To tell my cleaner to stop wearing perfume?

[LeMoax]

We have a cleaner that comes once a week for four hours. We’ve used the same cleaning company for a while but recently they’ve chopped and changed the staff, so after a period of different people each week it seems we’ve now settled on someone regularly.
She cleans okay but wears really strong perfume. So strong that after she goes I need to leave all the windows in the house open for a good hour or so to get rid of her smell.

AIBU to ask her or her boss to ask her to stop wearing the perfume before coming to our house?

🍿

Of course YABU. She's your cleaner not your slave, you've got no right to dictate what she wears.

Are you sure it's her perfume? Does she bring her own cleaning products?

Yes a bit unreasonable in my opinion. If she does a good job and you are happy with her otherwise, I wouldn’t rock the boat myself. Of course if it’s causing more than minor annoyance such as headaches that’s different. You are paying the company so it’s up to you really to decide the terms but I think there is a risk she might not want to come back.

Jesus! You have to ask?

Where is she from?

I think you’re entirely reasonable. Your lovely clean house should smell fresh, not of someone’s horrible perfume.

I'd say something. You’re paying for a service. Why should you have to live with a smell you hate?

What does that have to do with anything?

Just how strong can it be? And just how bad can it be, does it smell like cat piss or something?
You’d be unreasonable to ask her to stop wearing perfume, yes. I suppose you could also make up some bollocks reason about an allergy or similar, but it’s a pretty petty thing to get upset about.

This seems more likely than her perfume being so strong it lingers for hours. If it is products she's using then yanbu to say the scent is too strong.

Slightly different situation, but I used to work with a woman who wore an incredibly strong scent - so much so that it actually made me feel nauseous.

She was very nice, so I really struggled with this, but eventually came to the conclusion that I would just try to have a quiet, non-confontational word (obviously I didn't say 'Mary, your perfume makes me feel sick').

She was very nice and understanding, stopped wearing the perfume (well, to work, at least) and all was fine.

You could try that?

Because where I'm from this is a well known 'problem'
It might be because the cleaners try to cover up the smell of cleaning products on themselves, they use strong perfume and a lot of it - maybe they get nose blind too

There is even a joke that when I perfume is strong and cheap people call it cleaners' perfume

Everybody accepts it as part of the culture and it is a non issue

My MIL wears a lot of perfume and aerosol sprays that she sprays on her clothes to (try) mask her smoking smell, the room smells of it for a time after she has visited.

She’s your cleaner, not your slave. If you don’t like it then the easy solution is to clean your own house

People accusing you of viewing this person as your "slave" in these circumstances is completely absurd.

Just apologise and explain that you are very sensitive to perfumes and that it's nothing personal.

I would speak to her in person, not her boss.
I get it. Strong perfume is annoying and for those who think it's ok: some perfumes, aerosol sprays and vapes can trigger migraine.

I get it, I get migraines from strong perfume. I just clean my own house though.

Is it an expensive perfume or a mere 'fragranced smell'? You could enquire on the basis that you are interested in this 'exquisite' new scent.

Or you could advertise for a new cleaner, with a proviso that the job requires applicants to smell in mutually agreeable ways.

Just a quick thought OP - you're not actually a Dog are you?!
In which case, I'll defer to your expertise.

Are you sure she doesn't use something like Zoflora or Febreze?

Have you gone completely insane?

I think you have to suck it up and air the house out when she's left.

Mumsnet is bizarre tonight.

I'm sorry but I think this is the answer. We have a cleaner at work who walks around in a cloud of perfume that takes a while to dissipate and until she started I would have accused anyone of exaggerating. But she cleans really well so we just put up with it.

It seems a perfectly reasonable request, so I'd have no qualms about mentioning it to her.