What to do about our au pair stealing?

[aupairhelp]

We've had au-pairs since DS1 (now almost 2) was a few months old. At first, we just needed an extra pair of hands around the house as DW and I (DH) both work from home and run our own business. We're always at home but need to be able to dip in and out of work to keep the lights on, so to speak. Most of our AP (au-pair) experience has been great and we still speak regularly to two of our three previous APs. Our second AP wasn't ideal as we didn't feel we could fully trust her (she would lie about little things) so we gave her several months notice and supported her finding another family.

Our latest AP started with us about a month and a half ago. She's been taking care of DS1 and occasionally DS2, who is now 5 months old but rarely both at the same time as DW and I have been balancing DS2 with work most of the time but this has started to get very difficult for us to manage. The few times our AP has had both, it's seemed like she was struggling and in general, it's seemed lately that she's been struggling with just DS1 on his own a little. We've been considering our options lately for additional childcare as we've realised two young kids is too much for one AP and so have been looking into local nurseries and childminder services for DS1 so that AP would just need to take care of DS2, who at 5 months old, is a lot easier to take care of than a full-of-energy 2 year old.

However, DW started to get little worried earlier this week because she noticed that DS1 seemed to be a little afraid of AP at times. He wasn't going to her for hugs like he does with us, our previous APs, helpers at creche etc. On top of this, his language development seems to have slowed down a bit - that could just be from a cold or sore teeth (rear molars might be coming through). During term time, he usually has a couple of hours at a creche several days a week but that's not been happening lately. We were worried that he was missing out so contacted the creche and they put us in touch with a girl that's been doing some babysitting during the holidays. She took him out every day for a couple of hours and he seemed to love her. DW asked her about hugging and she said he'd been really warm and happy to hug and be picked up. This worried us even more in regards to our AP.

Sorry for the long background info but I felt it was necessary as, as a result of the above, I decided to hide a camera in our lounge, just to be on the safe side. I had a spare one that I'd been meaning to mount on the outside of our house a while ago, so I balanced it on a bookshelf and semi-hid it with some cards that were already on the shelf. I've never felt the need to monitor the insides of my house before and I feel uncomfortable with recording anyone surreptitiously but the odd behaviour of DS1 convinced me it was worth checking. I figured I'd run it for a few days or a week, to get an idea of what was going on when we weren't looking and then take it down or, if there was anything concerning, consider wall mounting one properly and telling anyone that comes in that there's a camera there. The camera covers the play area in our lounge and the dining area part of our kitchen. I put it up overnight on Thursday but only set it up digitally around midday on Friday so it's not been running long and has only recorded half a day of her working. I scanned through that briefly on Friday night and, although she was glued to her phone and barely interacted with DS1, I didn't see anything outright alarming. DS1 was happily running around playing and she was sometimes out of line of sight for longer than I'd like but it seemed ok. She did come over and smile at him at one point, which set my mind at ease a little as I'd been worried she might have been cold with him as she's often quite negative (glass is half empty kind of person).

Anyway, tonight I thought I'd check the camera again to make sure it was working properly, ready for the first full day tomorrow. I glanced back through today (Sunday) and saw that there was some motion detected around the time DW and I took DS1 and DS2 out for about half an hour. I thought it would just be the dogs pacing, upset that we were out but I saw AP come in, look around to see if anyone else was around and then reach up to the bookshelf the camera was in. My heart froze for a second because I thought she might find the camera but then I saw that she'd picked up some cash we had lying on a high up shelf further down the bookcase (from when DW sold a baby rocker and some other baby things that we didn't need anymore). She rifled through it and took what looked like to be £10 and pocketed it. From her behaviour, it didn't look like this was the first time she'd done this and before taking it, it looked like she double checked that we weren't in. I don't know how much she's taken in total but I believe it's more than £10 that's missing but not massively more.

Again, sorry for the long story, but I needed to write this down as I'm not sure what to do about it. I've not told DW yet as she's asleep but I'm all wound up as a result of this all. It's not about the money, it's about the act. I'm just shocked that she would do this.

As I'm sure it'll be asked; we pay what we believe to be above the going rate for APs, based on what we've seen on other family's profiles and AP told us that we're paying her about 50% more than she got at her last family. We live in a nice location, our AP's room is a lovely room (freshly redecorated two years ago) with a nice double bed, lots of light, new TV, air con unit and we gave her a new iPhone to use with unlimited data, all the entertainment subscription services. She has one of our bank cards (for an account we set up just for AP needs) that she can use for buying groceries or any food she wants, we prepare her food most evenings and we buy her takeaway most Friday and Saturday nights unless she's out and we've always welcomed our APs to spend time with us, watching shows and films with us if they want, that kind of thing. Of course, she doesn't have to pay for any bills. She works for about 7 hours a day Monday-Friday with no evening or weekend work (starts at about 8 and finishes at 5 but has a 2-3 hour break when DS1 has his nap). We don't ask her to do any cleaning (we have a weekly cleaner) but we'd expect her to do normal household things like loading or unloading the dishwasher, wiping down the surface after use, that kind of thing. I don't think we're asking too much and we've always tried to be as welcoming as possible.

Has anyone gone through anything remotely similar? Any advice on what we should do about this? It's complicated because she lives with us and it's going to be hard living with someone we can't trust. She's not mentioned anything about needing extra money or having any debts etc, so I'm not sure what to think. I think we need to let her go, as you can't get that trust back, but this is her home at the moment, so just knee-jerk reacting and kicking her out doesn't seem right as she'll have nowhere to go. Although we've started looking into alternative childcare already, we're in very early stages right now as we were planning a little further ahead and we haven't worked out all the details on cost etc. I plan on keeping the camera up and watching it more carefully over the next few days and will obviously discuss all this with DW tomorrow but I'd value any input anyone might have.

Apologies for being so long winded - I'm a little worked up right now and wanted to be clear on the facts and what led us here. First time post on here so have done my best to get the abbreviations right.

As far as I'm aware an au pair has a more 'inclusive 'arrangement with the family.
No rent, no bills and much of her life subsidised. The money given is only 'pocket money'. In any case even if it is cheap child care stealing is still wrong on all levels.

Food and rent doesn't count?

Not good comprehension skills on your part.

Accomodation can be offset legally against the minimum wage at a rate of £8.60 a day. Which leaves OP still in massive violation of the minimum wage law, if this is employment.

A live-in nanny has accommodation and food included and typically earns £600-900 a week.

Food and rent is all controlled @FunnyBeaux. Even if that were thrown in, full time care for 2 under 2s by an unqualified young woman - say £15 on the cheap side? Would be nearly £700/week. There's no way the room and board is worth that. And let's not forget tax and NI contributions and all the other things an employer should be doing.

The OP is exploitative.

She stole. You have proof tho illegally obtained . She needs to go

saying all that she is the 4th au pair you have had and eldest isn’t even 2yet 😱😱😱

Thst gives me warning bells

au pairs are not meant to be used for cheap childcare not care for under 3,s

you have two young babies /toddlers

employ a qualified nanny

ap - They are usually used for school aged children for 7/9 and 3/6 and study daytime

when is your ap studying if working all day

Camera hidden snd not telling her is filming illegally

you also say she was on phone all the time and ignored child apart from giving him a smile

wtf

get rid now

have NEVER heard of an ap getting 3mtgs notice

that sounds more like a nanny

you are using her as a nanny but paying her ap salary 😱😱😢😢

What are you paying @aupairhelp

you say above the going rate but how much a week is she getting

Fire her. Tell her it’s for stealing. If you’re confident enough that you had a legitimate reason to place the cameras, stand over your evidence.

But there’s something really ick about someone filming a young woman in her own home without her knowledge.

Omg by some of the comments I hope some of you never get au pairs. Getting accommodation and bills included IN EXCHANGE for looking after your children does not mean it's ok to be working for £3 an hour.

Live-in nannies work the same hours this au pair was expected to work (and have the same responsibilities by the sound of it) and are paid very well for doing so.

Ok, back for an update as we've now resolved the situation.

First off, for those people somehow claiming we're paying £3 per hour, I have no idea what you're smoking but pass me some. As I said in my original post and then clarified in a follow up, the usual work week would be about 25-30 hours per week (2 hour break during nap minimum and 2 hour break during play group time). We paid her in pocket money, not salary/wages but you can take that how you want it. The important thing in regards to 'pocket money' is that you have to pay tax if pocket money is high enough to incur such tax which, as the lower National Insurance threshold is now £12,576, it puts the point at which you'd need to pay tax on pocket money at £242 per week. We paid less than this amount. On top of this, the government recently passed a ruling that meant that au pairs are no longer exempt from national minimum wage, which puts the lower limit for an au pair working 25 hours a week at £109.85 after you deduct the accommodation allowance allowed by the government at £60.90. For 30 hours, it's £144 a week. We paid more than both of these amounts.

Our au-pair was here legally and had pre-settled status. We found her through the most common website for matching families to au-pairs there is. We got references from her previous families. We encouraged her to meet people, made suggestions on clubs to join, put her in contact with our previous au-pair for a handover and to be introduced to other local au-pairs and friends that she knew, we suggested avenues of study for her and we were planning on taking her on holiday with us soon, if she wanted to come with us.

To clear up another point; most families change au-pairs every 6 months. All our previous au-pairs were with us for around this time or longer. While I can certainly understand people's concerns about an au-pair taking care of a baby, they were never sole charge. We were always in the house and the nature of our work means we have a lot of flexibility. You might not agree with this approach, but teenagers have been taking care of babies since the start of time and families have relied on young family members and friends to look after babies for just as long. Not all au-pairs are the same though and this is something we've learned through all this.

In regards to the filming, there is nothing illegal about filming a common area of your home and this includes using hidden cameras. The camera was in our lounge, watching the play mat. This is completely allowed and legal. A lot of people have cameras throughout their homes now produced by the likes of Google or Nest - i.e. they're legal and mainstream products, not some niche dodgy spy camera. I don't like the idea of spying on someone but because of DS1's change in behaviour, it felt morally ok to do so.

Now, on to how we resolved the situation. We calmly confronted her about the situation and said that we knew she had stolen some money and as a result, we couldn't trust her anymore. We told her we had booked her several days at a local hotel for her to stay at and that we would be paying her her full notice period once she had moved all her things out and had handed back the phone. She said she's never stolen anything before, we calmly said that we knew it was her. We didn't bring up the recording because it wasn't necessary and we didn't feel the need to embarrass her further by rubbing the proof in her face. We spoke to her less than 24 hours after she stole the money, so there's no way she'd have forgotten it and we all know the truth of the matter. She left to go to the hotel a short while later and then came back the next day to pick up her things. After she'd taken all her things, we paid her the amount we'd promised her and she seemed thankful. I know some people will think we've been far too kind but I'd rather be kind and hope she learns from this and can put her best foot forward for the future.

In regards to our plans for childcare, DS1 will be starting at a child minder next week and one of our previous au-pairs jumped at the chance to come back when we asked if she might be able to help out. Her reasons for moving back home ended up leading to nowhere and she'd been looking for another family to au-pair with instead but hadn't found a good match yet so it looks like things might actually work out for the best for everyone. We'll see how things go.

Wow. That’s some mental gymnastics to actually convince yourself that you are not exploiting the au pair system.

you should be ashamed of yourself. However I don’t think you will.

Just say what you pay her - not woffle
on at what amount you put tax /ni on

and why on Earth would you pay someone 12w notice if they stole from you

ap generally stay a year. Not 6mths

and yes you can film /have cameras if people know

we have drive /door cameras and a big sticker on window saying 24hr surveillance

And if nothing wrong with you filming her illegally why didn’t you mention you saw her on camera stealing

To clear up another point; most families change au-pairs every 6 months.

What a load of bollocks.

You keep feeling yourself you're good people. We can all see you're cheap wankers exploiting young women to get childcare on the cheap.

And that line about not wanting to embarrass her further is pure bullshit

Get an actual nanny that you pay a salary to not ‘pocket money’ to look after your two very young children while you work.

This is incredibly obvious.

@aupairhelp ODFO what a load of waffly bullshit mansplaining. And no one thinks you've been too kind. You've been exploiting young women slaves for cheap baby care.

I’m guessing that the ‘more than the legal minimum’ was c. £150 a week ‘pocket money’ to look after a 5 months old and a 2 year old for 30 hours a week.

I’ve got a nice sister room. I’m
not about to try to half my childcare bills for one 2 year old (never mind adding in the baby!) by exploiting an au pair. Apart from anything else, I don’t think that is the right thing fig my children. A different unqualified young person on a pittance is not the kind of high quality, consistent childcare my child deserves.

@Ncfreely spot on !!

OP - trust has broken down, arrangement not working !
get rid, stop hand wringing and dithering !!!!
blimey ! Your long windedness gives me a head hurt 🤣

Seems you’ve addressed the stealing so I’ll address the general situation:

Relying on au pairs for the level of care you required is wholly inappropriate. Leaving two very small DC with an untrained teenager is not “childcare” no matter how generous you think you are. (Spoiler alert your exploitative practices were not generous!)

Filming in your home may be acceptable, but your house is also your au pairs place of work and filming without notice is absolutely prohibited.

Have you really booked a childminder? Nobody thinks you've been kind.

Yes the stealing is awful. Surely you could sack her on the spot?

But......how the hell is it OK to film someone without their permission? I'd be furious?!! Why is no one else bothered about this?!!

@clarepetal

I think a lot of us are bothered by that, as we are about almost everything in this situation.

Plus, I'm still bothered by why, if the second au pair was let go for lying, they helped her find another family placement?

Haven't had time to read through the whole thread.
Not sure if anyone has raised this but I thought it to be illegal to film someone without their knowledge so you're on tricky ground here.
In all honesty, you don't trust the girl. You have proof she is stealing, she therefore needs to go.
Next time you employ someone I would suggest you go for a nanny. They will have a lot more experience with very young kids such as yours.

2 hour break during nap minimum and 2 hour break during play group time

And during this time she could leave the building, do whatever she liked? Breaks like that aren't really a break from work entirely.

Also you clearly don't understand that some things are legal but not moral. It's not moral to surveil your au pair without her knowledge. The ends don't justify the means, it's not OK.