Hi all
I am a cleaner and considering dropping a client I have had for over a year because of the worsening conditions of her house. I go to her 6 hours one week to clean/tidy and 2 hours the other week just to tidy. The house has always been very unkept, meaning there is mess EVERYWHERE and I know she struggles. I have always been happy to help tidy but it has taken a turn in the past 3 months and there are issues I’m finding it hard to ignore and I’m beginning to dread the job.
1. There are dirty nappies and bed pads all over her bedroom and the kids’ room. I pick up about 10 each time and the smell of urine in the kids’ room is so strong.
2. There are a crazy amount of half drunk cups of coffee all over the house and plates of food, many are mouldy by the time I visit!
3. All 4 toilets are constantly unflushed and covered in hardened skids. I understand that I am a cleaner but this is like the toilet brush hasn’t been touched in 2 weeks. I understand the odd wee or little skid left sometimes, we are all human and she has children. But surely it shouldn’t be left like this for weeks? Sometimes there are tampons and blood in/on the toilet too.
4. She rarely changes the bedsheets and I have taken it upon myself to start doing it recently. Weirdly, she does her own more often than the children’s. I sometimes go to change them and she stops me, saying she’ll do it herself, but she never does. She leaves it about 2 months between changes unless I can do it. Her 3 year old girl doesn’t have a pillow case on her pillow and it is covered in yellow sweat stains. She doesn’t even have a flat sheet on the mattress and instead sleeps on the same fleece blanket. I changed the sheets recently with her permission and her children were ridiculously excited about it, is this normal?
5. The sink is constantly full of food and stinks. I have to clean out the plug hole every 2 weeks with baking soda as she must be pushing all the food down there
6. The bedroom floors are covered in clothes and I have to spend ages sorting through clean/dirty because I can’t put them together. The rest of the house is always strewn with clothes too.
7. This isn’t relevant to cleaning but she also has a long hair cat that is extremely matted and looks like it has an eye infection. The cat is lovely and follows me around and I would love to be able to take it to the groomers to make it more comfortable. I can’t say anything in case I offend her…
This is not a deprived family. Her and her husband both work from home for a tech company and have a 5 bed house with 2 new BMWs on the drive.
Is this normal, do some people live like this? I have never had another client who does anything like this. I grew up in a messy house but it was always generally clean and having pillow/mattress protectors and my sheets changed every 2 weeks was normal. She also has her 8 year old boy and 3 year old girl sharing the same small bedroom, when she has 3 unused spare rooms. Do lots of people do this? Im not a parent myself. Am I being nosey and sensitive to being concerned about all this?
We get on very well, almost to a friend level, and always have personal catch-ups when I go. We have spoken openly about the disorganisation and chaos in the house and I have offered to come multiple times to help declutter and organise outside of my usual hours. Whenever she books me for this, she cancels last minute. I have tried to organise small areas if I ever have extra time but it never stays that way so I have given up.
In conversation, I told her about my mum’s ADHD diagnosis which has helped her to keep on top of things. She seemed to identify with it and later asked me about the process of getting assessed. She said she would look into an assessment but hasn’t mentioned it since. I don’t want to pry and ask again as I don’t want her to think I’m diagnosing her but I am sure she is struggling with something mentally.
I guess my issue is that I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle and I am the one holding the house together, which feels like a huge responsibility. I know she doesn’t do any cleaning or tidying between my visits and how much she depends on me to reset the house each week. I hate to think the condition it will slip into if I drop her as a client.
A few weeks ago, she let me know her brother’s family were coming to housesit for the week whilst they were on holiday. I went on the day they left to prepare the house and when I arrived, the house was in complete disgusting chaos as usual. I thought to myself, ‘what if I was sick, what if I wasn’t able to come to clean? Would she just have let her brother stay in the house in that condition?’
I also feel it has gotten worse recently because she has become more comfortable with me seeing her mess and has let it slip, making me do more. Almost like ‘ah the cleaner will sort that’ mentality. Are her and her husband taking the mickey leaving me to deal with and see all of this?
Thoughts? She clearly needs help but it is becoming a lot for me.