Help! What should au pairs get in London? URGENT

[majorstress]

I'm paying £80 pocket money, all food, own room with new tv, dvd and radio. 3 x 3 hours English classes a week, just paid £137 for 12 weeks. Original agreement was this would rise to £100 this month, but hours were from 2:30 to 8 pm, 2 kids one at school one at FULLTIME nursery. She has talked me into letting her knock off at 6:30, and to let her off most of the housework which is ironing. The other housework is done to the minimum, very passive and helpless about everything, doesn't seem to know how to change a bed, or hoover, or cook despite talking about it all the time. I am finding myself working non-stop doing housework as well as a full time job, and failing dismally at coping with either, with continual colds and a back injury. Now she wants me to honor the £100 part of the deal. Am I a mug? a slavedriver? Should I find someone else? Quit my job? Kill myself?

Perhaps she just inadvertantly showed a bit more arse when she bent down in front of him?

oh yuck!

I'm no having much luck so far with my au pair, Inertia the Gasper, but I am taking detailed notes of everything I have to tell her, and making it into a list of how to do everything in the house. Then, with the next one (big IF so far, no one with any sense is showing any interest after 5 days advertising), I can say, here is how to do it. that's the theory anyway.

I think I will announce shortly that I am paying gross too, and deduct everything on the spot; I sort of hope she leaves then I can in good conscience ask my mum to come from the usa! I need moral support! You wouldn;t elieve a 65 year old with a congenital heart defect would be more energetic than a 23 year old, but she is.

And now the afterschool club that appeared after I had organised AP and had loads of spaces, is of course full. DD1 ried it at Xmas and loved the staff and the facilities and keeps asking if she can go back every day.

Sorry to hear that you are having problems finding a new au pair.

Maybe you can review your blurb and make it sound a little clearer? And have you been adding au pairs to your hotlist, so that they can notice your ad?

My ad on Great Aupair is a couple of pages behind yours (it's a little older) in the UK family list, and I have had tons of interest.

I put my ad up last Tuesday afternoon, and I had an email conversation with a girl on Tuesday evening and telephone interview Wednesday morning.

I picked her up yesterday, and so far she seems perfect.

Thanks to Uwila for her endorsement of Great Aupair.

I know that you a lot of you have used Great AuPair and endorse it, as net conscious mums, but I was very wary of it. Had several responses when I advertised but realised that if I employed any of them, I would have no comeback that you get with an agency, eg third party to talk through any probs, also free replacement after 3 weeks etc. UK Nannies and Au Pairs are good.

Anyway, good luck, wish I could send a fairy along to help you!!

I've been using UK Nannies & Au Pairs. Unfortunately, they were unable to find a girl who was willing to come to a large family in a timely manner. The first girl they sent me didn't work out; the second they found for me had her visa refused .

I will use them again when this au pair leaves in the summer - mainly because hubby's employer pays the fees.

Thanks for advice, I feel I am using all the facilities as best I can on greataupair. The visa goalposts have definitely shifted recently and caught a lot of people in this business on the hop. I tried local agencies at the beginning but wasn't lucky, found them very slow and unresponsive, and seemed to take little heed of my requirements, as well as all the usual horror stories-they seem very like some estate agents I have used, i.e. want lots of money for doing nearly nothing. My ad still needs work, but I think I have at least clarified it to the point of sounding a bit snottier than I really am..maybe!, but this is on purpose, and this is why I am not getting 1000s of no hopers to sift through like I did the first time around, whatever I was using. With the eye of experience, when I look through the APs profiles it is clear than 90% of the "western" ones (who can just come and work here without a lot of visa hassle) are just looking for a jolly hol at my expense, not a job and some seriously-needed experience of adult responsibility.

In my opinion, GreatAupair's best strength is their superior search facilities. i.e. you can do very specific searches. It's such a chore to try and search through the results on some of the other sites. And, you can find British girls on Great au pair. The trouble with girls from the Uk is that they 1- expect more money, and 2- yes, are sometimes looking for a holiday.

Being my nanny is definitely not a holiday. Oh, I'd like to think we'rre lovely and they they stick around just because they live my kids. But truth is I am never home and they have to pick up a lot of slack.

majorstress, I've been trying to reply to your e-mail but it keeps getting returned.

I didn't specify a country of origin on mine, and did get lots of interest from people who would not be able to get a visa - but it was easy enough to auto-respond a no to them, without feeling that it was a big burden on me.

I'm very lucky in that my au pair is from Luxembourg, yet seems very ready to get stuck in with what needs to be done. I've only known her for 24hours but have very good vibes. She speaks fluent English which is an absolute godsend, after someone the polar opposite.

I thought a lot of the Canadian girls looked really good - and I think they would have a good work ethic, along with English language and a driving license. The American girls that looked good job-wise didn't seem to meet the education requirements for a BUNAC visa. But I am certainly open to an American in the future. When I get my next au pair, I won't be in such a rush to have the job filled, and can take time to find the right person.

I agree, Great Aupair's search engine is amazing.

I have only specified people from English-speaking countries this time initially; I am looking in a careful, measured way too, as I am sort of ok at the moment with Inertia; so far we have a truce at home, I have given up trying to train her how to play or look around for something useful to do, at least I am home today (1 kid has temperature) so that she has to watch Noddy videos if she is going to sit on her arse, instead of Ready Steady Cook which they hate. It's too cold to shove them all out the door with a sickie unfortunately. One thing I think is mentioned on another site, the 3 month blues-the initial enthusiasm is gone and winter is horrid; maybe a good idea to plan for that-a holiday to look forward to or something. Mind you she's going home for Easter, that should be something (and hopefully for good if I have my way!)

oh majorstress, I didn't realise you were home because one of the kiddies is sick. Is she really sick, needing mummy? or does she just have a slight fever that a bit of calpo wouldn't cure?

As for the tv viewing, couldn't you just put some kind of timer/lock on it so that only the video machine could be used during the day. No way would I pay someone to watch ready steady cook!

I was just fishing aroung greataupair, just for fun. Seems a bit scarce but there were a couple that didn't look bad.

Good luck.

also, might help to put every EEA country on there, and then specify must speak english. You might get back a lot more people who speak English as a second language. Just a thought!

I'll do that Uwila, nice thinking. DD1 was up to 39.6 at midnight last night, so out with the medicine spoon for Calpol and Neurofen combined, very rare for her to need both, and she needs lots of comfort from me, daddy would be ok for her but he is of course away on business again. So another day at home with both as I cannot get dd2 to and from work nursery, it's too long a commute. Tempted to just ring my boss and resign.

One problem with greataupair website-you are hiring someone who is very likely into computers and the Internet-another sedentary isolated pursuit-and Intertia is always on my PC, which I do allow if I am not using it, which is usually most of the day. But some USA DVDs I have saved for kid's illness such as this only run on my PC in my bedroom (it's their illness treat-and mine!), and yesterday I had to keep throwing her out of my room to let the children watch them, or to work. She was really needing her fix!

Just put a password on your computer...

Ah, yes. I had that problem with Lidka too. I have a work laptop and a personal laptop. When I was away at work I would let her use the home one... until I clued into the files which were in my view bordering porn. And, she had some spyware on there (presumably from on of her dodgy chat sites). And, this posed a concern to the security of our home network. She very quickly got used to her internet access and would ask for it all the time. I'm sure she used it way more than I would be comfortable with when I was at work and she was supposed to be watching DD.

Perhaps you could snag the power supply. Then, that battery would only last her a couple of hours (I'm guessing of course how long your battery lasts). That would limit her daytime use. Or does this laptop go to work with you? One time when I got a bit fed up with Lidka, I just told her that my work laptop was broken and so had to take the personal one with me. This was of course a lie on my part, and the personal one sat in the boot of my car all day. But, hey, Lidka was off the internet!

Our current nanny has a pc in her room, but not a laptop because after Lidka I was keen to make sure it wasn't too convenient to sit on the pc all day (i.e. she couldn't carry it round the house with her).

Well, she's not that bad, she doesn't use it when she is supposed to be minding kids, and it is a desktop machine in my bedroom so nicely inconvenient!. I don't think I should bar her from using it in her own time or she will lose touch with friends and family, and I'm trying to get her to be more independent. Working out her own travel arrangements for example, instead of grilling me as I struggle in the kitchen, on how to get from A to B in London on days off (it IS so complex even for me). The essence of the problem is first, her passive attiude and also her poor English which is not improving much as she refuses to share our family meals. This is really the only opportunity to hear conversations in our house!

I was very misguided, I cannot teach someone how to work, play and speak English with hungry tired children of 2 and 4 also hanging off my legs, who have not seen their mother some days for 21 hours. I couldn't have really guessed what her nature was like from the interviews and references, but I thought I could assess the English correctly at least in a few days, HOWEVER again the Hungarians appear to have a natural good accent which has fooled me; plus a couple of appropriately placed catch phrases - "I Laike it!" repeated at frequent intervals, is actually Hungarian for "Why are you telling me this, daft and strange madwoman?". My lovely Poles have had much stronger accents but in fact a better grasp of what was being said. And let's face it, she's not the sharpest tool in the shed.

what's this about free english classes for EU folks?

I don't know. But, I'm interested. Where did you here that? Anyone else know anything about this?

There are lots of free English classes where we are in Surrey. I think it is pretty universal. Ask at your local Adult Education Centre.