Au Pair - With Her Own Apartment

[Anonymous]

We want an au pair, but would like to keep some privacy. Can WE PAY FOR HER OWN APARTMENT right across the street and for her
utilities and groceries? (We obviously wouldn't do this to a very young au pair.)

Possible, Impossible ?
Good idea, Bad idea ?

[Anonymous]

No, it's not within the rules of the program. It's not allowed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We want an au pair, but would like to keep some privacy. Can WE PAY FOR HER OWN APARTMENT right across the street and for her
utilities and groceries? (We obviously wouldn't do this to a very young au pair.)

Possible, Impossible ?
Good idea, Bad idea ?

Hardly. Read the requirements for host family. Ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

No it must be in the family home

[Anonymous]

Possible you would find an AP willing to do this, but as others mentioned it’s against the rules. And also, the premise of the program is that they are like family - joining you for family meals, hanging with you for family movie nights, etc.

What you envision sounds ideal in that you basically have a live out nanny but pay an Au pair prices for it. But (1) paying for the apartment, utilities, car, etc may ultimately cost you about the same as a nanny and (2) if you think about it from her perspective, it’s be super lonely to be in a different country and not feel like you have a host.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely! I am a former AP, my host used to pay for a studio in Bethesda(all utilities included) and $allowance for food and such; worked great for 24 months right before i went on student visa and got married.

[Anonymous]

if you're doing that, why wouldn't you just hire a nanny?

[Anonymous]

I really wanted this bc I want the flexibility of an au pair as far as different hours each week, but don’t want someone living with us. We actually just need 30 hours/week but I can’t find anyone local who can have flexibility in their hours. Spouse travels, and my hours are different every week and all the kids are in full time school. We’re in the city and actually own the 2 adjoining townhouses which are rental buildings. I wanted to put the au pair in a studio or 1 bedroom there and pay all of the utilities, but it wasn’t allowed. Ironically, the rental building is adjoining our house, so she would have just been through a wall. That’s not allowed, but my friend in great falls was allowed to house rhe au pair in guest house at the other end of her 10 acre property.

[Anonymous]

Thats not reasonable to expect a person to be on call week to week with no consistency or stability at your will.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thats not reasonable to expect a person to be on call week to week with no consistency or stability at your will.

That’s pretty much what an au pair is. They have zero living expenses (we gave housing, car, gas, car insurance, health insurance, educational stipend) and get paid a small weekly salary. They need 1.5 consecutive days off per weekend and one full weekend a month. They can’t work more than 40 hours. In reality, many work a lot less (ours averaged 22 hours/wk) but the pay is the same for up to 40 hours. Their visa doesn’t permit additional work but many break that and work for cash outside of their hours.
I posted about wanting to put our au pair in an apt next to us (owned by us) and it wasn’t allowed. Our au pair would have loved it and wanted it. It ended up being a moot point bc the au pair was so incompetent we fired her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really wanted this bc I want the flexibility of an au pair as far as different hours each week, but don’t want someone living with us. We actually just need 30 hours/week but I can’t find anyone local who can have flexibility in their hours. Spouse travels, and my hours are different every week and all the kids are in full time school. We’re in the city and actually own the 2 adjoining townhouses which are rental buildings. I wanted to put the au pair in a studio or 1 bedroom there and pay all of the utilities, but it wasn’t allowed. Ironically, the rental building is adjoining our house, so she would have just been through a wall. That’s not allowed, but my friend in great falls was allowed to house rhe au pair in guest house at the other end of her 10 acre property.

Well if you owned the adjoining townhouse, you could have just created a pass through door then?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really wanted this bc I want the flexibility of an au pair as far as different hours each week, but don’t want someone living with us. We actually just need 30 hours/week but I can’t find anyone local who can have flexibility in their hours. Spouse travels, and my hours are different every week and all the kids are in full time school. We’re in the city and actually own the 2 adjoining townhouses which are rental buildings. I wanted to put the au pair in a studio or 1 bedroom there and pay all of the utilities, but it wasn’t allowed. Ironically, the rental building is adjoining our house, so she would have just been through a wall. That’s not allowed, but my friend in great falls was allowed to house rhe au pair in guest house at the other end of her 10 acre property.

Well if you owned the adjoining townhouse, you could have just created a pass through door then?

It’s really not that easy - think about fire codes, insurance, zoning, how many units the building is zoned for, etc. These are also historic properties and you wouldn’t want to break through a party wall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thats not reasonable to expect a person to be on call week to week with no consistency or stability at your will.

That’s pretty much what an au pair is. They have zero living expenses (we gave housing, car, gas, car insurance, health insurance, educational stipend) and get paid a small weekly salary. They need 1.5 consecutive days off per weekend and one full weekend a month. They can’t work more than 40 hours. In reality, many work a lot less (ours averaged 22 hours/wk) but the pay is the same for up to 40 hours. Their visa doesn’t permit additional work but many break that and work for cash outside of their hours.
I posted about wanting to put our au pair in an apt next to us (owned by us) and it wasn’t allowed. Our au pair would have loved it and wanted it. It ended up being a moot point bc the au pair was so incompetent we fired her.

Exactly, they have zero living expenses because they hardly get any $$paid in exchange of childcare which is a hard work!!! Of course, APs are open to work side jobs, who wouldn’t?
I’ve known many APs that lived in separate houses as employers wanted to have privacy and worked out amazingly well.