Nannies over here

[HarrietTheSpook]

There's been a lot these week on nannies/au pairs and hygiene. This isn't about having a rant against the parents who posted those threads BTW. Just a bit curious really, as to how low we parents can go.

Tell me about the messiest house you've ever worked in? (I am not trying to flush out our nanny - or actually make myself feel better.)

Would a truly messy house put you off? Or would you think - great, they won't be so picky with me?

Have you ever been offered food by your employers - "help yourself to anything!" and said (thanks but noooo thanks!)

Have you ever refused to work anywhere on the basis of poor hygiene of the family in question?

The grossest (and I mean gross) thing I have ever seen in an employers house? Hmmm, let me narrow down the list think.

Well there was the time a previous MB forgot her insulin kit and wanted me to go into her en suite to fetch it for her. Unflushed cr@p in the loo and pants with a very used sanitary towel on the floor. Yep. That was nice to see.

Or the time I got back from a 2 week vacay the day before my bosses and they had obviously had a party the night before they left for their vacay. Mouldy food and glasses and stuff everywhere. Their excuse for leaving it was "oh we were in such a state we couldn't face it at 6am". Again, that was nice to get home to. Especially as I found that some random person had slept in my bed and left a sock in it

I think live in nannies and their employers will naturally be privy to lots of quirks and foibles that would otherwise remain behind closed doors. I am very neat and tidy in the shared areas of the house, but my room is my sanctuary and if I ever felt judged on how I kept it I would quit. Being a live in nanny is for the benefit of both parties and I think there is (or should be) a mutual respect for each other's HOME as that what this is. My home as much as theirs. So I am entitled to the same privacy and courtesy as I show my employers.

Messy and dirty are two different things. I can work in a messy house but prefer not to work in a dirty house. I'm quite messy myself but never when I'm living in somebody elses house.

When one of the housekeepers quit and db decided I could scrub the horrendous skidmarks off his y-fronts was a good one. Clearly his nanny never taught him to wipe properly.

It gets worse. I worked for a family once who would regularly go through my room searching for whatever it was they had decided I was hiding. I never knew what. They pulled me up for leaving my hairbrush in my sink and having books on my bed. Clearly a criminal offence.

Marking this to reply with horror story/how fastidious I am () later!

Well, I meant this to be a bit light hearted but it seems there are some real nutters out there.

If I were a nanny though I think I would be slightly alarmed by an impeccibly clean house as I would think standards for ME would be ridiculously high.

But our nanny is beyond tidy and I'm sure we horrify her.

I prefer it not to be neat and spotless all the time, as I'm not exactly a neat and spotless kind of person. Prefer the place to have a lived in feel, rather than a showhouse feel.

I've just had a 2 year job in a very cluttered and messy house - though clean as they had a cleaner once a week (who cleaned around the clutter) It didn't bother me too much, but when I first started I used to try and make some order out of the chaos - but soon stopped when I realised it was back to how it was before a week. They had the cloakroom completely redecorated and all the old stuff (loo roll holder, bin, pictures etc) sat in their hallway for 3 months. They had an ancient hoover upstairs that stopped working when I used it, I left it on the landing and told them - it stayed there for a few weeks and then found it's way back into the cupboard! They were, however, one of the nicest families I've ever worked for and I came to realise that the house was so disorganised as they spent their non working time having quality time with their children

I am now working for the sister of my mb from that job. They are complete opposites! This one is very organised and tidy. It is nice to be in her home after all the chaos of the last one, though I feel as if I have to have everything left exactly as it was when I arrived. When the baby sleeps and I've done the washing/cooking there is not much else to do as all the toys in the playroom/bedroom are sorted and tidy (the children have been taught to put each activity away after it has been played with) even the art cupboard is organised

Oh yes. Just remembered the one where mb would lose it (hourly occurance) and if she lost it with one of the kids in particular he would wet and soil himself he was so frightened. He'd hide the dirty pants in his room but one time she knew and smeared it all over the carpet screaming if he was going to behave like a pig he could live in a pigsty. That took a lot of cleaning up. The psychological damage I couldn't clean up.

My personal hate is going back after the weekend/day off to find the house like it's survived an encounter with an out of control wwrecking ball. Dirty dishes in sink, dishwasher loaded to the max but not put on, no clean baby bottles despite me leaving everything pristine on a Friday. They then have a go at me saying the house is a complete pigsty and 'do something about it as it's not good for the children.'

have been for an interview where a huge spider scuttled across the floor and up the wall to a corner in the ceiling where it had a huge web with many dead flies etc in it

turned the job down

i have had temp jobs where their hygiene is disgusting and as with wrinklyraisin there have been toilets covered with skid marks and poo up the wall as well as mum asking me to change her bed and there was blood and skid marks and posibly even semen stains

i dont know what shocked me more,to ask to change mb bed or the fact it was stained - but it was a weeks temp job and generally im happy to muck it and do things in a temp job that i would NEVER agree to do in a perm job iyswim

also had the sanitary towel on the floor used (this was in kids bathroom) and one house had a lump of poo in hall that turned out was from the dog and they left it there and watched the baby crawl round it

obviously the above are hopefully unusual

yes a truly messy house would put me off and if they dont have a cleaner (i always ask at interviews) then i wont work there

i have been offered to help myself at a bs job and whole fridge had stuff that was uncovered/mouldy - the chicken was smelly and raw and whole fridge had a weird smell to it

i literally had a slice of bread from freezer spread with a new jar of peanut butter (fresh was mouldy) for tea as didnt trust anything else

i always carry a cuppa soup and crisps in my bag now if bs (just in case)

I have babysat at a house that was so full of stuff that it was tricky to even get in the house and walk down the hallway to the lounge. It was for a friend of a friend and when I was warned to take a flask I didnt belive my friend literally meant it but the kitchen was covered in a film of grease, had bare crumbling plaster on the walls, leaking rusty pipes and when I saw what was being used to wash the pots I knew my friend did really mean take your own flask!!!

I am a nanny that lives in and I am a bit anal about my room being tidy and clean but I think as long as the room is not causing a hygiene problem its your space and do what you want with it. I had a big pot plant that was in my bedroom in a previous job that was a big dusty thing and I thought that if I shove it in a corner and dont water it then it would die off and then I could get rid of it BUT someone kept coming in my room and watering the blasted thing and I hated the fact that someone was coming in my space without asking to water this precious plant.

My ex-boss as really messy - not dirty, just disorganised - and I used to carefully lift the piles of clutter so I could dust/clean underneath them and replace them where I found them.

Personally I prefer things tidy, but mess doesn't bother me. Dirt does. Crumbs are the work of the devil. Are you listening, DH?! A truly messy house wouldn't put me off, but I'd ask if they minded me tidying occasionally.

I've never refused to work somewhere though but I have brought my own food for babysitting because I used to babysit for a really lovely family with a squillion cats who left hair EVERYWHERE and I didn't want to eat cat hair.

Plenty of places I've been horrified by the state of the loo as well. The worst was one where the bin in the bathroom was just overflowing with (I assume used) sanitary towels, dirty nappies and used condoms. It was a temp job thankfully otherwise I'd have quit.

In all honesty the worst ones have been families who don't clean up after pets. Now I don't work for families with pets unless they're small caged rodents as I just can't stand it.

Hi everyone, Its one thing us nannies/house keepers put up with, but when you have a family where the mum has a 3 day weekend and leaves all the messs for you when monday comes around, is real sad. But we nannies put up with so much more. I am new to UK, i am 43, I have no one here for surport. Then i have the husband comming in my room at 1am drunk wanting, well you no what, wife alseep upstairs, offering me money for sex. This was a constaint thing. I had to leave my job. And now i can not seem to find a job here, with 6 agents. Hope i find something soon.

gizzmo that's horrible! I'm not suprised you left.

True about weekends creating mess though!

If anyone knows of anything nanny/house keeper so i can stay in the UK please let me know. Thank you