I posted a thread on here a few weeks ago, detailing my suspicions that my cleaner was stealing from me. I thought she might have been going through my wallet as I was missing a sum of money the day after going to the cash machine (not for the first time, I noticed it when I had taken out a large amount to pay for something specific) and separately noticed that a five-pound note was missing on the same day from the coin bowl we keep by the door - the one my husband empties his pockets into in the evenings.
What I did: let her know that I had noticed some money missing and asked her to please keep an eye out (I was very embarrassed and she has very little English so I'm not sure how much got through). Started paying her by bank transfer and stopped keeping cash in my wallet. Forgot about it for a little while.
Last week my husband came home from work and asked me if I'd taken money from the coin bowl. It's usually small change or a couple of quid in there but he had put £10 in pound coins in there and forgot to put it back in his pocket that morning. Gone. This week I emptied the little bowl of pound coins - I didn't count the whole lot of small change left behind, mostly coppers, but noted that there were four 50pence coins. Now gone.
So yes, she's pocketing the change. It can't go on, she doesn't have enough English to confront satisfactorily (and she has a key until next week when she goes away and the agency will take it to send me a replacement cleaner). She's warm-hearted and very very fond of my baby son. We are gutted at the thought that we may be about to ruin her life over £2, because she will lose her job. She's also a bloody good cleaner; I am not, and the replacements who have come from the same agency before were terrible. I don't care about £2 here or there. I do care when it adds up to £5 or £10 a week, and I do care that someone thinks they can help themselves.
Is there any way out of this? WWYD?