AIBU? Cleaner and her child

[Ladyof2022]

I have a cleaner because I am elderly and physically disabled. Current one is about 30 with a child aged four. She answered my advert for someone to clean for 4 hours once a fortnight. She told me she has a 4 year old but his dad has him all day every Friday, so we agreed she would work for me on that day.

She's only worked for me four times. One day she came in for an additional "one-hour special clean" at my request. She asked if it was OK to bring her four year old. I said yes as I did not want to seem unreasonable and she was doing me a favour.

However, I was not happy on three counts. Firstly found it distracting as I was trying to study something academic and I could hear them talking to each other during most of the hour and kept losing my concentration.

Secondly I did not realise how much time she would spend not cleaning but talking to him, sorting him out, explaining something to him, getting him something to amuse him, picking something up for him, telling him not to touch this or that, introducing him to my cat, etc, etc, during all of which of course she was not doing any cleaning.

She also took him to my loo (for a poo, she said) which took her about 5 minutes. I guess altogether seeing to him took up about 1/4 of the time she was here - say 15 minutes of the hour. However, when her hour was up she got her bag and her son and came to me for the full hour's money. After she left, I noticed she had not done all of the tasks we agreed on. I felt a bit irritated that I had paid her an hour for 45 minutes work but I said nothing.

Now she is asking if she can bring him for the whole 4-hour sessions. I want to say absolutely not as I feel she could easily spend 1 hour of it focussed on him and only 3 hrs cleaning and she won't get it all done and she might miss things because she's distracted by having to keep an eye on him, but she'll expect the whole 4 hours pay.

Am I being unreasonable, being mean to a poor single mum?

or

Am I NOT being unreasonable, as she taking the piss expecting me to pay her to look after her own kid?

I’m going to go against the grain, and say I would say ok as long as the agreed jobs are done. So pay for that not for time

You need a new cleaner. If she worked in a shop, office, hospital, factory etc she wouldn't be able to take her child to work with her, so why does she think it's OK when she works for you?

I totally get how hard it is to say things sometimes!

We’ve had our lovely cleaner for two years. For about 18 months, she was mixing up the recycling bin and the general waste bin (emptying the vacuum onto recyclables). Did we say something? Did we fuck. We just “managed” the bins to make sure general waste was always invitingly empty and the recycling bin was brimmed. It’s the British way.

If someone had completed work I hadn't inspected and I'd paid them an extra £2.50 I wouldn't begrudge it, no. I'd take it as a lesson to thoroughly inspect before paying. Unless she opened your purse herself then your analogies are useless. I bet if she'd stayed longer to finish you'd moan she and her son were in your house too long.

"Funnily enough I gave her a gift last time she was here. Something I was about to sell for £20 but on impulse asked her if she'd like it."
Wow, so generous. The best gifts are crap you can't wait to get rid of. You must have saved so much time not having to wait in for pick up/take it out for delivery.

😂😂😂😂 fucking hell. If that’s a ‘privilege’ the bar is in hell.

OP has an informal agreement with a local cleaner whom she pays the going rate. She didn’t do the job she was paid to do because she was distracted by her kid (as was OP). Of course OP is annoyed and doesn’t want a repeat. NBU.

Sounds that it wouldn't work to have the child with her for the long regular cleaning session, but it might be acceptable for the addhoc one hours, if it increases her flexibility?

@TwentyOneTwentyTwo I think you are obsessing a bit about the £2.50.
The difference of opinion isn't really about that one off - the OP was explaining how, when the cleaner had her child there, there were two issues.

1. Was the OP found the noise distracting when she was trying to work. I get that - I don't mind 'white noise' and I quite like music when I am working, but can't listen to the radio because voices are distracting.


2. The Op spent at least 25% of the time not doing the work.

Now, on the one off / hour's clean, yes, that was £3.12 equivalent, or 15mins but the cleaner has now asked if she can bring the child for her 4 hours clean. Even not allowing for the fact the child would be likely to be much more bored and need much more entertaining over a longer period, it means the OP would be paying her 4 hours worth of wages for 3 hours work. Why do you think she should do that ?

@Kite22

"The Op spent at least 25% of the time not doing the work."

You mean the cleaner.

:-)

Agreed. And just add, her travelling all the way and back only for one hours work i.e. £12.50 is not great. She was doing you a favour. Also, you can do very little in one hour cleaning wise if doing a good job, so she prob wouldn't have been finished child or not.

But if you don't agree for this to carry on definitely tell her.

Totally missing the point but friend of mine share a cleaner who is excellent but she is £18 per hour which made me blink in surprise

I understood the OP, I just thought her being annoyed she'd accidentally let a 'poor single mum' get away with an extra £2.50 sounded scroogey.

FWIW yanbu to not have the son during the regular cleaning but that's already well established.

She wants paying to wander around your house for a bit with her child. That's some cheek.

Yes, childcare costs etc etc but that's life, we all get on with it.

I'm disabled too, shame on you to call me drunk and abusive. I can't drink with my meds for a start. I've only questioned your attitude towards the 'poor single mum'. You could have left those bits out of your OP, or admitted it's your fault to pay for work you'd not inspected. But you haven't, you've defended your poor decision making and gone on to insult someone who's disabled.

@puddingandsun

"her travelling all the way and back only for one hours work i.e. £12.50 is not great. She was doing you a favour."

1. She lives almost next door.
2. She had the right to refuse, but agreed eagerly and when she left said not to hesitate to call her for other short jobs.

"you can do very little in one hour cleaning wise if doing a good job, so she prob wouldn't have been finished child or not."

But you, Pudding, don't even know what I asked her to do in that hour so how can you say an hour wasn't long enough?

I'll tell you what it was: sorting out the kitchen, nothing else: washing up, drying and putting away (15 mins); wiping down the worktops and hob and wiping out the microwave (15 mins), vacuuming and mopping the the kitchen floor (15 mins), and sweeping the leaves up in my small patio (15 mins). One hour's work.

@TwentyOneTwentyTwo Bore off. You only came on here looking for someone to pick on and be nasty to.

Pity there is no way to block you from this and my other threads. I shall henceforth be ignoring anything and everything you write on every thread on Mumsnet.

Oh dear another thread where OP starts banding about accusations/ name calling to the PP who doesn't agree with her.
No need for the attitude towards @TwentyOneTwentyTwo

"I'm sorry, that won't work for me. I need to focus on my work and while I was happy for you to bring him for that hour, I discovered that even though he was very well behaved, it was really distracting hearing conversations in the background rather than the soothing sound of the Hoover!"

And just add, her travelling all the way and back only for one hours work i.e. £12.50 is not great.

What, all the way from next door ?

Yep, that is another good way of phrasing it, so thanks for that.

Accusing anyone who disagrees with you/expresses another opinion of being drunk and/or a troll is a very, very bad look, OP.

Don't be so silly Onabegonia. I have no problem with anyone disagreeing with me, that is why I posted this as an "AIBU", which in itself invites disagreement.

The problem I have is with someone trying to paint me as someone who is being nasty to a cleaner when in fact I have been a model client.

The poster was being horrible to me because they get their kicks doing that on random threads.

Have to agree with this.

You have lost all sympathy with your last few posts.

Accusing me of maltreating a cleaner is a very bad look, P.

It's also a downright lie.

Not looking for sympathy. Was simply wanting to know if Mumsnet thinks it is reasonable or not to refuse to let a cleaner bring a child to work.

That's all.

Also wasn't looking to be abused just for employing a cleaner, or falsely accused of maltreating her, or called "mean" or "selfish". All those things are just people picking randomly on bona fide posters in order to abuse them for fun.