To be uncomfortable with my cleaner bringing her child

[Panapan]

We have a cleaner who comes for a couple of hours a week. Sometimes she brings a colleague and only stays an hour. Today she brought her teenage son - said he was going to help her as he’d finished his GCSEs. I assumed he’d just be hanging around with her but she then only stayed for the hour and charged me for two (ie she charged me for her son). He worked hard and didn’t do a bad job - not perfect but adequate - but I’m not completely comfortable with paying a 15 year old the same as I pay his mum. I’ve paid and won’t say anything as I’m hoping it’s a one off. But if he comes back next week, would it be unreasonable of me to gently suggest that I’d rather he didn’t come the next time?

Also on the "substituting yourself" thing as a self-employed person. This is just one of the many tests which HMRC use to decide whether you are self-employed or whether you are actually employed and your employer is trying it on.

There are LOADS of self-employed situations where substitution is not on. I am self-employed, when people negotiate with me to do work for them they are doing that on the basis that it is me doing the work, not a randomer. I do self-employed work as a film/tv extra - the production company hire people based on their particular look, height, age so I couldn't just send my son instead. It is perfectly reasonable as someone using the services of a self-employed cleaner (or hairdresser, personal trainer, dentist) to say that you want to deal with a certain person only.

My point is more to address those that believe they have ‘employed’ the cleaner. Rather, they have employed the ‘services’.
They can turn the cleaner away if they wish but the cleaner hasn’t actually acted wrong. It may well be that she has staff and her T&Cs may address that she doesn’t always work solo.
A window cleaner could turn up with an assistant or an apprentice and no one would bat an eyelid. There appears to a special case for cleaners on Mumsnet.

If the finished job wasn’t as good as it should be, that’s a separate problem to address and would be an issue regardless of whether it was a long term worker or a new to the job teenage boy.

No I get that. It's a communication thing, we have a cleaner and when her son was younger she'd bring him during the school holidays. But she always asked first and let me know what she planned as she appreciated that it's our home. It's a two way respect thing.

Indeed. You'd not be happy if your mobile hairdresser just sent someone else without agreement.

I've had plumbers turn up to service my boiler or change radiators with apprentices who are 16 or over.

There is a legal difference between employing or having a 16 year old apprentice, and someone younger.

And yes there are posters who did x job when they were under 16 but councils and insurance companies have tightened up. So many business/self-employed people won't go near someone who is under 16 especially if the work is in different areas.

For sure. However, it sounds like this person isn’t a solo cleaner. She’s had other people working for her in the past which wasn’t an issue for the OP. She hasn’t sent her son in blind. He’s with her. The OP
has only taken issue now.

My self employed point was more aimed at those saying the OP has employed the particular cleaner. They have employed her services, not her.
Lots of people think they employ their cleaner.

Did your cleaner get her son to do the work though?

No - he was just a wee lad. But she still checked first that I was OK with it, she didn't just turn up with an extra person in tow.

Funny you should mention window cleaners, this is one of the things I am very fussy about, never more so than the period of time where I was living in my MIL to look after her when her dementia was too bad. I didn't want just anyone turning up who didn't understand that the moment they were seen from the inside by my MIL, she would be banging on the glass and screaming at them. I was so grateful to the fella who did the windows and who knew the situation.

As it happens, I am a domestic cleaner. I started 20 years ago while "between jobs" and never stopped. I am solo, but run it as a business, and can well understand why " there appears to a special case for cleaners on Mumsnet" in terms of not having other cleaners in the house, because I've seen and heard so much over the years that client's wouldn't want to have to keep explaining over & over again to new cleaners. If I had a cleaner, there's no way I'd want more than one person coming in, and I'd certainly want to have built a rapport first.

However, it has to be said that a great many of my clients just hand over door keys and give me instant free reign of their home...maybe it's because I only ever work by recommendation, and people have to wait a long time before I can fit them in, so they know already that I can be trusted.

No, she didn't. She said the job was "not perfect, but adequate". There was no mention of what the usual standard is when the mum does it all herself. For all we know he may have done an even better job than his mum.

Sorry to split hairs, but it's an important point.

You don't read that as not being to the same standard? 🤔

I guess my issue is just that other teenagers wouldn’t be getting £18 for an hour of work.

YABVU

Minimum wage is just this, a bare minimum. It has never meant that some people, or some teens, don't get more.

Fair enough if you don't want someone you didn't chose to employ, but refusing to pay someone doing the same job on principle is ridiculous.

I'm just imagining if she had brought along a young girl, and said that was her colleague, you wouldn't necessarily mind or check their age?
I guess you can say you only employ her and only want/require her. It's good he's helping her out. I used to help my mum teach her students when I was 14 and didn't want to go to school, lol. This was the early 90s though.

She's entitled to query anyone who isn't her actual cleaner.

I don’t understand the problem.. mum has a cleaning business and has employed her son as a cleaner. You were happy with the standard of work and paid the usual agreed rate for 2 hrs cleaning (which you received)

You do not know what her sons hourly wage is, he is an employee of hers and could well be getting minimum wage from that £18/hour that you paid? If she took another employee with her, you would pay and be happy with that, I’m really not understanding what the issue is tbh

@ichbrauchenichts99 yeah, I know. I think if she doesn't want him there then say. I personally wouldn't mind as long as he did a good job.

I'd prefer the cleaner to check with me first, if I was OP.

Next time I fancy a day off work I'm just going to send one of my kids in. My employer won't mind! 😂

One of the things I most love about Mumsnet is that cleaners can do no wrong no matter how cheeky and to what extent they take the piss.

But coming at anytime of the day?

Thank you all for taking the time to post. It’s interesting, from the tone of the posts it sounds like people think I’m being unreasonable, but from the votes it seems like I’m not.

Just to clarify a couple of things. I don’t have a formal written contract with her (but I have an oral contractual agreement backed up by text message). I’m happy with that arrangement and is always how I’ve employed the services of a cleaner. She has several ladies who sometimes come with her. I’m also happy with that - I pay her for 2 hours work and if that is 1 person for 2 hours or 2 people for an hour makes little difference to me - the house is clean.

I had no issue with the standard of his work. If I was being really fussy I might have pointed out a couple of things like the mirrors being smeary but that would have been unkind and unnecessary.

It was really just the fact that he was a minor that concerned me, and I wasn’t convinced enough that it was a problem to make a fuss so I’ve read your thoughts with interest. I paid and haven’t complained. He may well not come again, but I take others’ point about it reflecting well on him and being good experience so even if he does I won’t raise it. Not because I’m a pushover, but because I want to give people the benefit of the doubt. To be honest I’d rather be seen as a pushover than a Scrooge!

No, I don't. It was a reflection of the work carried out by the boy, rather than a comparison with the work of his mother. The standard of cleaning by his mother was never mentioned, so I had no reason to link it to this.

Interesting.
OP has updated us now anyway, so this is irrelevant.

What if she can’t afford to pay two folk? I couldn’t. Bit presumptuous from the cleaners part.

You do realise lots of children earn around £15-18 ph.

You can be a lifeguard from 16 and that pays that rate.

Ds was software developing at that age and it pays around that and builds to a lot more!

You Kay for the service not the age.

It will cost her the same? Two people take half the time.