Cleaner dunked sandwich press in water

[Twatalert]

She wanted to clean it and she washed it in the kitchen sink like you would wash a plate. I couldn't believe when I I saw it and she went on to reassure me she does it all the time at other customers houses and the piece of electrical is fine.

I told her that if it stops working I'll have to deduct it from her wage. AIBU? You wouldn't give the toaster a bath.

She's an excellent cleaner but could do with respecting boundaries a bit more. She'd previously water plants when I had just watered them and so some died, feed the cat, bin stuff that wasn't to be binned, ripped off a piece of wood from a floorboard and a few other things. I tell her after when something wasn't ok, but there is always something new and unexpected she does.
I'm always around and she never asks 'is it ok if...'.

Cleaner here

Everything you’ve listed are big ‘no no’s’

I can’t believe her audacity tbh.

Time to get yourself a new cleaner

Have you told her she's okay to come and ask you about things. Perhaps she doesn't want to disturb you. Dunking a toaster is daft but things like binning food and feeding cats seem easy to work around with some communication.

It's not about the money for me. I thought she somehow needs to understand to respect my things a bit more, but I realise that probably won't change.

I can't ask her to not come back right now. She has a few problems in her private life and has young children so I feel it would be cruel. At the same time I want to stop feeling like a mug by excusing another silly mistake. I do feel she could have asked 'are you ok for me to feed the cat, water the plants' etc. I might just wait until she's sorted out her problems and then I won't need a cleaner anymore.

literally against the law to deduct her pay , you can ask her to buy you a new one or ask for the money but you can’t just not pay somebody.

“which was why I jumped straight to ' I might have to take it off your wage'.”
why are you talking to her like a child?

@fitmum4 she doesn't worry about disturbing me. She knows I'm working but has music on full blast today and made loud phone calls.

@Favouritefruits maybe the conversation would have gone differently had she apologised and she didn't realise and said it won't happen again. She kept saying she does it all the time elsewhere etc. as if I am unreasonable in pointing out I don't want this thing soaked in water. It's my stuff after all.

I can't believe the amount of posters who think submerging an electrical appliance in a sink of water to clean it is OK.

MN is seriously batshit at times.

Was just about to say the same thing! What is wrong with people?!

as a pp said, it sounds like you need to communicate to your cleaner what she should be cleaning/what she shouldn’t clean and being very clear and firm about it so there’s no ambiguity

as it sounds like she’s coming in and seeing plenty things she thinks she should be helping you with, such as the toastie maker, which is absolutely up to you when to clean it if at all.

I’ve given up on having cleaners, having concluded that the time and effort that goes into managing them is greater than you have to put in to just doing the bloody cleaning yourself.

Wouldn't a cleaner have insurance to cover accidental damage done to a property they're cleaning in? Couldn't she claim on that and just say her arm caught it near the sink and it fell in?

So tell her exactly what you want her to do, no more, no less.

And clean all your kitchen gadgets and put them away before she visits.

It doesn't add much to the thread but in England we buy those toastie sandwich maker things, use them non-stop for a week, and then put them in the back of cupboard until it is time to move house.

I was thinking this as well! Maybe the posters are thinking of a different type of toastie maker or are assuming the cleaner removed the plates? But from reading OPs posts I'm certain the cleaner submerged the entire appliance other than the plug on the end of the lead into water!?

I didn't realise so many of you still had toastie makers. That really is the 1970s.

Op, is yours a (panini) press or a toastie maker?

20 year time served electrician here DO NOT PLUG IT IN. The elements on sandwhich toasters are mineral insulated with a chalk powder, they will have wicked up water that entered the case resulting in poor to dreadful insulation resistance, potentially a lethal fault.

Either bin it or take it to a good electrical appliance shop who can open it up, assess the damage and apply an insulation resistance test.

@Troyton thanks, that got me now. Are you saying I risk causing it to overheat and worse?

Honestly it's so daft. I will make clearer lists for future cleaners. I didn't think I had to point out to not wash an electrical appliance in a sink. Id probably feel insulted if someone felt I needed to be told. I honestly don't think this is a reasonable thing to point out to a presumably reasonable person. I might as well make clear that they shouldn't drink bleach.

It's not a communication problem from your end op, it's a complete lack of common sense, as in your cleaner doesn't have any.

For her it's about the appliance, for me it's also about 'is it safe to switch it on and do I risk burning down the house'. I would assume it has some safety features though. I'll get rid of this thing. She'll feel awful next week and I need to stop feeling terrible for her.

It is but you're meant to do it sooner rather than later to protect the plates

Good god, she’s a fucking idiot, and a liability. Get rid and save your sanity

They are supposed to make your life easier

The issue with appliances getting wet is not of overheating, the insulation i refer to is the electrical insulation between the element wire and its sheath, if it absorbs water the electrical current passes between the element which is live and its sheath which is earthed.

Providing you have 30milliamp RCD protection at your fuse box it will trip the circuit breaker if too much current crosses, however if there is a fault elsewhere that you don't know about or you have older fuses the metal parts of the toaster can become live - and potentially knock you stone cold dead, so it would be a very bad idea to plug it in.

If you were to bring it into an appliance shop like mine, we would hook it up to a bench tester to see what was going on and open the casing to see if there is any water floating about inside, if its saveable or by some miracle survived.

Virtually no appliance is designed to be immersed in water, your cleaner is a liability.

Well, listen to @Troyton everyone. I definitely won't try to see if it still works. Risking your lives by plugging in a sandwich toaster after it's been wet. I should really doubt myself less.

Given the severity of it and her attitude when I pointed it out I wonder whether I should should end the arrangement despite her difficult circumstances. I could always pay her a couple of weeks notice.

Yeah OP, you should have better communicated to your cleaner that electrical items shouldn't be dunked in water. It should have been plainly obvious to you that she didn't know something that the rest of us learnt in primary school.

If part of her job is cleaning the kitchen (mine does) you wouldn't expect to say don't immerse the toaster, or kettle or anything else electrical in water. You would expect that as a givem