I suspect new au pair is a smoker. Pls help me decide what to do!

[MGMidget]

Our new Au Pair arrived on Saturday evening. Less than an hour later I came to her room with some towels and could smell stale tobacco smoke at the door. She hadn't unpacked at this point and I hoped that the smell was a result of people smoking near her during her journey. However, the following day when I walked past her room the smell of stale tobacco was wafting out! I don't think she's smoking in the room but the smell is coming from her clothes and baggage. I am worried the extent of the smell means she is quite a heavy smoker. The thing is I specified we wanted a 'no smoker' in our APWorld profile and she also returned my email questionnaire during the application process, answering the question 'do you smoke' with a 'no'. Now I realise its possible she has shared a house with a smoker rather than being a smoker herself so I'm trying not to jump to conclusions too quickly. However, I would really like some help in deciding what to do if I conclude she is a smoker or catch her 'in the act'.

My concerns are:

1. I don't want her smoking in front of our young son. While a light 'social' smoker might manage to restrict themselves to the occasional cigarette in a bar with their friends, I'm worried that the extent of the smell means she's a heavy smoker and will have trouble going without a cigarette for any length of time. Do you think I'm right to conclude she's probably quite a heavy smoker?
2. If I discuss this with her and she agrees not to smoke in front of my son or in our house what happens when she's desperate for a cigarette? I'm worried she'll go outside and leave him unsupervised, or get really irritable and distracted so not be so good at her job.
3. I have googled some information on second hand smoke on clothes, skin etc and it seems this is also harmful to young children even if they are not directly exposed to cigarette smoke. I'm not sure how seriously to take this but my son does suffer from eczema and mild asthma so I am trying to keep these things well controlled!
4. I really hate the idea of stale smoke wafting around the house (if it gets worse than it is now) and starting to lodge itself in the soft furnishings in our house. I really don't want to have to replace the bed and all the soft furnishings in the Au Pair's room when she leaves and if they stink I'm sure the next (hopefully non smoking) au pair will be unhappy!

On the other hand it is going to be a real pain to sack her and find a replacement at this time. It is a busy time of the year for me and I recruited her after careful selection and reference checking back in June. This has been carefully planned and I arranged for her to start a week before our current au pair leaves so there is a handover period. Everything was going smoothly until this red flag! Aarrgh!

I'd really like so help in working out what to do. I think it is better to try and resolve this quickly before my son gets too attached to her if we are going to have to let her go. Do you think I should:

1. Confront her by asking her if she smokes as I have noticed the smell coming from her room? That would give her the opportunity to explain (and ideally put my mind at rest) but it may also mean that if she is trying to cover up the situation it may be harder to catch her 'in the act' later.
2. Say nothing for the moment but keep a close eye on her to see if I or our current au pair can catch her in the act? Our current au pair is planning to take her out for a drink one evening. I could ask her to try and find out if she smokes, maybe by offering to buy her some cigarettes at the bar.
3. Remind her of the house rules (she's had the handbook already) by telling her that she must never smoke in front of our son or in the house, only when she is off duty? The thing is it shouldn't be necessary to remind her of this if she is a non smoker as she stated so I don't think I can say this unless I also do point 1!

If it turns out she is quite a heavy smoker would you automatically sack her or try to make it work by using the house rules? I am wondering if anyone has been in my situation and did you manage to make things work or did you have to send the au pair home?

Thanks for feedback and sorry for long posting. This is troubling me as you probably realise!

At the moment no one knows if she lied or not - ie you don't know if she smokes

The smell can linger on clothes. My dp smokes and used my car and I told him off for smoking in it after I told him not too. He swears he didn't smoke after I said no and had a cig out of the car and then got in it and drove home

Op - you can either ask outright but she may lie (again) or watch her and keep a nose an eye on the smell

If she does smoke then she is likely to smoke around your dc - I sadly know nannies who smoke and say they don't to get a job and then have a crafty fag in the garden - one even then squirts perfume and has mints - which makes it even more obvious lol

What you need to decide op is if au pair does smoke is that instant dismissal or can you live with it if only smokes our of hours - which also could mean she has the odd cig in your garden in the evening before bed etc

Or it's a no go so needs to find childcare asap

"My DH stored a few items of furniture in his (smoking) mum's home and we had to throw it all out. REEKED. And she said she'd never smoked in that room even."
That's first hand smoke if the furniture was stored in a smoker's house - or is my definition of second hand smoke wrong?
I was referring to the soft furnishings in a house where nobody actually smoked inside - a smoker who smoked away from the home wouldn't make the furniture smell just by their clothes smelling of smoke!
Either way OP - I would give her a few days to settle and then hopefully you will get to know her well enough to be able to ask her outright. Presumably other things in her application were good enough for you to hire her so this one thing won't be a dealbreaker?

just ask her,
and if she does smoke then perhaps offer to buy her an electronic cigarette to use instead,
that will not produce any smoke or smell and would stop her getting any cravings or popping out for a sneaky cig.

"Presumably other things in her application were good enough for you to hire her so this one thing won't be a dealbreaker?"

The problem is that there would have been many other applicants who were just as good and didn't lie - why should this one keep the job in preference to those? If there are no consquences to lying about smoking during a job application then there becomes no point in asking about it.

We always confirm the situation during interviews e.g.

Q. "You said in your application that you are a non-smoker: have you ever smoked?"

and take it from there, stressing that it IS a deal breaker.

I hate all this sneaking around getting other people to spy on her - your current AP, your child... Presumably all in an atmosphere of suspicion and tension.

Just ask her, OP. It doesn't have to be confrontational. Just say, nicely, "I noticed a cigarette smell coming from your room. As you know, this is a non-smoking house. So can I just check with you: do you smoke?" And take it from there.

If you don't get this sorted out right now, you'll always have an atmosphere of distrust between you.

Im a non smoker

I HATE the smell of smoke too, yuk, and would never employ a smoker to look after my DD and would NEVER want a smoker as a live in employee in my house. (and yes i could legally choose that)

but (before the days of it being illegal to smoke inside) like everyone else I would come back stinking of smoke.... and also had this 1 coat, and it really kept the smell, and to me, it really did make my whole room smell, strongly of smoke.

Now i am NOT a smoker and never have been, but if this girl has been surrounded by smokers, that i see no reason why her clothes should not smell as strongly as my coat used to.

Perhaps you could put in her contract that she is never ever to smoke in the house OR your garden etc. (No one smokes anywhere on my property, they have to go all the way to the pavement) so that if she ever did, it would be gross misconduct and instant dismissal

In my nanny contract i had words to effect of "gross misconduct includes, but is not limited to X, Y & Z)

What's in the handbook?

Thanks for all your messages. I'm planning to discuss it with her but was leaving it a day or so to get a better picture of what she's like in other ways and to get some other opinions first! This is because if I have the conversation and she says she's a smoker I feel I ought to then make a quick decision so at least I will be doing that having thought about it already. I appreciate everything is hyperthetical at the moment and yes she may have lived in a house with a smoker rather than being one herself. I'm certainly not planning to leave it for any length of time and I have decided against involving my son or our outgoing au pair in this!

As I already pointed out asking her outright doesn't mean she will tell me the truth so thinking about this for a bit and observing her first will help me decide if her answer is believable!

Regarding the gross misconduct issue - I have listed smoking as an example of gross misconduct in the contract but I have kept it brief and not too legalistic since this is an au pair contract not a nanny contract.

Regardless of the outcome I think I have learnt something from this which is that I will be more rigorous about checking the non-smoking characteristic of au pairs in future. Mr Anchovy, I like your suggestion on asking the au pair if she has 'ever smoked' in the interview. That pretty much eliminates the possibility of an au pair saying later that she is a 'social smoker' or 'occasional smoker' and didn't think this counted as 'smoking' in answering our questionnaire! However, it also assumes their English is good enough to understand and answer this - I'm not sure our new au pair's English is good enough to understand and answer that question if she needed to elaborate so I would have needed to ask her in my shaky French. I had thought that keeping it simple: 'do you smoke? yes/no' was easy and clear but it does have its drawbacks.

I also realise I didn't ask her referees about this (although they wouldn't necessarily have known anyway) but it is something I will ask referees about in future!

Have you asked her yet?

In your situation I would have sacked her. Normally I am very tolerant to au pairs and making lots of allowances as I feel that they should be treated as part of the family. However, I draw the line at smoking. To start with it is unhealthy for your child, even her breath will release nicotine if she exhales close to the child and if she is a heavy smoker/has just smoked. Secondly, there is the safety aspect of her potentially leaving your child briefly unsupervised whilst she is smoking, thirdly there is an increased fire risk and your house insurance might not cover this if you have declared it is a non-smoking household, lastly, I find it a filthy habit and your whole house will start smelling. Smokers might not agree with me, however, it is unlikely they have the same sense of smell as I have. I can smell at several meters distance whether somebody regularly smokes. Very unpleasant.

as there is no proof at the moment op cant just sack au pair

if she is smoking then she does have the right for instant dismissal if she said no smoking in the contract

Blondes - anyone can be sacked within the first 2 years of employment. You can sack them for liking Take That, for wearing Mickey Mouse socks or for picking their nose (as I did, once).

You don't need evidence, and it wouldn't matter if she actually smoked or not - truth is employment law does not protect you from dismissal until you have served 2 full years (discrimination is separately protected against)

you sacked someone for picking their nose!!?

anyway have we found out if this poor au pair actually smokes or not.

I did

He picked it continually. I told him about it, my husband did too, and my brother, and the builders who were there at the time and told him they'd knock his head off if he dared to go near the kettle or coffee cups with his filthy hands.

The last straw was watching him pick his nose and then continue to make my children's sandwiches.

really squiffy - about law and picking nose

eeeuuuwwww

OK, I've kept everyone in suspense for a long time for which I'm sorry! Its been a busy two weeks but here is the update. I asked her and yes she is a smoker as I suspected. Her explanation for why she had stated she was a non smoker and applied for a job that was for a non smoker was that she intended to give up by September! Hmm...She's wearing nicotine patches to control her urges and I had noticed she'd been nipping out in the evening for short outings - saying she needed to get some fresh air for example. She said she had hoped we wouldn't notice as she always sprays perfume and brushes her teeth when she has had a cigarette. Anyway, I'm obviously reflecting on this and taking into account what she has been like with my son (which seems to be going very well - she seems to be good at that part which makes this a hard decision), what she has promised (no smoking in the house or garden or on duty (not even in the park with our son).
I think the real test may come when winter arrives and she may be less keen to go out for a cigarette and hence try having a sneaky fag in her room.

However, I don't like the lack of honesty. She has also come clean about a few other small lies she told during the application process (not about critical things for me but I don't like that she deliberately lied as it says something about her character). Our outgoing au pair also warned me of some dishonest things our new au pair had told her she'd done in her home country which is also an indication of her character. She does seem to be really good at engaging with my son and doing good quality activities with him though which makes it harder to make a decision to get rid of her too readily. Our last au pair was very lovely (and honest) but weak on engaging our son and had to resort to lots of TV to keep him under control! So I guess there is no such thing as perfection but I need to decide whether she has crossed too far over the line on honesty. At the moment, I'm thinking about things...

Thank you everyone for all the advice you gave me on this!

"So I guess there is no such thing as perfection"

There is, you just haven't found it yet

If she is contrite about lying on the form and is making a genuine effort to give up I might be inclined to let her stay on the condition that she continues to work hard at giving up (and everything else) and is totally clean and no longer nicotine dependent buy [some reasonable deadline], and understands that in the house or on duty is instant dismissal.

The history of untrustworthy behaviour would probably make me decide against though.

MGM, you have my sympathy. I've had 6 aupairs and it is difficult to recruit good ones & can sometimes be hard living with them. For me, it was the cheapest form of childcare & therefore a necessity. I had some really fantastic lovely aupairs & some that I'm surprised left the house alive!

Don't go too much on what the last aupair said, try and stick to the facts. You've established that she is a smoker and she lied on her application form. It sounds as though you have laid it on the line about not smoking in the house or in front of your son. That is all you can do for now.

Get her to wash all her clothes & hang out any bags she brought with her in the garden to air. You can tell her in a nice way, that you can smell smoke on her clothes & luggage & you want to help her get rid of the smell - you don't like it in your house etc. Help her get all her laundry done - just so she doesn't think you are a complete witch.

Once that is done, you will be able to tell immediately if she is smoking in the house. Check for cigarette butts in the garden or in any of your household bins and obviously the scent of smoke in the evenings.

Thanks MrAnchovy and PostBellumBugsy for your words of wisdom! Mr Anchovy I think you are right that I should continue to push her to give up. I suspect I was a bit too soft yesterday when I talked her about it and she may now think she doesn't need to give up once its out in the open. I shall emphasise to her that we do want her to give up if she's going to stay - after all she supposedly applied for the job on the basis she would have given up before it started.

As regards washing and airing all her clothes, I think the problem is that the smell of smoke could still come from people around her (so everyone has been telling me for the past two weeks anyway!) so it wouldn't be conclusive proof she was still smoking!

I have a problem with the dishonesty. I have never had an aupair whom I did not fully trust with my children and possessions. I think it is a red flag you are already picking signals about this being her character flaw.