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?

Definitely tell her - can't have the hired help smelling of something inherently pleasant.

Hi
IMO you are being deliberately obtuse.
However, I will try and explain why OP posted but it was not about "cleaning "herself," understand!

OP asks a question, a valid one and the solution is easy, change cleaners and or tell the agency etc.

If OP can afford a cleaner, good luck to the OP

I’m being extremely obtuse yet you’re here starting MN posts with ‘hi’ 🤣

Jog on! Bye!!

You are making yourself seem very entitled

Are you always such a belittling and condescending person? What a delight you must be!

By the way: starting posts with ‘hi’ is extremely obtuse, understand?

Agree with this.

YABU
I'm a cleaner and work in people's homes. If you tried to enforce this level of control over my personal choices, such as my perfume, I'd ditch you immediately.

However, you are also well within your rights to say to the company boss you want another cleaner because you don't like the current cleaners perfume. That's your choice and prerogative who you have in your home. But you absolutely cannot demand the cleaner doesn't wear the perfume she likes when she attends your slot. You don't own her.

What a reach! She's paying for a service, and it's ok not to want an overpowering smell in her home!

🙄 Mature

Yes if you don't like the perfume write a good letter explaining why and ask if she can politely not spray the product when she's doing the work .

If that doesn't work then tell the supervisor that you are sorry this occurred and maybe not to be massively excessive with the deodorant / perfume and maybe she doesn't want you to think she's stinky.

Plant pong obviously.

Planet not plant.

She wouldn't set foot over my door. It'd see off my asthma.

Companies dictate what employees wear all the time through their uniform policy. I've worked for a company with a no perfume rule 😞

I don't think it's entitled. Just ask her respectfully if she could spray less of her perfume as the smell is bothering you and lingers in the house long after. There is nothing wrong.

I want to know the perfume. The only ones that seem to last nowadays are Gucci Guilty Pour Femme and Cartier La Panthere.

Can you please find out @LeMoax and update?

I'd ask her directly- say it's an allergy if you want to soften the blow. If she's offended she can ask her supervisor not to schedule her for your house.

I don't think you can dictate to this level what scent someone chooses tbh, even if they work for you.
I mean some people do think that they have the right to tell service workers things like this, because they are under the impression that they're buying more than a service from the person, like the right to control their personal choices.

That said, I think it's fair enough if you don't like it and you have the choice as a customer to decline the services of this one and have a different one, not demand the one you have bend to your will over personal choices like perfume.

Is it perfume or some kind of cheap home fragrance spray she sprays?

I hate most perfume smells so am ultra sensitive to it, especially people who basically bomb the whole place with the amount they use, but I've never known it to linger through the whole house even with all the windows in the house open for an hour.

Do you know what the perfume is?
I'm just curious as I've never known a perfume that lingers after a person has gone to this extent. Some mens aftershaves and body sprays (old spice and lynx etc) seem to linger forever but I've never come across a lingering ladies perfume.

Trust me, I've looked! Perfume seems to repel from me so even the strongest ones dissipate fairly quickly.

Also IMO it's fine to ask her, just as you would a colleague or friend. You can use the excuse of allergies so she doesn't feel too ashamed (eg you think it smells bad).

I would try to mention it to her directly/tactfully though, not to the boss. From experience however tactful communciations are with bosses of menial staff, it often gets passed down to the staff in quite rude/brisk ways, and they could even get into trouble.

See the recent case about the cleaner who ate a sandwich meant to be discarded in a law firm's meeting room. Not sure if it's just the firm's excuse, but apparently they only asked about the sandwich, weren't too fussed about it, and later even told the cleaning company not to take any action against the cleaner, but the cleaning company disciplined and fired her.

I don’t know why you’ve got some of the responses you have…people saying you can’t ‘tell’ her what to do etc. Just typical MN overreacting after misreading the post.

You’ve never said you would tell her to do anything, you merely asked if it was ok to ask and of course it is. As long as you’re polite and respectful and there’s no reason to suggest why you wouldn’t be, then see what she says.

I am highly sensitive to smells, particularly perfume - they make me ill with headaches, nausea and in one embarrassing case, actual vomiting. If my cleaner came smelling of strong perfume I’d have no qualms about asking her not to wear it either. If she wasn’t ok with that (which would be her choice of course) then I’d have to reconsider using her services.

Horses all over the world baffled as to why they've been dragged into this

"Horses all over the world baffled as to why they've been dragged into this"

😂

Sums it up pretty well.