Cleaner invited friends over AIBU

[Nestingbirds]

We have an arrangement with our cleaner that she takes care of our animals when we are away for a few days. She usually stays in the annexe but this time stayed in our house due to refurbishment.

We had an agreement when this started that we would prefer she didn’t have visitors apart from her long term boyfriend. He is away atm. She was totally on board, and said she would feel the same if it was her house.

We pay her really really well, and leave her lots of treats including fresh flowers. She told me she likes the time she has to herself, and all is well.

Only our neighbour texted me to say there are people coming and going from our house and sent me her ring doorbell footage. Not only is she having friends over, she isn’t actually spending time with the animals or cleaning (we pay her separately for both) as the rest of the time she has been out. We never leave our dog all day. Whilst we obviously don’t mind her going out, and want her to be happy, I just feel taken for a ride as she is clearly not there doing either.

I have messaged her to see how she is, hoping she would be honest about her friend coming over and staying for hours in our house, but she has continued to lie to me.

I feel like I can’t trust her now. Wwyd?

I don't have a cleaner and it seems that you know a large number of them but if I did I'd assume that if they heard someone at the door and I wasn't available the obvious thing to do would be to open it. I can't imagine that the even if it took a whole minute it would have any impact on how much cleaning they got done

I don't have any neighbours I don't get on with and I don't life my live worrying about the liability of accepting a parcel 😂Do you have a Sheldon Cooper contract for such eventualities?

Must be stressful assuming the worst all the time

I would obviously schedule time off if I needed to deal with builders etc. As for deliveries, if I'm on a zoom call I'm not going to answer the door if my cleaner can do it! I don't understand why on earth that's so contentious. If any cleaner 'refused' to do such a simple task they wouldn't be cleaning for me for long. They wouldn't, though, because most cleaners are reasonable people who understand what's expected of them. Unlike the subject of this thread.

I agree, I'm reading some of these posts and wondering what kind of person would refuse to answer the door because it's not cleaning, it's seems totally bizarre to me

Is it against the rules of the cleaners union or something?

We paid for carer/cleaners for my mum. They did answer the door on those rare occasions when it was needed.

On one occasion - God bless the woman - the carer sent an itinerant gentleman packing when he tried to get past the carer to Mum, to coerce her into agreeing to work on the garden.

The carer told the chap that it was her house - she was only in uniform because she was returning from her shift. I was very grateful to her.

ETA She gave him to understand that she was Mum's daughter.

These posts are batshit. I'm trying to imagine my (lovely!) cleaner interrupting me while I'm in my office to tell me to answer the door. Id think she'd gone mad. She wouldn't dream of doing that, anyway. Not because I'm 'denigrating' her or any such rubbish, but because that's just how life works!

My cleaner would never answer the door. She's not here to take in parcels or ward off Jehovah's Witnesses. If she has ear buds in that's also not an issue. I once paid a friend's teenage son to feed the cat and water the plants. The cat was mostly outside in the summer but would come in for food. We got back after a 3 week trip to flnd all the plants dead, mouldy food bowls half way up the garden and a cat that was extremely happy to see us. There was nearly a murder - DH was beyond furious. It was somehow worse that he messaged that morning to say he was just there feeding and watering and what time should he drop the keys off, when it was apparent he hadn't been anywhere near for days at least.

Yes, I absolutely would.

I can absolutely understand how hurt and angry you are OP, I would be too. Glad that you have now blocked her. She has been quite explicit in the level of respect she has for you, your animals and your home so you owe her nothing.

What if she was wearing your old clothes? Less mad or more mad?

Yes, all my friends have cleaners plus I have a (very casual) friend who owns a cleaning business. I’ll ask her next time I see her what her staff are expected to do. The subject has never come up before!

Sadly, I do not have a cleaner myself. Chance would be a fine thing.

If it “only takes a minute” then answer the door yourself? I would say about five minutes per interruption.

Also it may only take five minutes for the cleaner to stop what they’re doing, take their gloves off/switch off hoover/run down the stairs, answer door, sign for parcel, and then get back to work - but that’s still not what she’s paid to do. And if the door knocks multiple times, then it’s not just five minutes.

A cleaner working in my mum’s house would spend longer answering the door than cleaning 😂🤷‍♀️

We always got on with our neighbours until the last lot moved in and decided to pile dirty rubbish in their front garden instead of using their bins. You get on with your neighbours until one day you’re living next to someone like that. They’re a pain in the arse.

And yes, I do consider and plan for all possibilities as I’m autistic - thank you for noticing 😂😂 But no, it’s not stressful…as I’ve planned for pretty much every possible scenario 🫣

What a lovely carer ❤️

Yes, I absolutely understand that a carer would answer the door as it’s more of a general role. But she sounds as if she went above and beyond. What an absolute gem!

We must live in very different size houses.if answering the door in yours takes 5 minutes😂
You don't seem to be taking any account of the fact that employing a cleaner isn't a rigidly defined activity and I assume those of us who can't fathom them not answering the door are perfectly happy that they aren't spending every second actively cleaning and are happy if all parties go with the flow and adopt a pragmatic approach to what is to me a bit of a non-issue. I hadn't realise until this thread that anyone would be dogmatic about it

You are way, way overthinking this. OMG. Are you normally this rigid and inflexible? And if you don't have a cleaner, why do you think you're any kind of authority on what is standard practice?

I've never read as much nonsense in my life as on this thread. I don't believe that some of these posters are for real.

I’m not more an expert than you are. They’re both just opinions.

I did have a quick google just now though and apparently answering the door isn’t automatically part of a cleaner’s contract but can be included if both sides explicitly agree. Google also tells me that there may be insurance or liability issues if the cleaner answers the door and it’s not in their contract.

And yes, as per previous, I’m autistic so I do like to know what’s what 🤷‍♀️

No one is stopping you from getting your cleaner to answer the door. Do what you like - it’s the assumption that a cleaner who is contracted for cleaning service would be automatically expected to do anything you fancy is - to use your word - “batshit”. Presumably it works for you though so no need to be quite so cross. No one on here is attempting to stop your cleaner answering your door 😂

My cleaner doesn't have a 'contract'.

Cool story bro. Tell another

What on earth is your problem!? Are you the OP's cleaner?

In fairness, it does take a while to get to the front door in my house depending on where I am because the whole living area is at the back, if you know what I mean. There's a bit of a ratrun of rooms to get through - not currently helped by the fact we're renovating so there's shit everywhere to walk around. Also, DM lives in the annexe so if my front door knocks, I've got to get from the annexe and through my house to the front door which is at the opposite end.

It's definitely not five minutes to get there though! But if I was cleaning DM's kitchen, and had to get up from the floor, take off rubber gloves, get to my door, sign, go back to DM's kitchen, put my gloves back on and get started again, about five minutes would be about right.

Probably what I haven't said clearly enough is that I can completely see why someone would come to an agreement with a trusted cleaner that they'd answer the door for them. My main point was that it's not part of a cleaner's contract and I don't think it's something that should be automatically expected. Also, I've just never known it amongst the friends who have cleaners so it sort of caught me by surprise that some people seemed to think it was part of a cleaner's duties.

Well they should! No insurance either then? Insurance would be invalid without a contract.

Contracts are really important!!

Unless you're paying your cleaner cash in hand.....

I’m lucky, my dog absolutely loves going to kennels and spending time playing with other dogs!

I wouldn't be that bothered about her having friends over. I would be very bothered about her neglecting the animals, after promising to look after them.

I was so grateful to her. She was indeed lovely.

OP, not to be alarmist but I would consider checking your house for hidden cameras. (There are videos on youtube that are helpful on this). Your former cleaner's behaviour is somewhat disturbing.

Cleaners can be eccentric, as can anyone else. I had a cleaner who liked to rearrange my furniture. I’d come back from holiday and find that she’d moved a piece of furniture from one room to another. She also liked to “deep clean” which involved taking all my teenage son’s stuff out of his chest of drawers and putting it back again. Without asking him, or me, first.

Worse than this, she loved gossiping about the neighbours (she cleaned for several people on the street). When she started telling me about Derek’s viagra I knew it was time to let her go.

I have missed lots of posts on this thread. My cleaner has also always answered the door to parcels, shopping, deliveries and sometimes trades people if they have been before, and know what they sre doing.

This is part of her job when she is here. Dh and I are working/on calls or busy. If we are not, we will do it.

It we use agency cleaning we wouldn’t expect this, as they might not know the house well etc.

As our cleaning lady has worked here for years, the job role grew organically in that time, she offered to do most/all of these things I might add.

When I say she woukd pretend to be me, I mean instead of saying she worked here she would pretend to be me and sign for parcels with the postman as such, with my name instead of hers, or go and tell the decorator off for being an hour late, really berating him without speaking to us about it. We eould never speak to people in the way she does, she comes across as rude and abrupt sometimes. I have asked her not to do this.
Occasionally she still does.

A few weeks back she had a full blown arguement with the John Lewis delivery man - he thought she was the owner until I came down to find out what was happening. She has always been like this, and I used to think it was nice that she cared, and felt protective of our home etc.