Cleaner drank the juice, ate the salmon and charged her phone

[Shadow743]

I have a cleaner who has been coming for 2hrs a week for approx a year. She is unreliable, often texting the day before with a wide selection of reasons as to why she can't make it, and she doesn't always do a great job. I've been thinking about getting rid of her for a while but I have a lot of guilt around having a cleaner in the first place, as it feels like such a luxury and I feel like a bit of a snob for having one. I've come home whilst she's been there before and seen her charging her devices, noticed that the cordial seems to have been drunk and a couple of weeks ago, I'm sure (but can't be 100% certain) that she finished of the smoked salmon from the fridge. Today, my kids marked a line on the juice bottles as a little experiment and lo and behold, I've come home to find not only has she drunk the cordial, she's finished it AND put the empty bottle on the top of the bin.
Am I being unreasonable to be furious and feel like she's taking the mick now or am I overreacting to some minor issues which I should overlook because a little bit of juice and a little bit of electricity here and there won't kill me???

You're avoiding answering the question - Do you think it's ok to cheat an employer - but you've really answered it yourself already. You have no problem with a worker being dishonest and ripping off the person who has been a good employer to them. That tells me everything I need to know about you. I won't be reading any replies from you, because I'd blank anyone IRL with your ethics, or lack of them.

You're not a snob for having a cleaner, you're a snotty moo for making your kids mark cordial bottles. What lovely people they will grow up to be, I don't think!

You don't even know if it was her eating the salmon!

This, plus eating your food is not on.

I’m not worried that you provide individual wrapped snacks, and if you read my post back, I did not mention that at all. I assumed, as you seem to have confirmed, that that was related to some sort of anxiety/paranoia on your part (because yes, I and most people would be fine having juice/milk/water/etc. poured from a shared bottle, or a biscuit from an open packet or a slice cut from a larger home made cake). It was the phrase “I would deny them nothing.” that was a bit worrying. I hope that’s not literally true. That you do have some appropriate boundaries. You say that you’ve never seen them gorging themselves as though that would be a boundary for you so it was probably just a turn of phrase to emphasise your generosity and I’ll read it that way. I’m not trying to make you reconsider anything just because I wouldn’t do things the same way as you.

OP doesn’t owe her life to her cleaner. (Sounds like she doesn’t even owe a clean house to her cleaner!). She’s mentioned nothing about how much she pays. You seem to have a bee in your bonnet about something that isn’t necessarily anything to do with OP’s cleaner helping herself to things that haven’t been offered.

I would point out that you seem to think it’s awful to consume food and drink from containers that have already been open. But think it’s fine for OP’s cleaner to take drink from an already open container and put the container back to be used again by OP without letting OP even know that she’s done it, let alone asking if it’s okay?

This thread is really sad.

OP, I don't think you treat people with compassion and respect based on your post. It's a shame, not making you happy and likely going to impact your kids and their characters too.

For your own mental health and for a better future world for my DC, please try to be less petty and paranoid and teach your children what's really important in life.

Free tea and coffee is pretty standard in the U.K.

its also standard to offer someone working in your home a tea/ coffee or soft drink.

There are a lot of industries in the UK where free tea and coffee is pretty unusual. Thread on this last year:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/work/4716302-teacoffee-at-work

And while it’s standard to offer a drink to someone in your home, it isn’t standard to simply help yourself if you aren’t offered, is it?

But she’s just a CF really isn’t she? If you don’t see that you must be one too. The amount of entitled people on this thread is disheartening.

Anyone who thinks taking a few centimetres of squash is ok must be an entitled cf?
If you say so...

Describing yourself as shaking with rage while hiding round the corner is the batshit bit.

If someone isn’t doing a good job, then for sure let them go, but no need for the crazy drama, or the hiding.

It’s normal in an office and it’s normal in a home, because it’s easy to provide.

If someone is doing a job in your home, you’d offer them drinks, unless you were a tosser.

I find that perception bizarre - the people on this thread who assume cleaners would be welcome to tea, coffee and squash are people who treat staff and contractors properly. It is the opposite of entitled.

Ha, maybe she’ll do some shaking at me, else I’ll feel left out.

Hiding on another thread.. of course! I’ll get my runners on.

I can treat people properly. What I don’t expect, and what the OP didn’t expect, is to have someone in her home who helped herself to food, drink and charged her phone without asking. It doesn’t matter if you think cordial is cheap, it doesn’t matter if you think charging a phone costs pennies. If you are in someone’s home and especially if you are an employee and not a guest, you ASK if it’s ok. You don’t help yourself, FML its called manners. And stop with the fake narrative, she never mentioned tea or coffee, let’s not make shit up, not that it matters but the extra additions to the story on this thread are getting ridiculous.

Yes that’s right it was a few centimetres wasn’t it?! Did the OP say that? Nope, coulda been a bottle. And there’s the salmon, and the free phone charging and the shit cleaning. And oh my god why bother arguing when there are so many twats on here who think taking the piss is ok.

If we’re talking about manners, op should have shown some by offering the woman drinks in the first place.
Including the tea and coffee you’re so scandalised at having been mentioned, for some reason.

How do you know she didn’t offer it?

Because she’s outraged that the cleaner took it? Just a wild guess…

Took what? The tea and coffee? That wasn’t mentioned. Now you’re just making stuff up.