HELP! Inappropriate message from client I clean for.

[LemonLass]

Need advice on how to proceed, ladies.

Just started cleaning for a chap in his 70s in a town I lived in for 20yrs. His partner lives around 20 miles away and asked for help on his behalf. He has grown up kids and grandkids and is a professional (medical) semi retired.

I have cleaned for him twice and he goes out once I arrive.

I am due to clean tomorrow. He has just messaged to advise a plumber will be at his tomorrow. Owner will be out on his motorbike. OK, not ideal someone there but ok (I have a key).

Then I received this message. Urgh.

My instinct was block and dont engage and return key (he will be out).

Alternative to send this screenshot to the partner and say why I quit (and drop key as above).

Or go and clean as he wouldnt be there.

I am not a prude but his text was totally inappropriate. I had thought he had sent it in error but no word from him since to backtrack.

Comments and advice please ladies. Would you clean for this person under these circunstances. This extra money is £13ph self employed if that makes a difference to your comments (not a lot but very handy sideline).

How awkward!

PS i think i have successfully scrubbed anything identifiable.

Exactly this.

If he's messaged you in error (and sorry you're having such a hard time seeing that he sent you a dull work message "seconds" before you got that random stuff), then he's probably not realised.

He's not going to realise until he next opens your message thread to text you about cleaning.

Then, he's going to be mortified and think, "fuck she's had this text for the last 3 days and I've said nothing else since" at which point you'll get "I can only apologise for a text that was not intended for you" etc etc, or quite possibly radio silence because so much time has elapsed that he finds it too embarrassing to say anything. Which is quite likely what's happening right now.

But like PP says, you can't seem to accept this most likely scenario.

It wasn't for OP.

But neither was it for the GF.

Who OP knows.

Hence the invention of "mate"

‘Old battle-axe’

That poster has really internalised all the misogyny available. With a splash of ageism thrown in.

Edith Bond:

"And odd you’ve heard nothing from your friend about this. Surely, she’d have immediately contacted him to ask why he sent it. And, if a friend to you, would’ve replied to you to apologise."

OP has not described her client's partner as "a friend" but as someone who had contacted her on her client's behalf.

OP has said:

"Just started cleaning for a chap in his 70s in a town I lived in for 20yrs. His partner lives around 20 miles away and asked for help on his behalf."

OP has also said:

"i am due at his 9am but I think I need to sleep on it as to what I text him and if/what to text his gf partner that arranged me to work for him. He pays me, not her. I dont have any contact with her apart from her initial request to clean at his (they live apart but in relationship)"

Oh bless you @Someone2025, you liked my post taking the piss out of you!

Why not, you were repeating my sentiments 😂😂….trying to spread the message if you will….

I've sent a message to the wrong person before but I've never sent a message to the wrong person and not immediately realised

This thread is nearly full, thank goodness. I'm helping it along.

@Someone2025 I was repeating your inability to spell lose/losing despite multiple people correcting you... hence my very amusing joke about heads falling off. (Because they're loose... get it?)

I have. My partner also has.

There are a lot of apologists on this thread.

A man, who has a topless picture of himself on WhatsApp sent his cleaner a sexually explicit text.

When she queried it he said it was for a 'mate'. When she queried that he said it was a copy of a text he'd sent on a dating site some time ago, which he was sending to a mate, which he accidentally sent to her.

I think the presence of all of the posters defending him and saying OP is overreacting or enjoying the drama, holding court etc., reflects the number of women who have probably undergone harassment across their lives and had to tell themselves stories about it to get through it. A lot of women have internalised narratives that if they say anything they're overreacting, creating drama, being mean to the man, etc.

This man clearly knows exactly what he is doing and so did all of those other men we've all experienced in our lives too. I suspect the reality of that is very difficult for some people to accept - that yes, this stuff is intentional and it wasn't a 'mistake' or a 'joke'.

I admit I found it amusing!

I also think that lots of women are surrounded by creepy men in their lives in their own friends and family circle. So they dismiss behaviour like this as ‘banter’ or ‘men will be men’ or a ‘joke’. It’s so normalised for them that they cannot see how deeply unpleasant it is and they try and minimise it. I see it a lot here.

It makes me worry that the apologists are raising the next generation, so how can things improve?

^A lot of women have internalised narratives that if they say anything they're overreacting, creating drama, being mean to the man, etc.*

Agree. This thread is full of it.

This thread will fill up soon. OP, if you are still reading, well done for managing this so assertively. Women should not have to tolerate this crap from anyone. Hope you find other work soon.

I haven’t RTFT in detail, but I haven’t seen any posts which suggest that sending a message like that was anything other than disgusting and vile.

However if I received something like this from someone I cleaned for after some texts which were completely different in tone and content and out of the blue, I would consider the possibility that it had been sent to me in error.

FWIW I wouldn’t want to be in the same house as someone who wrote like that to anyone (including mate or girlfriend), but I know that probably far more people than is recognised enjoy sexting. For me it would be a no no.

This is not the same as excusing his behaviour; it’s more that there might be another explanation.

So I’d be advising her to work elsewhere, but that initially it didn’t add up that the message was for OP.

It make absolutely no sense that so many people who are saying it was an accident are also saying “How mean to send it to his girlfriend!” What?! If it was an accident then surely she is the only person who would expect him to accidentally message someone else that type of message. So stupid.

It was an an accidental/on purpose text.
Fishing for her reaction.

Here, I’ll lend a hand!

Hallelujah!! Sense wrapped up in a single post!

@Calliopespa Thankyou.

Just so.

Thank you! This thread has had me feeling like I'm going crazy.

And me🙄