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?

I mean the grill is surely quite normal?

Regardless of the disgusting mess left by the employers (and I can well believe it), why is the original post addressed to women, FFS?

Couples employ cleaners mainly, and families, and elderly folk.

I am not much of a fan of Caitlin Moran, but her response to the inherent sexism of the phrase 'women who employ cleaners,' namely that 'the black sticky stuff that coats the banister does not come out of women's vaginas', was spot on.

they should make their kids help out

Yeah, that's going to work with five-year-olds.

called them homophobic for pointing out as a child free man it wasn’t really his place to be lecturing about this.

What's him being child-free and male got to do with him being homosexual? Plenty of homosexual and bisexual people have children and plenty of heterosexual people are child-free. He's trying to play the gay card to avoid accountability for his utter misogymy (and it's not the first time he has done it) and it is so transparently obvious what he is doing.

£15 an hour here. Not London.

No appliances, thats an extra surely?

She doesn't change beds, or wash clothes or iron, which i believe some cleaners do.
3 bedrooms and an offoce she doesn't do either, at our request

She cleans 1 large bedroom, 3 bathrooms and 2 front rooms, large dinning room, large kitchen and the utility as well as wood floors throughout the hall way

But its mostly dusting to be honest
We clean up after ourselves, bleach toilets daily, etc...
Would never leave "mess" on purpose for her.

Some stories you hear are shocking though..

When i was a nanny, the families all had cleaners, me and the kids' still tidied up, didn't take advantage, but seen people take advantage of their cleaners

We always clean up before our cleaner comes - though once, with white-hot shame, I realised in the middle of the day in the office, far from home, that I'd left a used condom right on top of the bathroom bin because I'd intended to empty the bin that morning before she came and didn't. So maybe I'm one of the awful women in the tweets.

I will note, though, that I can't believe the amount of literal shit and filth that domestic cleaners encounter is higher than in offices and public spaces, yet no one is made to feel awful about the fact that someone cleans their office, or like this is exploitative.

I wouldn't leave a loo mess but I bet they are gross in pubs etc.
As for 'testing' by leaving money around - how does she know she's being tested, we leave little bits n bobs of cash around - seems as though SHE has the suspicious mind. 'Following her around' - erm maybe the woman just wanted to go into HER OWN ROOMS when the cleaner was there? Is that not allowed? In case you upset the cleaner by your presence? Sounds as though this cleaner is in the wrong job - and I would absolutely leave my toast crumbs for the cleaner to hoover up - thats the job she's employed to do ffs.

I was a cleaner years ago.
I stopped because of the grime left for me to clean up.
Underwear left on bedroom floors.
Skid marks cemented to the loo.
Barely wrapped bloody tampon left on the side of a sink (that was the straw that broke the camel’s back).

At its peak I cleaned for 5 people per week. 2 of them it was general dusting, hoovering and cleaning the bathrooms.
The other three were grim. The expectations they had of me showed massive entitlement, at a time when I was going through a rough financial time and didn’t feel I could quit.

I would clean again if I had to, but I’m now older and wiser and not afraid to point out that I’m not going to deal with dirty pants and bodily fluids.

I have been a cleaner, and once had to deal with a giant turd that had been done on top of a toilet seat (while down) and then the seat had been put back up (pushing it across the back and under). I like to think the person that lifted the seat didn't realise it was there, but yes it still had to be cleaned.

3 bedrooms and an offoce she doesn't do either, at our request

She cleans 1 large bedroom, 3 bathrooms and 2 front rooms, large dinning room, large kitchen and the utility as well as wood floors throughout the hall way

Off-topic, but your house is massive.

I will note, though, that I can't believe the amount of literal shit and filth that domestic cleaners encounter is higher than in offices and public spaces, yet no one is made to feel awful about the fact that someone cleans their office, or like this is exploitative.

This. It's as if it's OK to hire someone to clean workplaces, which are traditionally the domain of men, but heaven forbid that someone be hired to clean houses, which are traditionally the domain of women. The sexism is glaring.

can't believe the amount of literal shit and filth that domestic cleaners encounter is higher than in offices and public spaces

I've cleaned factories and shops. I've also lived in shared accommodation. People are far more disgusting at work, where they don't live, than they are in their own homes.

I don't have a cleaner. But I'm baffled why people clean before the cleaner comes - like what's the point of hiring someone to do your cleaning, if you're going to clean all the horrible bits yourself and just leave them a bit of light dusting?

Like what's the point of having a cleaner at all in that case?

I don't see what the big deal is or why a cleaner would shriek at having to clean skid marks? Particularly when acc to a pp, they can be paid £15 an hour!

I worked as a cleaner in a kids holidays camp as a student and got paid a damn sight less than that and I didn't just have to clean the odd skid mark, I had to clean rows of loos weed all over and pooed all over by teenage boys.

I didn't complain - my choice to take the job.

Seriously, it's good money. It's cleaning. It's unskilled work.

Why do they expect to not be given the dirty work?

I got the money test, and no I'm not paranoid. Picture this situation, I am on the landing, there is a small table with an ornament on it. The male in the house is in one of the rooms just beside where I am working. I lift the ornament to polish table. There is a pound coin sitting. I lift it and set on the window sill to my left. I am in the middle of polishing when the man comes out of room. As the landing is narrow, I step sideways to let him past. Immediately he looks at the table surface then underneath the table on the floor. He's looking and moving fast as if he's desperately trying to locate something. He then glances to the windowsill, sees where the coin is sitting and leaves. The next week, under the same ornament is a £2 coin. I cleaned the table as before and put the coin back under. The following week was a fiver folded up neatly. I had enough of the man's stupid games when they started leaving no pay and every time I had to go and ask to be paid. On one occasion I had run over my time by a few minutes, I was just getting the last few feet of floor washed, the man left my money on the hall table. He needed change , and as I reached into my bag sitting on the same table to get change for him, he roared 'you're not allowed to stop working'. I never went back.

People DONT clean before the cleaner comes. Most TIDY before the cleaner is due.

So for those who still don't understand, and there seems to be a lot on this thread, clients pick up and put away so that the cleaner can CLEAN.

If you want the cleaner to tidy beforehand, ie pick up after you, then you pay for this extra time.

I will tidy and clean, no problem, but do not expect any cleaner to come into a tip, and have to pick up everything off floors and THEN start cleaning all within very little time.

I don't have a cleaner. But I'm baffled why people clean before the cleaner comes

I don't think they clean so much as tidy up the stuff they don't want the cleaner to have to work around. That is the impression I have gotten from what has been said.

Confusedbuttheyho
I am in Gig Harbor Washington, US. I converted dollars to pounds.

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

I’m assuming by ‘she's probably one of you‘ part of your comment, you mean an MN member who hires a professional domestic cleaner?

If so, I’m interested to know if you’ve posited this question on a male dominated forum, and what their response was. Did they admit to ‘it’?

Or have you assumed that it’s only women hiring women to clean up for women, who have done “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.”

I was a cleaner years ago when I was pregnant with my first and needed to save for a deposit. We're in London where you're lucky to get moved into anywhere privately rented for less than a few thousand so I was working my arse off doing two jobs. I was self employed but worked through an agency and my main jobs were offices/canteen/toilets belonging to construction companies.

They took the absolute mick.

Skid marks left in the toilet despite there being brushes by the loo within reach. This was a daily occurrence and I wonder if it was deliberate.

Half eaten meals left at the tables in the canteen on a daily basis. Newspapers strewn everywhere. Literally pages all over the room.

They'd trapse in and out in muddy boots whilst i was trying to mop the floor. The cook in the canteen was responsible for cleaning the appliances but never bothered, so that was left to me and was always thick with grease and oil.

I was then chastised for not dusting on top of a hand towel dispenser that was well out of my reach. I'm 5"2, was heavily pregnant and would have needed to climb on something to even see up there. Somebody was clearly looking for faults and nit picking. I was made to feel like a lowly nobody and remember feeling very looked down upon by the suited and booted lot in the upper offices.

I would never do that job again if I were paid double, and £10 an hour wasn't bad back then.

It served a purpose at the time but balls to that.

So they expected their clients to clean before they came to clean?

If the alternative is to live surrounded by your own week-old puke, the sight of your own week old skidmarks, pubes floating in the air every time you open a window, would you not consider cleaning it? Does self respect come into it?

Do people not mind the smells or sights of all that? If the answer is No, then why hire a cleaner?

And a George Foreman grill needs to be cleaned after it is used, not a week later. Preferably while it is still warm from use. It takes a lot longer to clean if it is left, or if it is used a few times with no cleaning in between.

Addressing someone else's point about me bringing up class in relation to cleaning (can't find the post to respond personally sorry). I'm not sure why I did really! I think it's because an obvious certain amount of affluence and having a predisposition to owning 'nice things' is so stark in comparison to the filth I'm left to deal with it somehow does feel relevant. I think too it's because if a person I worked for was clearly struggling with basic life stuff I really wouldn't judge, but I do judge the clients who if are functional enough to hold down good jobs, throw parties, shop for beautiful things to enhance their home/supplement their hobbies etc and yet can't be fucked to flush their own poo before I come over or to shave their beards just in the general direction of the toilet and leave hundreds of tiny beard hairs mixed with a load of pubes then I sort of feel there is a correlation. Its disrespect i struggle with in this job. I actually thoroughly enjoy a hapless domestic case who needs and is appreciative of my work. I LOVE it when someone's home is a bit of a disaster (provided there's a level of respect in how I'm spoken to, that loos are flushed, that there aren't grim scenes of bodily mess unless it can't be helped for disability/age reasons). I get to swoop in and do such a satisfying job. It's the clients that expect miracles for peanuts I can't stand. One fine example is a client who after a year discovered I was quite accomplished/known in another field, related to their own and we shared several contacts. Suddenly the general standard of their house shot up. Funny that.

Mmm, the conclusion I'm coming to is that some people are just generally disgusting. I mean, even if I wanted to leave vomit for my cleaner to clean, there's no way that I could leave it lying around for more than about 15 seconds without wanting to puke myself! While apparently others have a more casual approach. eg the man and the dental floss - I can EASILY imagine myself leaving something like that lying around (I do it with cotton pads) but then, the next time I come into the bathroom, I'd notice, think, 'ick" and throw it away.

I feel no guilt asking my cleaner (when I had one) to clean, but at the same time, we don't live in filth on a day to day basis.

The vomit situation is not an every day thing. I remember my flatmate vomiting all around the sink and then falling back in to bed. When 24 hours later I asked her to clean up the horror, she looked at me like I should have cleaned it up for her! (She was so posh, I don't know if that had anything to do with it, or if she thought I could have done it because she was sick, she wouldn't have done it for me though).

But yeh, the dental floss, I can see that, and it's not that disgusting, if there is no need for cleaning then there would be no cleaner to see the mess in the first place. The need for the cleaner in the first place is what creates the job opportunity!

Cleaners are usually young these days, when I was a child, cleaners were older ladies but these days they tend to be young women from abroad and so they don't have the pragmatism of the older women who just think, right, this gets me out of a spot, i can fit it around my own schedule, and doing cleaning for 3 hours a week doesn' t change my identity. But that is maturity.

So if once in a while you have to clean up vomit, well, suck it up. I have never even worked as a cleaner and I've cleaned up shit (when I worked in a fast food restaurant). Also cleaned up vomit come to think of it when I was volunteering in a care home.

It wasn't pleasant but I didn't think about it afterwards.

I'm a cleaner and I can honestly tell you this is not the case!!
Before Covid I had 30 homes and 2 businesses (40 hrs a week) I took pride in my job and often did so much more than needed because I am a generally helpful caring person. I'd move laundry up and down cellar steps for a lady who struggled with her mobility. She didn't ask but I'd noticed it was a struggle and helped. She appreciated it.
After lockdown I realised an elderly couple were more vulnerable. In my own time I shop for them and refuse to charge them for my time even though I've temporarily lost 27 households and the businesses are closed!
The point of me entering your home to clean is to clean, I wouldnt expect you to clean first!

We have teams of people and prefer that to one cleaner after my many dodgy experiences. One said she prefers it when house quite grimy as she gets more job satisfaction! I do a tidy up and check the loos are flushed scrubbed and bleached and but the rest is for them to do surely?

poster MsTSwift

No, the whole point is to pay someone to clean the loo not do it myself.

Also - Would a man do this, do you think?

Jackdaw - off topic but I don’t get this...what is this sticky stuff?

‘the black sticky stuff that coats the banister does not come out of women's vaginas', was spot on.

(Re Caitlin Moran )