Angry Cleaner

[PositivePenguin]

This is such a first world problem but I don’t know what to do about it. We’ve had the same cleaner for about 2 years. We both work full time in pressured jobs and yes, it’s a luxury and I feel very lucky. She is British and good at her job (not amazing but decent and reliable). We willingly pay her more than she actually asked for (always in cash) and have given her pay rises without her asking for them. She’s always been quite dour but over the last few months, it’s got worse and worse. I work from home and I always ask how she is: for the next 15 mins, she then tells me how angry she is: how the council aren’t sorting out the repairs at her flat: how her children are being shafted by the system: how politicians are just lining their own pockets: and more recently, how refugees are taking all the resources. I try and empathise as much as I can (while not fanning any flames about refugees) but she obviously doesn’t want to really chat, she just wants to vent. I have started to dread Thursdays when she visits: I work from home and I can’t avoid her. Last Christmas I gave her a Christmas bonus and a gift and she didn’t even say thank you. I think I’m partly feeling middle-class guilt as I’m not affected by the problems she has. But I’m also just dreading the weekly rant, especially as it becomes more right-wing. My husband thinks we should give her another pay rise. I am more thinking about ending her employment and doing the cleaning myself. What would you do?

I will give that a go!

Stop asking her how she is, and then listening meekly to her venting! You’re supposed to be at work, too - so work!

We were advised by a wealthy friend of Dh never hire an individual cleaner. I used to get sucked into their messy lives and felt awful guilty etc about violent boyfriend and alcoholism etc. After the third nightmare we hired a company who send anonymous cleaners and we deal direct with the company. Never looked back.

Genuinely an issue with many people, I think - in your case, she’s ranting about stuff you don’t want to hear, but others are just chatty in general and it’s just as bad for productivity!

Do you have an office / study?

if you do, when she arrives, quickly make her a tea or coffee, say something like ‘hello, good to see you, all ok’.. as she answers, give her 60 seconds then say, ‘oh dear, that’s terrible, mmmmm, hmmmm… so sorry, got to hop on a call, let me know if you need anything’.. and leg it.

absolutely no need to stay and listen.

I find the big services dreadful, unreliable and not particularly efficient.

Cleaners are just people, you know. There’s no more reason for them to have ‘messy lives’ or for you to ‘get sucked in’ than with anyone doing any other job.

You can say that but I find I do. We use a small local company who send a team to do a clean and I deal direct with the company. So much easier.

@PositivePenguin of course she doesnt pay tax! she most likely gets benefits as well so really she is contributing to the bad economy of the country!

So don’t engage. She arrives you say hi then get back to work and let her do her job. You are already paying her more than she requested so why give her a raise?
I don’t know why you feel guilty. You are giving her a job and paying her for it. Would you feel differently if she was your PA? Just stop trying to be chatty. Let her work.
It of you aren’t satisfied either her work and really don’t like her around just give her notice. You don’t have to give a reason but you could say you just can’t afford it at the moment. Good cleaners are in demand - if she’s good she should have no problem getting work.
And stop the chat with the next one.

She's got too familiar with you... totally unprofessional on her part
Don't ask how she is, leave her to it and if she starts ranting just say that you can't stand and chat as you've got work to do as does she
Leave her money on the side
And Repeat

Yup.
You can only behave like this if you are excellent and have a wait list as long as your arm

Time to get recruiting....

She may be living on benefits, she may not be declaring her income - but it's wrong to assume that's the case, just because she's renting from a housing association. Quite a reach to paint her as a tax dodging lazy scrounger. She's working for a living just like the OP is. She may be nice or not nice but she's employed to clean, not be the OP's best mate.

This! I've never got "sucked in to a cleaner's messy life" any more than I would a plumber's or a childminder's, it's quite a normal job outside of mumsnet. They are people, not troublesome domestic appliances/ weird lower class invaders. I find these threads so snobbish.

Stigma of cleaners is ridiculous. Many clients want to pay cash. I send invoices and request bank transfer and it’s common for people to not pay cleaners straight away, having to chase up payment, why cash works better for some.

Maybe she invoices. If she is on benefits and self employed you have to declare your earnings each month followed by random bank statement and invoice checks.

It is a different relationship to a plumber etc who does one off jobs. They are there weekly. Some of us aren’t used to managing people in our own home and feel faintly guilty having a cleaner anyway so I would end up getting sucked into the cleaners lives. Kept happening turns out I just wasn’t good at managing the relationship/ boundaries so can empathise with op.

much prefer getting my house cleaned by anonymous cleaners both men and women there to do a job zero relationship.

@Theboymolefoxandhorse

The thread has not been derailed by whether or not she pays tax.

It's comments like this from @Westfacing that I am reacting to:

"Like a lot of lower paid women she's probably struggling with every day life and having a moan here and there is understandable. Many people do feel like their children are being shafted, politicians are in for themselves, and refugees are getting all the resources. These feelings are particularly prevalent with Reform and Yaxley Lennon setting the political agenda and feeding into peoples insecurities.
She's probably resentful of your comfortable lifestyle, and who could blame her - life is very hard for such women."

I pay tax and I am also a woman and I am also struggling. That doesn't mean I can turn up to work and bend off my colleagues' ears about non work-related issues. I do not believe refugees are getting all the resources. I agree politicians are in it for themselves. I am at times resentful of other people's lifestyles because I worked hard for my qualifications, work hard in my job, pay for my taxes and STILL don't have a comfortable lifestyle. It is very hard for me too. That doesn't mean I go to work and moan.

So yes, I do think she can just come and do her job quietly - it's called professionalism which should apply in all types of employment. A cleaner ranting at her client about politics/economics is not professional.

And no I don't boycott Amazon. That is not some magic virtue signalling bullet.

I do however work in tax compliance and work very hard to close all the loopholes these big companies use to avoid paying tax.

I feel exactly the same way about people who get paid cash in hand and never complete a self assessment as I do about Amazon, which is why I mentioned it.

@HelpMeUnpickThis at the time I wrote my comment there had been 47 responses, 11 of which mentioned tax evasion from the cleaner. One person commented saying “I would ask her to show me evidence that she is paying tax” as their first line. To me that is a derailing of the thread when @PositivePenguins question is how to deal with an uncomfortable situation with the cleaner and there is no evidence at all that tax evasion is occurring. My comment wasnt aimed at you individually- if it was I would have tagged you - I just find it funny that so many people have assumed and stated that they think this woman isn’t paying tax when their only evidence is she gets paid in cash and lives in a housing association.

I didn’t suggest that boycotting Amazon was a magic bullet - wouldn’t it be lovely if one did exist. Again it wasn’t a personal attack on you. A pp has said “people who don’t pay their share should all go to hell as far as they’re concerned” and I wonder if they feel this strongly about global companies making millions in profit annually who aren’t paying their share. That probably affects our society more than the cleaner earning £20/hr.

I agree with your point that the cleaner isn’t being professional by waffling on but also think the OP needs stop asking her and spending 15 minutes listening to her as I have said in my previous post.

@Theboymolefoxandhorse thanks for coming back. Your comments make sense.

Hmmmmm. I'm in two minds.

I got rid of my last cleaner because she massively overstepped the bounds of what I thought was acceptable. Nothing to do with the actual cleaning. BUT now I'm stuck with doing the cleaning.

Good cleaners are hard to find. Can you time your working from home so that you're online, talking to someone and hence unavailable for her working time? Leave her a friendly note of what you want done, saying something supportive such as, 'Hope you're OK / Your back isn't playing up (whatever fits).'

IF she's a good cleaner and reliable you might be better off just using avoidance rather than jumping straight to sacking.

I suspect what is happening here is that the cleaner isn’t picking up that when the Op says “Hi Mabel, how are things with you”, this is merely a standard pleasantry to which the appropriate response is “good thanks” or something short like “better now I’m out of the rain haha”. She is taking the words literally and thinking the OP genuinely wants to know what is going on and thus it is fair to bring up what is on her mind.

That no criticism of the OP by the way, it is the cleaner not understanding the very standard Uk etiquette at play. I see this sometimes in junior joiners and have to explain this to them (“the Head of Compliance was only exchanging pleasantries in the lift when he asked how you were doing, he didn’t actually want to hear about how your GP hasn’t issued your prescription and the northern line was bad this morning”) even when they are British themselves but I can see it would be very awkward to have to spell this out to her.

It feels harsh to get rid of the cleaner without attempting to change this dynamic. I would go for thinking about how to speak to her that doesn’t have a question and then moving out swiftly. So eg “Hi Mabel, good to see you. Off to my next call!” If you see her later and she unilaterally starts I would shut it down “sounds tough, must crack on”.

There is a middle way between letting her angrily off load and sacking her. I agree with the comments above - be brusque and don't ask her how she is. Just say: 'Great to see you - isnt it great the sun is out. Glad you are here as the house is like a midden.' And exit sharp.
Some people do off load of asked how they are. We have a neighbour up the street and if we just say 'How are you?' in passing we got a 20 minute comment about their various illnesses. Now we say: 'Great to see you. Great weather/awful rain etc'.
I also think it is unfair to sack her of you've given no sign that she is breeching boundaries. It is up to you to set the boundarys. Think of it as being fair. If she still manages to hijack things then sack her, but reset things first.

No way would I put up with this! I’d sack her and find another cleaner. The type of people who just monologue rants all the time have no self awareness whatsoever and I’ve got zero time for them. I stopped using the mobile beautician who used to do my nails as she’d literally rant at me for two hours every time she came round, and it was fucking draining.

Also, the wankiness on here never fails to make me laugh; someone saying upthread that they gave a ‘small severance package’ to their self employed cleaner! Is everyone trying to out-middle-class everyone else on here?

She's got a nerve moaning about immigrants etc whilst getting paid cash in hand. Not paying taxes

I hate conflict too but I’d just get rid of her. I’d be sorely tempted to point out to her that tax avoidance is a much bigger drain on resources than refugees and that I don’t want somebody with such toxic right-wing views in my house. Why on earth does your husband want to award this nasty woman with a pay rise?

You could either, grin & bare it, tell her you are really busy & don’t engage much or tell her you don’t need her anymore. It would annoy me too, the girl who does my eyebrows makes me feel like this as she is so doom & gloom but she is really good, it is for 20 mins & it’s in her shop so I can get out quick.

If you're a bit conflict-averse, it can be tricky sacking your cleaner. Over the years (about 40yrs since I stopped doing my own cleaning), I've had 6+ different cleaners (inc. short spells with agencies) and sacked two.

The first was because, sweet tho' she was, she'd spend huge amounts of time telling me her medical woes & asking my advice (while I was trying to WFH). I made up a (partially true) sob-story about a previous cleaner returning from foreign shores & needing her old job back.

The second, who I'd supported throughout lock-down tho' she obvs didn't attend, paying her via BACS, started having health issues & taking long absences to go back to home country (I cd deal with that). But/and she then started constantly to chop & change days & times, to say she was coming on such a day, ask if she could start at 8am, then cancel at last minute. In the end I couldn't stand it and asked for my keys back. She felt I'd been heartless about her health issues. Sorry, not.
Now I've got lovely, sunny, reliable person through recommendation of next door neighbour.