Cleaner broke the toilet seat...

[Treesandbees]

We have a newish cleaner. She's done 3 cleans so far and yesterday she broke the toilet seat. It's cracked right through so needs replacing and it was an expensive one (£80). She was a bit fretful telling me but not that apologetic. DS was screaming at time so I didn't pay a huge amount of attention to it at the time. DH on other hand is not happy at all. He also wants to get rid of her as her cleaning isn't as good as our last cleaner.

How would you deal with this?

[BeCool]

truffle how do you know the loo seat wasn't already damaged?

I wouldn't want a £5 Argos one either but the OP was implying she needed to not pay the cleaner so she could afford to buy a new cheap toilet seat - clearly, if she needs to do that, she has some financial hardship going on.

[Viviennemary]

If she's hopeless there's not much point in keeping her on. But accidents do happen. How on earth could she break a toilet seat by mere cleaning. Usually limescale doesn't have to be tackled with a pickaxe. seriously give in a week or two and then get somebody else. I'd be too feeble to sack her over a toilet seat even if it did cost £80.

[trufflehunterthebadger]

I wonder if she let it fall thinking it was plastic/one of those slow-closing ones ?

[BitOutOfPractice]

I am snorting at 30 year old toilet seats

You sound horrible OP. I'm sure she didn't do it on purpose. It seems she wasn't contrite enough for you. Maybe she was embarrassed.

Stuff breaks. You never broke anything whilst cleaning?

Anyway, if you don't like her cleaning, talk to her about that. But you just need to suck up the toilet seat

[ShineSmile]

My cleaner broke a door in the fridge. She promised to get her insurance to pay it back but didn't contact me again.

A couple of weeks later I saw her in pizza express working as a manager! [awkward]. She pretended she didn't know me, and I was too sleep deprived to bother asking her.

[BeCool]

but a toilet seat that broke simply by the lid being left left to fall closed wouldn't be "fit for purpose" would it?

[SantasLittleMonkeyButler]

25/30 year old toilet seats? Oh my - I don't think I've had one last more than about 2 years! Although, to be fair, I do buy cheap ones and DS1 is very heavy handed with such things.

If you are not happy with her cleaning OP then yes, of course, tell her that her services are no longer required. You honestly do need to pay her for work already done though - and for any notice period if you have a formal contract (never had a cleaner, so not sure how these things work).

The loo seat is accidental damage though, surely? It was probably already weakened and the poor cleaner was just the one it happened to 'go' on.

[OcadoSubstitutedMyHummus]

It it helps, look at it as 27 and a new toilet seat as a small price to pay to get rid of a cack handed, not very good cleaner.

[MrsPixieMoo]

Nobody has mentioned insurance. Al All the cleaners I have had have all had personal liability insurance for exactly this sort of thing. If she doesn't, maybe find out whether your household insurance covers this.

[idontlikealdi]

Mine did exactly this and it was £75 to replace it. She also left the water dribbling from the hose attachment over the bath and it leaked through our very gappy floorboards through to the lightfitting underneath. We sacked her as her cleaning wasn't that great either.

[ThatWasNice]

I agree, you should definitely pay her but you should get a new cleaner.

[Pollaidh]

My old cleaner managed to break a brand new stereo and dribble bleach onto a rug on her first day. I still didn't expect her to pay. The stereo was fortunately under warranty and the rug is still there, with a bleach stain. We got rid of her a few weeks later but that was because she wasn't a good cleaner.

Accidents sometimes happen, even with the best cleaner, and you cannot refuse to pay her. Cleaners don't exactly earn much and you could be depriving her children of their food or something. I think her poor cleaning is probably driving you mad (I know how that feels), so your anger is more about that. Have a quiet word about what you expect from her, cleaningwise, or write it down each week. If things haven't improved in a few weeks then let her go.

I heard recently of someone who forgot to activate a parking permit for her cleaner, resulting in the cleaner getting a large fine which she couldn't possibly afford. The person responsible (the householder) asked the cleaner to go halves!! Completely unreasonable.

[ParsingFlatly]

From the damage, I'd imagine she stood on it (to dust, perhaps). Which would certainly come under "stupid" rather than careless. Not sure that gets you much forrarder though.

[May09Bump]

Pay the 27 pounds, and let her go. Not worth the hassle over including buying a new seat.

[LittleRedDinosaur]

Just let her go. Our cleaner smashed our sink and bathroom mirror after leaving a large knife out on DD's playing table the previous week. The final staw was coming home to find she'd done no vacuuming and hadn't cleaned the loo or bath. I suspect she'd wandered round spraying polish in the air.
She was crap! I just emailed to say that we didn't want her to clean any more. Saw no point in there being a row over it.

[FlatCapAndAWhippet]

Do the right thing and pay her.
Forget the loo seat, replace it, accidents happen.
Explain your dissatisfaction over her cleaning standards / ability and let her go.

[KoalaDownUnder]

I'm considering not paying her for this clean (£27).

I'm that you were even considering that.

Did you ask her how she broke it? The fact that it cost 80 quid is not her fault. She was either doing something unreasonable to it, or she wasn't. If she wasn't, she's not in any way liable for the replacement.

For all you know, it was faulty/damaged and was due to crack next time one of you sat on it.

[Yiyecstgd]

Started working as a cleaner in a really huge house with rich owner's- the wife a full time mum. She says the whole house takes only 2 hours to thoroughly clean which I found was a lie since I couldn't even finish downstairs of the house in 3 hour's especially with her faulty hoover, the second day i was able to finish the ground floor before heading upstairs to hoover, while looking for a place to plug the hoover it tumbled over hitting her antique lamp vase and broke it, the lamp still worked but the vase was broken, I immediately called her mother in-law to the scene and apologised, she wasn't too mad just said I should tell whenever things like that occur, the wife got back and I told her and she said I had to pay for the whole lamp £120, I wasn't too pleased because I told her before starting the job I had nothing and hers was a 2hr work which I spent nearly 3 hrs doing, that was the £6.50 an hour, how do I pay that up? And knowing the hoover was faulty it's not rocket science it was bound to happen again, would I keep working for her all my life to keep replacing her misplaced antique? If it was that expensive why keep it in such a place?and since I broke only the vase why tell me to pay all the £120, well I was asked to pay ASAP else she'll call the police on me sending threatening texts i didn't have money to reply her so went on WhatsApp to reply, later that night my friend helped in clearing the debt and I never stepped my foot in her home again as I felt her actions where cruel. Did I do the right thing paying up or should I have taken it to court