My cleaner chucked her cigarette butt into our hydrangea bush

[JuneM]

Our cleaner does four hours a week - a couple of weeks ago I noticed a cigarette butt in a small gu pot on our back porch.. very usual as we don’t smoke! I thought it might be the gardeners, my husband mentioned he thought it was the cleaner.

this week, our cleaner who charges £18 per hour went out for a cigarette break, we have cctv at the back, and I saw that she chucked her cigarette butt into our hydrangea bush. I’m not happy about this at all. I think it’s disrespectful and disgusting that I now have to clean up my cleaners dirty cigarette butt.

I also often make her a tea or glass of water, in the past it has irritated me that she doesn’t actually put the cup in the dishwasher and I have to clean it up once she’s gone.

I know we need to raise this with her but what would you do.

AIBU?

Maybe she needs one after scrubbing toilets. It's a hard job.
Either give her an ashtray or ask her not to smoke.

It's crazy to hear that people think fag butts are biodegradable! They're not.

It's littering and it is an offence. You can be fined for it.

Smokers can be so selfish.

When I was cleaning it always amazed me that they wanted a cleaner but then spent a fortune on gym membership.
Why not clean your own house, it's a better workout and more satisfying.

Or you could just SPEAK TO HER! Just tell her you are a non smoking property and if she smokes you prefer her to do it outside her contracted 4 hours. It really shouldn't be the mountain you are making out of this molehill.

Only if you're a woman apparently

Are you happy with her cleaning?

If so just buy a closed in ashtray for outside and ask her to smoke away from the window.

Nope, I don’t want to clean minging cig ends up and most certainly don’t want to clean an ashtray. Fag ends make me wretch, no joke! It’d be a hard no from me, don’t smoke on my property, don’t leave fag ends anywhere near it, preferably don’t walk ‘fag smell’ into my home. That would go for the cleaner, gardener, decorator etc.

As for leaving cups out, what is the point in cleaning the whole house then leaving a cup on the side??!! That’s insane. Leaving me an ash pan to clean up as well would tip me over the edge.

I think I’d be having a full and frank discussion with her moving forward, perhaps she isn’t the cleaner for you.

Quite! My cleaner is wonderful and gets the job done (very well!) and if she wants to take a fag break in the middle that's fine with me!

I’ve had a bunch of cleaners over the years and they were all big smokers! Never managed to find a non-smoker!

I think in 4 hours physical work you do need a break and something to eat or drink. We always have a coffee-break together with our cleaner.

Our first cleaner smoked outside our front door, on the street. Because i told her I didn’t want smoke in my house or garden. But i found it hard to watch, when it was cold or raining and she is lingering on the street. My current cleaner smokes in the garden, i have a small porch for when it rains and I don’t have a proper ashtray but any empty jar wil do.

This

Those taps don't turn on themselves don't you know.😁

I'd hate having an Ash tray around my garden and the smell of smoke on my patio furniture.

Haha! Buy an ash tray…. Bugger off! She shouldn’t be smoking AT ALL. She’s there to clean.
I’d look for another cleaner. I don’t think I could cope with a cleaner anyway.
Wouldn’t be making her tea either 🤣🤣

I'm not the only one who suggested it.

She sounds a bit slapdash.

I think everyone so far has failed to appreciate the most serious of perils from cigarettes being discarded in JuneM's hydrangea.

There is the very real risk of combustion and one can only hope that there exists a "Mr. JuneM" ready with his length of hose to spray JuneM's bush.

Yeah in several hundred years!

I wouldn't employ a cleaner who smoked, so it wouldn't be an issue, but if it was I'd just tell her she was no longer required.

I have no idea if my cleaner smokes. I'm almost always at work when she is here. She knows she can make a drink, have a biscuit, or whatever but she generally doesn't.
I would hope she would bin her fag ends if she did.

Well, my footman threw his crisp packet into my hostas.

Honestly - if you are happy with all other aspects of her work I would tell her to have her cigarette on a break at the other end of the garden and put the end in a bag or something and throw it out with the rubbish.

Apart from anything else it’s a fire risk, plenty dead leaves get stuck under hydrangea bushes- litter lout she needs to take her fag ends with her

Unfortunately the law only says those that work 6 hours straight are entitled to a 20 mins break ( paid or unpaid - usually unpaid ) and so many employers work it so you do 4 hours - no break entitlement and these are in roles where drinks at your work station are not allowed ( factories, shops etc)

OP, whilst I also run a non smoking household, when I know I have smokers coming, I have a wee pot of sand in the garden for butts. No I dont like sorting it out so I say to them, smoke away, clean away after yourselves cos I aint.

Seriously I cannot believe this is such a big deal in your life that you are making a post about it

( thinking I need to drop 95% of my worries and concerns so I can get irrate about a non event )

I don't think my cleaner smokes. However, she cleans our house, hangs wet washing. scrubs our bogs, does the ironing, empties the bins, has dealt with cat kill. I always offer her a coffee if I am in and will put it in the dishwasher.

If she smoked, she's welcome to leave a fag end behind, she's the sort of lady who'd wash her hands on the way in. My gardener would deal with the fag end as he deals with his own. I make him a cuppa too if I'm in.

Good staff/tradesmen are hard to find and we value them and look after them.

Mumsnet gets more precious by the minute.

I'm not a smoker. I don't like cigarette smoke. I don't like fag ends. But if my cleaner worked for four hours and took a cigarette break in the middle, I couldn't care less as long as she smoked outside.

As for a cigarette butt in the hydrangea bush being a fire risk... 😂