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Whether you're considering emigrating or an expat abroad, you'll find likeminds on this forum.

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Whether you're considering emigrating or an expat abroad, you'll find likeminds on this forum.

Living overseas

I want to fire my live-in maid but no idea how and all the advice I get from other expats is so horrible

117 replies

creamcheesesneeze · 15/05/2011 06:05

We have a full-time live in maid. I have never had this before. I hate it.

I really, really want to get rid of her but I have no idea how.

She is aggressively argumentative, criticises everything all the time, never does anything I ask.

On the other hand she does work really hard. I tried to get her to do sensible hours with a break in the middle of the day but she refuses and she is ALWAYS here. Working from 6am to 9pm with me begging her to PLEASE stop and go home or rest or something.

Yesterday she left the gate to the pool unlocked. It was a mistake, and we all make mistakes. But we have small children and this is a mistake that cannot be made. I told her on her first day that the most important part of this job was keeping the gate to the pool locked. When I told her yesterday that it had been left unlocked she first ignored me (because she was embarrassed and didn't want me to get cross - not that I ever have ) and then when I calmly but firmly said "You must remember to always, always lock the gate. This is very important" she got cross and started ranting that she DID always lock it and this was only one time and that I had left my balcony door unlocked last week and blah blah blah...

It is so exhausting. I find I am scared to even mention small things to her because she strops and sulks for days.

Just now she was washing up and asked why I had put the sponge (that she was using) in the wash. I said because it needed washing, and why had she taken it out of the wash? She said she didn't think it had been used for bad jobs so it was fine. I said it needed washing every day or two days and to please take a clean one. She roared with laughter and said that you cannot wash washing up sponges - they are always clean because they are used for washing!! So... she will do exactly what she wants and not wash the sponge.

But if I get rid of her she has no job, no income, family relying on her wage. She will cry and refuse to go and I'll have to make her. I feel like such a bitch sitting in my huge big house with every advantage in the world firing a poor old lady working for minimum wage (actually we pay double, but it's still not much) because she won't do my washing up precisely to my liking.

Other expats give completely shit shitty mcshit advice along the lines of "wait until she's out, pack up her things and take her to the airport. It's the only language these people understand! Delete her phone numbers. Don't tell her where she's going until you get there. Or she'll clean out your house and disappear!"

I don't really want her to work out notice because she will be so horrid while she's here. I'll happily pay her off. I just want her gone.

We're sending her to India for a month to see her family in August. I wondered about saying just before she left that she needn't come back, and paying her 2 months wages? Dh says that is a shitty thing to do.

She has already sort of threatened me that if I get rid of her things will be difficult for me. I have asked her to leave a few times before but she won't go.

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Bambambini · 30/04/2017 12:30

This thread was started in 2011 - the op hopefully isn't still hiding in her room and has dealt with it.