WIBU to secretly hire a cleaner?

[Uhplistrailer]

I really think we need one, but after bringing it up with DP this morning, his reaction was a definite ‘No, don’t be so ridiculous!’.

DP works full time and is out of the house from 8 until 6. I work from 8 until 4 weekdays as a childminder (except today! Poorly children). When I’m working, I can usually manage to do a load of washing, a hoover around the living room and kitchen and to keep the kitchen fairly tidy. I cook most nights and generally do all of the rest of the housework and day to day upkeep of the house. DP is pretty good. He gets the baby dressed in the morning and does bath and bed at night while I’m cooking our dinner. He washes the car about once a month and if I ask him to do something like clean the bathroom, it’ll get done within a few days. Whoever cooks, doesn’t clean, so most evenings I’d like him to put the dinner stuff in the dishwasher and tidy the kitchen (I try to tidy as I go when I cook), but most mornings I come down the the kitchen is left in a bit of a state. Fine, but it adds another 10 minutes housework for me. Time I think I should be with the children.

I have lots of paperwork- I should be doing about 45 mins a day (but invariably don’t find the time) and I’ll be taking on 2 more mindees soon so my workload will be increasing.

Our weekends are BUSY and it’s not unusual for us to be away from the house all weekend. Neither of us really want to be cleaning at the weekends, but as I work from home, I need to ensure that everything is kept safe and clean. I'm currently getting up 2 hours earlier than everyone else to make sure things get done and even then the parts of the house i don't use for childcare usually end up being left.

I’d like to get someone in once a week for 2 hours to hoover all 3 levels, mop the floors and clean the bathrooms. Then with any extra time, clean some windows, wipe down the cooker etc.

We have a fairly modest income (Just over 20,000) and whilst being 30 quid down a week wouldn’t be ideal, we wouldn’t be going without.

Would hiring a secret cleaner be a spectacularly dishonest and stupid idea?

OP I do wonder if you also need to cut your cloth a bit in your cleaning standards. You have 10 extra hours a week by getting up early - does that all need to be done? And frankly 2 hours or so per week of cleaning are not going to make much of a dent in that 10 hours.

You def need to engage your DH in the solution but identifying some corners to cut might need to be part of the solution. And it's a lot cheaper than a cleaner!

YABU to do it in secret but then I would disagree with it being done during the day as parents are paying you to childmind not clean your home.

Can't you do an hour before starting and a little after if needed. 8-4 is not a long working day.

So he gets to not do the work and veto a cleaner? So his position is that you need to continue doing it all?

Personally, I'd give him a list of jobs and let him know that if he can't manage them you will be getting a cleaner.

Does he clean his office at the end of every day? Your home is your business and it has to be clean to comply with regulations. It's just not fair of him to expect you to do that yourself when he doesn't clean his office.

Personally, I'd give him a list of jobs and let him know that if he can't manage them you will be getting a cleaner.

I like your style Apocalypse

My childminder has a cleaner. She usually takes the kids out while the cleaner is there. It is a legitimate business expense. Presumably you buy food and incur other expenses for your mindees? I would put it to im that it is something you need to do to take on the new mindees. If he doesnt want the cleaner in the 'personal' rooms thats fine, he can propose an alternative.

As a CM you can put through at least part of the cost of a cleaner as a business expense, so if you usually earn enough to pay tax, that amount at least will be tax free.

Even if you don't earn that much, I think that all the extra wear and tear your house gets through having extra DCs around means that you can totally justify paying someone else to clean so that you don't spend all your free time doing it. If you say that it's coming out of your CM budget then your H doesn't have any say in it and you can pay for it the same way you would pay for craft materials or a farm visit etc, out of the money you earn from looking after the dcs who benefit.

You've tried roping in DH but he hasn't stepped up and even so, if he needs telling rather than getting on with it, it just becomes one more chore for you, having to point out what, when, how etc. and then come across as the 'nag' if he forgets or doesn't do it and you have to remind him.

Fwiw, I am in a similar situation, but a single mum trying to rope in the DCs and a non-resident DP to help me out when they're around. I tried a cleaner to take the pressure off. As it turned out I resented paying someone else to do a less thorough job than I would do myself even though I never do it myself and it always happened that while she was here I wasn't especially busy and felt guilty! I also resented the fact that still nobody else helped out with the pre-cleaner tidy up!

However, since stopping the cleaner my house is so much messier and dirtier because I told myself I would do it on a set day to make sure it happens, but there's always MN something more interesting to do! I'd say get a cleaner, not secretly, but as a business expense that is nothing to do with your H.

My Mum hired a cleaner secretly for at least a year or so until my Dad found out. I dont remember him being that cross but he might have been (I was quite young at the time).

She paid for it out of her own money, and they both worked full time, and she did all cleaning / food shopping & cooking.

They carried on having a cleaner for years and have just stopped as are dropping days at work and due to retire this year.

One idea that we used was to get the cleaner to do upstairs / downstairs on alternate weeks. She did kitchen every week. She could do that in 2 hrs and we paid her £20.