Cleaner has cost me £1600

[Bootsybugs22]

I was out of the country for two days and my regular ckeaner (for 5 months) went in to clean whilst I was away. She letnherself in via a back door key left in a safe place. Our decking is really slippy so I said if she needed to go in and out she coulds use the front door once she was in. I text her to say the front door keys were square yale , labelled and in a key pot in the hall.

We have a front modern door to the porch and an older wooden self locking door from porch to house.

She called me whilst away to say she was locked in the porch because the keys i left didn't fit the door. She had picked up some other keys out the fruit bowl in the kitchen.

I called a locksmith. In the meantime she called back and said that stressful situations increase her risk of a seizure (she's epileptic) and I needed to get her out now. So I called my neighbour and asked them to force the rear back paito door. This is because the cleaner had passed the keys she had through the letterbox and one of them was for the rear patio door but not the main opener. So the neighbour tried to force the secondary door open as it could be unlocked. Anyway door got broken in the process.

Locksmith arrived. Drilled the lock, got her out, fitted a new lock. But before he'd arrived the door had been damaged by the neighbour (I gave them permission to force the door)

Today I paid the locksmith £85. Had a man round to quote on repair of the door (£1500 for new set of doors.... not repairable).

I messaged the cleaner and asked if she had insurance. She's now blocked me on WhatsApp but messaged me separately on normal text messaging to say she cancelled her insurance last year when she got her epilepsy diagnosis (why?!).

I'm at a total loss. AIBU that I want SOME recompense even if uts £85?

At least you now have a reason to get rid of her, due to her lying about being insured.

Definitely think it was just one of those things and see if you can claim on house insurance.

She locked herself in there because of her own stupidity.. she literally locked one door behind her, before checking she could get out of the other door.. I can't imagine any situation were you wouldn't check you had the right keys to get out before purposely LOCKING yourself in a small room.. she knew it would lock behind her if she pulled it shut because she didn't open it with a key.

I'm epileptic myself, she could have a seizure at any time, and you normally don't get enough warning to seek appropriate medical help before it hits, cleaning alone in peoples houses while they aren't there is always going to be a risk in those circumstances.. if she was really worried about having a seizure then she wouldn't be cleaning empty houses, and she should take appropriate measures to ensure her own safety at all times.

All the poshos on here think she's thick because she's a cleaner. Hired help. Lower class.

I don’t think it’s really her fault that she didn’t understand your front door and porch keys.Also the decking by the back door is dangerous so it isn’t fair to make her use the back door in wet weather. Much worse for you if she’d slipped and broken a bone.

She locked herself in there because of her own stupidity.. she literally locked one door behind her, before checking she could get out of the other door.. I can't imagine any situation were you wouldn't check you had the right keys to get out before purposely LOCKING yourself in a small room.. she knew it would lock behind her if she pulled it shut because she didn't open it with a key.

It was a self locking Yale lock which is increasingly uncommon. She may not have experienced it before to know it would lock. That doesn't make her stupid. It means she has different experiences

Did it on purpose? What on earth for? She’s had a frightening experience and lost her job. And insurance is irrelevant because she didn’t break anything.

She probably cancelled her insurance because epilepsy made it too expensive .

A panic attack can cause a seizure. Stress especially can. You are advised to keep stress to a minimum.
Also it’s been windy (storms lately) which can cause door to slam.

Oh for goodness sake get over yourself!

Before this modern trend of adding PVC doors to the outer porch many many many millions of people over the years got locked out of their homes by pulling a yale lock door behind them and forgetting to check it was open on the snib! At least they were safely outside though!

Now we have a young generation of people who have never been familiar with yale locks so it does not make her stupid just because you are also epileptic

Oy, I'm posh. I've employed cleaners, direct and through agencies for decades. I fully sympathise with the cleaner. The OP's set up was ridiculous.

Really has no one on here ever had to deal with teenagers, flat mates, tenants, husbands or anyone else who has mislaid or failed to follow garbled instructions about keys (no, I told you it was the round silver key in the rectangular box in the kitchen, not the rectangular silver key in the round box on the hall table. No you didn't") . My husband has a BSc in Physics and a Law Degree and we've had the key conversation.

What a nightmare OP, did the cleaner come with any references?

It's possible to sympathise with both the OP and the cleaner irrespective of your posho credentials. OP accepted pretty quickly that she couldn't expect any contribution towards the cost, there's no need for people to insist on pointing the finger and being insulting towards either of them. Posters are just doing so because they get pleasure from it.

She may not have experienced it before to know it would lock.

To be honest, as soon as you turn a yale lock, it self returns to it's position (of being locked), I don't buy for one second that people don't know how they work.. yes you may not have one at home, or have much experience of them (if any) but anyone operating one using their hand (with the entirety of the lock being visible right in front of their face no less), know that they haven't used a key to turn the lock and can see with their eyes that the catch is there and will lock self return when you let go, there really is no excuse for not realising 'how they work' imo, if you've never seen one before and are confused about how it works then that is even more reason to proceed with caution.

She made a mistake, fair enough, but she got the wrong keys from the wrong location, so she didn't listen to the instructions, she didn't bother to check they were the right keys, and she made the decision to shut herself in the porch before bothering to check.. then she made a big song and dance about it instead of patiently waiting to be rescued.. this problem was entirely her making.

I could easily imagine doing that and I’d consider myself pretty intelligent!

Really shocked by how rude these comments are - she made a mistake, who hasn’t?

The cleaner sounds like a bit of a naive/anxious/inexperienced sort of person. Or just not suited to the work that she had taken on?
I feel sorry for her, and for you @Bootsybugs22

I can imagine myself doing that too, it’s only a moments inattention. And I would have been very worried that the locksmith would take hours to arrive.

You employ her and therefore should insure that her workplace is safe.Get a key safe then it will never be a problem hiding keys or, as you must trust her to be alone in your house,give her a set of keys. The epilepsy may make her uninsureable as a lone worker. Consult your insurance company.

I think a couple of others have suggested this already - get yourself a key safe to be located in the porch. They aren't expensive and are easy to fit. In there keep 1 key to each of the doors and maybe even a back door key too (that could be passed through the letterbox).

When I was pregnant with my eldest, we were building an extension and part of it was adding a porch. The old front door was a Yale lock one that locked you out the moment it closed, and when we had the porch installed we went for a "normal" lock (key used to lock and unlock it) - no chance of getting accidentally locked out. For quite some time, we had both doors in place. I remember after having our child being so, so paranoid I was going to get myself trapped in there due to sleep exhaustion etc and my baby would then be alone in the house. Everytime I had to go to answer the front door I would throw the catch up and lock it whilst open so the door physically couldn't shut. Eventually my husband agreed it would be better to take that door out and basically extend our hallway into the porch. Would it be an option for you to remove that inner door? In fact, could that door replace the broken one?

If not, good luck with the home insurance claim (I didn't read everything as starting to fall asleep and wanted to reply whilst I was thinking about it).

I think you should have waited for the locksmith and not directed the neighbour to brake the door down. The latter seems very stressful! Better to have directed her to sit down, relax and wait for the locksmith.

Ye I'm sure she DECIDED to lock herself in the porch 😒

Those locks aren't familiar to all and you don't automatically assume it fully locks when you see them. You're speaking from experience

My Nan has had the same lock the entire time I've visited. I still get confused by it.

Some posters are just being incredibly rude over an easy to make accident which happens all the time

And then being even ruder about her medical condition!

It was probably cold in the porch in this weather and most porches don’t have chairs in them. She could have been sitting on the floor for hours in her indoor clothes in a freezing cold tiny space feeling terrified. This could have brought on a fit. She made a mistake but so did her employer in not leaving a spare key with a friend or neighbour and not specifically warning her about the Yale lock.

Why would you even think about potentially hurting someone financially?

You don't need to register with the council to get insurance. They don't check anything, it's quite odd.

All she has done is made a mistake in letting a Yale door close behind her then panic a bit, with good reason. If the review says that then ok I guess. Saying that she cost her employer 1600 is grossly unfair.

its not a broken door. its quite a common door arrangement in the UK really, to have two doors either side of a porch. Just normally someone has keys or its unlocked. I understand someone who doesn't live in a situation like that is unsure how it works and thats my own fault as I am used to it (in fact every house i have lived in with a porch has this set up).