Hi everyone, as you can see I've name changed for this one.
I am in a very awkward situation....very,very awkward and I need some advice without judgement.
I have a large family situation...and we have two people in the house who have a specific developmental disability one with tonnes of potential as long as we put effort towards it; one of them younger than the other and was having quite a lot of difficulty with expressive language. We also have a dog, a rabbit, some fish and an occasional cat. The children love animals.
Because of the nature of the family situation Dh and I felt that it would be best to employ a housekeeper to make sure the house was kept clean while we both work full time, the children are either at school or with specialist tutors to help with their needed therapies.
In the middle of January our housekeeper of the last few years decided to go back to brazil at a moments notice...I couldn't take time off of work and DH also couldn't get the time off so we found a temporary solution on gumtree (not our finest moment) but the children were well guarded and neither child would ever be left alone. The nature of some of the therapy our children use has a lot of messy play involved and the house is just a mess in 5 minutes flat. The necessity of someone who can keep on top of the cleaning is paramount to our quality of life. Her job was to clean and to take the dog out for a morning walk.
We found said cleaner and trained her to work in the house and offered her training on how to communicate with both children in the house and walk the dog in the mornings. At this point one of the specialist tutors (March) had to go away on medical leave and we couldn't find a replacement. The cleaner seemed good enough and had been working for us for 8 weeks and seemed reliable and eager to help us out, also most importantly she had availability...she was also very affordable. Since she would never ever be left alone with the children (as the other tutor was constantly around we felt like we could take a chance on her).
One of the children had trouble speaking on demand and on her last day of covering the other tutor she managed to get this child to speak on demand. I have no doubt it was her, not just a culmination of lots of therapy--the therapy was working on other things and not focusing on speech at the time. I love this child and I do feel forever grateful to her.
Two weeks ago, our local vet (who also happens to be a neighbour and a close friend) was in the park and caught her pulling on the dogs lead and screaming 'you f*ing C**!' she was pulling the lead soo aggressively that the collar was choking our puppy. Our vet called me while I was at work with a video of the incident. She was indeed dragging my little puppy through the park shouting all sorts of things at him and hurting him. I immediately took away her dog walking responsibilities and now do that at 6am and get into work an hour later. It is affecting my work, but I can't let my puppy be treated badly. I also immediately cut her from working with the children. Although she had never been left alone with either of the children, I didn't feel like someone with anger towards a dog and language like that would suit being around children with SEN.
On the other hand though, she did get one of the children to speak.
The child she worked with does adore her...but in the last month her performance as a cleaner has been pretty poor. We have spoken to her on occasion and she has blamed people (me) or anyone else she can find on her faults. Last night DH emailed her with a list of complaints he had and couldn't get answers for (he phrased the email very diplomatically and several times reiterated how much she means to us). She replied it couldn't have been her who did anything wrong and that it must have been me (I don't do housework--I honestly don't have the time).
Luckily I was able to work from home today, so when she came in today she was in a very bad mood<span class="line-through">she was rude to a few of the family members in the house (who have other chores in the house) They would never complain to me about her because they feel indebted to be staying here and wouldn't dare complain about anything. If I hadn't been here I would have never known how she treats the people in this house. She does dote on the children</span>especially with the little one she worked with.
At one point today she ran out of the house without shoes and decided to have a cry; came back and while I was on a conference call demanded to speak with me. I excused myself and did in deed try to speak to her. She listed all our complaints and tried to say it wasn't her. (but you see, it had to be her, no one else cleans the kitchen--no one else uses the kitchen during the day) They may use the table but the dishes and table are constantly clean.
I noticed today that the whole atmosphere of my house was incredibly unhappy and she was the cause of the unhappiness. I do feel like I should let her go; but I feel bad because she convinced a reluctant child to speak.