To feel sad & horrified by these comments from a former cleaner

[strivingtosucceed]

twitter.com/TabitaSurge/status/1260647664565121027

The lady in the tweets is a former cleaner who has spoken about the issues she had during her time as a cleaner. She's spoken of horrific things like clients leaving, sick, skid marks and crusted over appliances for her to clean. Others have also spoken about being 'tested' with money left out and casually followed about the house.

Judging by the amount of people who have cleaners on this board, she's probably one of you. Would anyone admit to it though?

Ive never had a cleaner, but that woman sounds awful, and incredibly unprofessional. Maybe she has had some rubbish clients, but hasn’t everyone? Rubbish clients in her job just present themselves in a way that is relevant to her job, same as everyone else.

Can’t understand how she thinks she should be paid by her clients for not doing anything. It’s nice when people are able to and have done, but it shouldn’t be expected, that just rude.

I used to go round to someone’s house a lot for work (they had a home office) and their cleaner was often around when I was there, the thing they did that I could not get my head around was leave their dirty dishes on top of the dishwasher- so the cleaner had to put them in. They also never did even rudimentary crumb removal, so they kitchen was a real sticky mess for about 4 days a week.

I don’t know if I would have been pissed off about Having to put dishes In the dishwasher as a cleaner or just thought - more fool you for paying me to Do this.

I am a professional cleaner & seen it all, I don't care what I have to clean really & done some horrendous jobs. I like to keep my customers happy, make their life easier & go the extra mile. As long as I am getting my hourly rate & you don't talk down to me or are rude (in which case I would leave anyway as plenty of work for good cleaners like me) i really don't care & I certainly wouldn't have the contempt for her customers this cleaner does. We are not all like that!

People are so gruesome. I'd be embarrassed if a cleaner came over and saw skid marks on the bog or whatever.

Bodily fluids, no, of course not. That's disrespectful.

However, I have fired a cleaner for being precious before. To be brutally honest: I don't care that you "don't do windows or fridges". If you'd advertised that, I wouldn't have hired you. As far as I'm concerned, you telling me this after the fact is a breach of contract on your part.

I love my current cleaner, though. And, no, I wouldn't expect her to deal with skid marks. She does windows and fridges. She also does get a generous Christmas Bonus every year.

If I’d been sick on the floor I wouldn’t leave it for a cleaner; who would? But I’m not going to check my toilet bowl for stray pubes before someone I’m actually paying to clean arrives. I do find it bizarre that there are some people who think a cleaner should have as little work to do as possible.

I’m not cleaning for a cleaner - that’s pointless. It’s always tidy for them though.

I’ve also had a cleaner ranting at me that that I’d leave £5 on the side ‘to test them’. No, there was just a fiver lying around and she was asked not to come back again.

I know someone who worked as a cleaner in a factory almost daily there was shit, used tampons etc left in showers. When they spoke to their boss they were told well that's your job. It was a food factory too.

"I despised every last one of you"?

Either this cleaner was incredibly unlucky in her clients and they ALL left pubes and £5 notes strewn around their houses (interesting decor choice), or else she has a bit of a problem herself.

I once found a whole shite on the floor.

There was a smallish brown blob, which could have been chocolate, or mud. Then a bigger splat, which looked suspicipusly like poo. But I was convinced it had to be something else, cos who would leave that on the floor? Two steps later, then was a lovely brown full poo.

On carpet, too. No pets. Classy.

REALLY hope they had kids @PheasantPlucker1 ?

Our cleaners are employed by an agency (who have furloughed them for now) and they work in teams of 2 or 3. I don’t think they should have to move our personal belongings around at all. I leave the house tidy, put toothbrushes in the bathroom cabinet. They offer a bedding change facility but I really can’t bring myself to ask someone else to handle our dirty sheets. I think I feel guilty that I can’t actually do it all myself and it makes me feel hypersensitive to any sense that I might be treating someone disrespectfully.

I once had an agency complain to me because there was a lump of cat shit on the utility room floor when the cleaners called. It hadn’t been there when I left the house that morning so obviously the cat had pooed since then and kicked it over the side of the litter tray. The cleaner had left it lying on the floor and carefully swept and mopped around it!

I think the poo, sick etc. are taking the piss, UNLESS the client was disabled and unable to deal with it. However, a George Foreman grill? I don't see the issue, surely if you're paying someone to clean then you can reasonable expect them to scrub a grill once a week? Sounds like that woman was in the wrong job, and that she despised all her clients.

It's interesting how she only blames the female clients as if cleaning is solely a woman's responsibility.

Anything beyond a quick wipe down would make me wonder what the point of it was - if I was going to get the scrubbing brush out myself, why pay for someone else to wipe around after me? That's a two minute easy job I do myself. The actualy cleaning is what I pay the cleaner for.

Exactly! Surely the point is that the cleaner does the deep clean, meaning I as the client can just quickly wipe over the worktop in between. If it’s the other way around, what the hell am I paying for?

This is so stupid. She hates her customers? Get a different job then! Its their JOB! Yes, shit and vomit left around is disgusting and shouldnt be done. But what is all this crap about tidying before a cleaner comes? What is the fing point in having a cleaner then!? Must be a mumsnet thing, hopefully.

I love my cleaner. She picks up, irons, changes sheets, saves the crusty pots after my cooking disasters and once even helped the cat to give birth. There might have been a skid mark or two to clean - cannot always control that with two small children. She is a god send and I can't wait to have her back.

It's interesting how she only blames the female clients hmm as if cleaning is solely a woman's responsibility.

Yep - she goes on in another tweet to say men are the filthiest, but it’s sad and infuriating that the first instinct is simply to despise the women!

I'm a professional cleaner and I've always felt valued and appreciated by most of my clients.
I love my job and can't wait to get stuck in again.
I'd never speak so badly about my clients, I think it's appalling what the Twitter person has said.

I’ve seen some of this argument on Twitter. It’s only women getting vilified for having cleaners. This particular former cleaner despises all the ‘ladies’ who employed her. Clearly men have no responsibility for cleaning whatsoever; it’s a woman’s job whether she does it herself or hires another woman to do it. Men are completely absent from the whole discussion.

Owen Jones’ original inflammatory tweet castigated people for having cleaners in when they ‘certainly have the time’ to clean their own house right now. Proving he hasn’t given a second’s thought to all the many people for whom lockdown means they have a lot less time because they have children. Or key workers who are still going out full time.

I don’t have a cleaner. If I did, then yes I would pay them to stay at home right now. But what I can’t stand about Twitter is the rush to label everyone who thinks slightly differently to you as ‘a complete disgrace’ (in Jones’ tweet) or someone who deserves a brick through their window.

I’m capable of understanding why some people might have cleaners in their homes right now. I can’t understand why all the vitriol and condemnation around the whole issue is being directed exclusively at middle class women. If a household employs a cleaner, it is not just the woman’s responsibility! The man in the household is equally responsible! The underlying assumption in it all is that cleaning is the woman’s job. It’s exasperating.

If they have a pet, the pet may have vomited. If they have childreb skid marks could be from them and parents didnt Realise.
You arent dusting a museum or antique shop. People are filthy and messy and you need to have a strong stomach to clean after other people. Sometimes people forget its cleaner day and leave in a rush.

I dont and wouldnt have a cleaner because i dont trust them and its just too personal plus i know they will cut corners. I feel so embarrassed to have someone clean after me when im healthy. I think if i was ill or just had a baby i would consider it for some rooms only but even then feels wrong.

The cleaner's job is to do things like hoovering, dusting, scrubbing tiles, giving the kitchen and bathroom a good going over with bleach.

Hair and bodily fluids are the responsibility of the person whose body they came from (or their parent, in the case of a young child).

See why would i tidy up for the cleaner i might as well do it myself. I dont think leaving a grill to be cleaned is unreasonable. I dont think Tabitha McIntire was cut out to clean after other people.

@Impropriety I think you missed the point of the twitter debate. OJ said that it was unreasonable to use a cleaner now, particularly as we all had more free time than usual to clean - feminists pointed out that that was probably true for him (gay man, no kids) but was absolutely not true for the majority of women with kids, trying to juggle homeschooling, cleaning and working. It was especially annoying the number of people (including women) who also blamed women for not getting their kids/husbands to do the cleaning! What a surprise, always a woman's fault.

As for people being disgusting, this is sad but not surprising. You only have to think of the state of public toilets to realise a lot of people are fundamentally disgusting.

@Impropriety I think you’re sanitising what Owen Jones said. He implied people (and let’s be honest it’s overwhelmingly women this applies to) have plenty of time to clean their houses during lockdown, ignoring them fact that they’re trying to work full time and homeschool and are busier than ever. Then when this was pointed out to him he told people that they should make their kids help out, and called them homophobic for pointing out as a child free man it wasn’t really his place to be lecturing about this.

I agree about paying cleaners during lockdown - I am - but as ever Owen Jones has a massive blind spot when it comes to the perspective of women.