgow. Living in Edinburgh.

Fucking hell! I'm from Lanarkshire, living in Glasgow, and I've never heard such views expressed by anyone under the age of 75 outside of Blantyre. I would never have pegged you for a Weegie!

whosi especially men! I don't think this is a gender issue. If anything, it bothers me that most domestic cleaners are women. If it was such a great gig then I reckon more men would be in on it.

still and Schmoozer I don't really see anything wrong with people having a private cleaner if they need one, like if they are really busy/overstretched/stressed/old/unwell If a cleaner helps you cope with things, then great. I just don't see why my friend feels the need to get a cleaner when it's just her in the flat and she's not that busy. Why would you want someone to clean your bathroom sink and empty your bedroom bin if you could easily do it yourself.

Roses do I feel uncomfortable with personal services? That's an interesting question, and I would say yes, slightly. I don't really like to have someone cleaning my teeth or waxing my legs. I doubt many of us do. But a lot of these personal services require special training and equipment. I don't really think that giving your toilet seat a once over does.

Some posters have argued that cleaning is a skilled job, and that some people have a special talent for it. Other posters have said that their cleaners have a mild LD and it's the only job open to them. I guess both are potentially true...but it's slightly confusing, in terms of working out skill/opportunity.

Also, I absolutely mean no disrespect, nor do I have any snobbish feelings towards cleaners themselves. Just maybe a teeny wee bit of disrespect for some people who hire them. But as others have been so keen to remind me, no one gives a toss what I think.

If cleaning is low status so is being a SAHM.
Neither my cleaner or I feel particularly oppressed today though; we both chose these roles and it's what we do right now.

You asked if you are being unreasonable, and the consensus is that you are. You should accept that for the many, many reasons given. If you weren't prepared to accept the response why did you ask the question?

Yabu

As a cleaner myself, I could be massively offended about what a low opinion you have of me, but luckily I know you are being sterile typical and narrow minded. I used to be a bank manager, and did very well at it, but this suits my life style at the moment. I have insurance just like your 'skilled' window cleaners, I an very valued by my clients, I earned nearly double the minimum wage. On the plus side, no I don't get holiday pay but I also don't have to fit into someone else's holiday tots, be restricted by limits to time off, I can choose my hours, increasing or decreasing when my circumstances change, so please don't feel that you friend is using some lowly service, if she is happy with who she is using , they are worth their weight

YABU. But it's not a new argument. For instance, Barbara Ehrenreich makes essentially the same point in her book Nickel and Dimed (a terrific read, BTW, all about Ehrenreich's undercover experiences working at low-paying jobs and attempting to survive on the pittance she earned). She writes that she had never hired a cleaner because she didn't want to have the kind of relationship with someone in which that person cleaned her toilets. She seemed to indicate there was something shameful about that.

I disagree with Ehrenreich and with you. I think we have been conditioned to believe that it is fine to outsource certain kinds of jobs but not others. Unsurprisingly, the jobs we are "supposed" to do ourselves tend to be the ones that have been traditionally performed by women (e.g., cleaning, childcare, etc). It isn't coincidental that we have these associations. It's part of the hierarchy of values in the general culture.

I have absolutely no disrespect for cleaners. None.

I genuinely don't see what's wrong with paying someone to do a job you don't want to do yourself. If they didn't want to do it, they wouldn't do it.

I didn't say anything about your friend hiring a cleaner because she is too busy, but that is my reason. Well, that and I don't particularly like cleaning! In some ways I would rather clean for myself because I would be more thorough in certain areas or do things certain ways, but on balance, having a cleaner makes my life run a lot more smoothly than it otherwise would so I can put up with a few things not being done as I would do them.

Cleaners do not have job security and the perks of being an employee like holiday pay, but they are, on the whole reasonably well-paid in comparison to other unskilled workers and well-treated. My cleaner has the flexibility to change days when needed, bring her youngest with her during the school holidays if she needs to, come at any time during the working day. I pay her when we go on holiday but not when she does. I give her a Xmas bonus. She is certainly not someone to feel sorry for!

Re. skill of cleaning- believe it or not NOT everybody can clean. I used to work as a Housekeeper in hotels and the amount of people that did not last more than a day or two was unbelievable because they just were not good enough at cleaning.

Oh dear, really? Get a life.

OP, every day we are paying people to do stuff we could do ourselves - drive us in taxis, make food for us, grow food for us, make clothes for us. Why use a Hoover when you could go down on your hands and knees and sweep up with a twiggy broom you have made yourself?

Cleaning is just another service you can, if you want, contract out to a third party for a mutually agreeable sum of money. You sound a bit Calvinistic - there is nothing intrinsically worthier in sweeping up your own mess than paying someone (a decent amount) to do it for you.

tomato I'm totally listening to, and considering people's responses. I have already begun to change my mind about a number of factors around this issue.

pumkin I don't get it. Are these views odd from Glasgow. What's up with Blantyre? I'd have expected more people from SE England to approve of having a cleaner, for some reason.

Kitchen that's really interesting, thanks. I'd like to read the Ehrenreich, and consider your perspective too. But I'm not yet convinced this is a gender issue. I think my reservations about domestic cleaning are probably more to do with the fact that they clean private, intimate areas.

SAHM is not paid work and it depends on what you see that role as encompassing. I don't see SAHM as 'housewife', I.e unpaid cleaner. Being a SAHP around here is definitely not seen as low status as you have to be able to afford to do it. The 'choice' in deciding on being a cleaner is definitely open to debate.

Er..I don't clean anybody's private intimate areas!

'no one gives a toss what I think'

You got that right

I have a lady who does my ironing. I am a sahm (gasp) with dc at school (double gasp). I pay her to do something I loathe because I'm lucky enough to be able to. And if I didn't, it would make no difference to her because she'd replace me with one of the many people on her waiting list.

I love this sort of op. Oh it's ok to do it if x,y,z, applies but not a,b,c. You make the rules regarding the criteria?

I consider the bits of the house I have washed in, slept in, thrown my dirty tissues in to be private/intimate iyswim

I am off to a pub quiz for now - not being rude for not replying.

Thanks to everyone who has responded, especially those of you who have picked away at what exactly my issues might be here, and those of you who have given me fresh perspectives.

I know all of this has been said before but you are being offensive, patronising and ridiculous. That you assume cleaning work is demeaning is so offensive. Why isn't it on the same level as gardening or window cleaning for you? You've said those involve specialist equipment but is that all that sets it apart? A lawn mower? A bucket? Window Cleaning in particular is still cleaning that someone doesn't have time for. I really think there's some inherent sexism in what you believe. Gardeners and window cleaners are usually male (IME). Why do you feel those jobs have value?

You seem to think cleaning is demeaning and worthless but I can't imagine many cleaners feel that way.

Your assumption that they work cash in hand (committing benefit fraud?) is also offensive. Why wouldn't a cleaner take pride in their work and be professional?