To charge ap for *another* ruined item of clothing and trashed iron or not?

[kittywise]

Ok, I've had my AP since Dec. We've had ups and downs and some of you might remember my posts on the subject!
Against all odds it has worked out pretty ok.
She is very dippy and has no common sense but has learned from her many mistakes and she plays really well with the younger children.
She has to leave in April to go on another language course.

Now my dilema is that she has managed to spoil a number of items of clothing by putting them in the tumble drier when she was told again and again that they shouldn't go in. Items like jumpers, fleeces and tracksuit bottoms. The first couple of times I patiently explained and then started to get cross. She actiully said to me that she would have been crosser than me in the same situation!!

Anyway yesterday she comes to me saying the the hot iron must have fallen into the basket underneath the ironing board which contains pile of clothes waiting to be ironed.
She says she hadn't noticed that it had fallen. She had turned it off and gone upstairs ( how can you not notice that the iron is no longer on the ironing board?)

Consequently the iron has ruined 2 items of clothing, I'm amazed that it was only 2, one expensive gap fleece, and of course the iron is covered in burnt plastic and is now unusable. Not to mention the potential dire consequences of burning clothes.
There is a huge tank of heating oil in the basement where all the laundry stuff is. I can't begin to contemplate what would have happened to us if a fire had started down there

Now I am pissed off, it was so so careless and dangerous of her and I am faced with replacing yet more clothing.

I want to ask her to contribute towards the cost of a new fleece and say that next time I will ask her to pay the full amount for any items that need replacing because she has shrunk, burnt etc them.

What do you think? What would you do in this circ?

Ta

nutterly you are telling stories again

'I don't know what the rules are officiallybut tbh i don't care much either'

Yes, we can see that

And you seem to ignore the comment of Ingles2. You dont like much regulations, do you?

I ve just read that you have 6 children. So this girl has to help looking after 6 children, cleaning, washing, ironing, cooking your thai dinner and everything for £60 per week. And you deduct £10 from that?? And you are complaining aswell?

The point is you have read a post of mine and made up what it meant. If you had bothered to read a few posts back and seen my conversation with someone else then you wouldn't have drawn such a nasty and frankly stupid conclusion.
Or, perhaps you did indeed read all the posts but were not able to understand them.
Or perhaps it was both, you didn't read and you didn't understand.

Either way your post bore so little relation to anything that had been discussed I that actually thought you were talking about a different topic entirely.

actually i meant to type the symbol not the [wink

oh dear me Tiramissu, you are talking crap. You have no idea what she is paid, what jobs she does, what hours she does, how much other help I have blah blah blah,

She does no more than she should based on things I have discussed with ap agencies.And no they never mentioned only ironing children's clothes, maybe there is a clause somewhere, but I've searched and searched and can't find one. keep on making things up if you like, not good for the strength of your non argument though.

Oh Kittywise you really need to give it a rest accusing people of making up stories or choosing to misread your posts (posts, I'd like to point out are in black and white for EVERYONE to read) if they don't agree with you.

If it was just one person coming to these conclusions you could argue they were misunderstanding you, but as so many people are, I think its pretty safe to say that your posts do come across as they are being taken, not that people are drawing "such a nasty and frankly stupid conclusion".

No i am not talking crap. And stop talking to everyone who disagrees with you on this tone. Or are you used to speak to people on this tone?

You are the one who talks crap because you constantly contradict yourself. You said you dont know the regulations and you dont care. Now you are saying that you know them.

Kittywise - how many hours a week does your au pair do?

Kitty, step away. (for your own peace of mind)

I would like to point out (and we all know how much I luv 'em) that what agencies say and what is actual legal are often two different things. I can write any job description I want and put it into a contract and give her the title of "au pair".

athene, thanks I'm gone

you're right Athene, of course you are... but those guidelines are there to help stop problems arising. It's pretty obvious to me, that allowing an AP to wash/tumble/iron my clothes is going to lead to problems.
Maybe it would be for the best if Kitty got her AP just to do the kids laundry. It wouldn't cost much to send her laundry for ironing and then when they shrink/fray/whatever she can complain.

I don't think anyone answered this, but is an au pair legally an employee?

Well... I think it's a case of au pairs getting a bit ahead of themselves and thinking they can have what nannies have. I agree that a nanny should not be expected to do the families laundry. But, an au apair has not yet earned that priviledge. I think any household chore is fair game for au pairs. I wouldn't leave them with long term sole charge of young children. I would expect an au pair to do any household chore I was willing to do... and then some. I think the fair place to put limits is in her hours, and I assume Kitty has done this.

Also, anyone with half a brain would expect a fair amount of laundry to be generated in house with 3 adults and six children. Our washer and dryer never stop and I have two children and a husband who works away all week.

However, I do think that it might be a tad unrealistic to expect an au pair to be GOOD at laundry, ironing, etc. I think this one has clearly demonstrated otherwise. I'd probably hire a cleaner to come in for a whole day and give this silly au apair laundry training. I think I'd take the iron away before she burned my house down, which would be a tad more costly than a GAP sweatshirt.

willow, not necessarily. But people do often have contracts. There is threshold on when you become an employer/employee and I think it's around £90 per week. Someone else will know more...

Oh, and Kitty, my advise would be to not fine her by docking her pay. But, I would ask her to pay half and she could work that off in the form of extra babysitting hours. That way I'm not making her scrape by but I'm getting something in return for her negligence. And, let's face it, leaving a hot iron in the basket is pretty darned negligent.

I have never asked any AP to wash the dirty laundry - fiddling around with a strangers smalls? It is one of their tasks to remove clean wet laundry and tumble/hang on line if dry - although have had to show them all where to put the pegs!

Gap used to have little cards with all the laundry symbols on, we have 2 laminated (double sided) on the inside of the detergents cupboard in the utility room. (more for DH than AP)

I wouldn't dock her pay.

Is there a legal limit on the hours an au pair can work?

I obviously misunderstood the role, as I thought it was for those studying to improve their foreign language skills (ie at college) whilst living with a family, and helping out with childcare / light household tasks in return for bed and board, and a small wage.

Various recent threads on MN have shown this not to be the case, but I can't find any definitive answers by googling.

DM there is AP (25 hours) and AP+ (norm up to 35).

Thanks, MS.

Kitty - if you are going to call people illiterate and accuse them of extrapolating, I thought you might like to understand the true meaning of the words - clearly my efforts were unappreciated, but feel free to apologise for your incorrect accusations any time you like

Inferior to you PMSL

You don't want to answer how much you pay your AP, fair enough, but then you can't expect us to believe you pay her 'over the odds'. Mind you, sadly now, even if you did tell us, I wouldn't believe you.

As, you say, we aren't aware of what other help you have... would you like to tell us? Nanny, Cleaner/Housekeeper, Gardener...??

On one thread you claim to do everything which was traditionally a womans role (completely ignoring the fact you pay someone to do some of it).

You are condescending.

You tell people they are illiterate/speaking crap/extrapolating/making up stories just because they can compare things you have written and see the things you say are inconsistent (at best).

You don't care what the rules are about hosting (note the word HOSTING) an AP.

You only respond to small parts of posts that you want to be narky about, then ignore the rest.

I could go on, but I really can't be bothered.

What really makes me laugh though, is that you are prepared to be this awful to your AP over something you can replace for £10.

Athene - not doing someones dirty laundry is a priviledge an Au Pair has to earn . I would expect an au pair to do any household chore I was willing to do... and then some Bloody hell, it's no wonder some of you have problems with your nannies/au pairs. You do realise they aren't prisoners doing time don't you??

I must say this was a very interesting read.
No comment though, think you all said enough

Er.. if anyone is interested, Thailand is not on the list of countries from where it is permissable to employ an aupair (most of them are now in the EU anyway). So that means the Thai AP in question would not have an aupair visa but is in the UK in some other capacity. If she is a student, then she is entitled to take employment for upto 15 hours a week only but this is "employment" so the work would be subjected to minimum wage laws etc..

The only other applicable visa category would be "overseas domestic worker" but you have to have employed someone for a year or more abroad before bringing them to the UK.

Ooooh...... that's very interesting, tryharder.