House cleaners potentially stealing -- how to address?

[Anonymous]

I have a group of ladies that come once a week to clean who do an excellent job. I've used them for the past two years and haven't had issues until recently. There are 1-2 regular ladies that come weekly and then some weeks they bring a few other ladies to help. I noticed after being out of town one week this summer that a pair of pants that I wear a lot were missing and then started to notice that I had fewer black workout leggings than normal -- typically I could easily go 5 + days without needing to do laundry and now all of a sudden I have only two pairs of leggings. Yesterday they were here and last evening when I went to put on a pair of sweats that I had just worn the evening before and had put away that morning were missing. I've looked everywhere and they're not here. There is one odd lady in their group that occasionally comes and was here yesterday. She has always seemed a bit shifty and I thought about requesting in the past that she isn't part of the team at our house because I just get a weird vibe from her.

I love the main ladies that come but I feel like I need to address this with the owner who only comes here occasionally. How would you handle this? My husband thinks I need to be prepared to fire them entirely but I really feel like the main ladies are honest. Actually as I type this I'm being reminded that one my daughters also recently couldn't find a pair of their Roller Rabbit pjs and we've not found them - and a pair of her bow earrings went missing yesterday after they left. Ugh, I know I need to address this because there have been enough things go missing recently and that is not typical in our house to lose stuff.

Any one have experience with a similar situation?

[Anonymous]

you don't have nearly enough cause or evidence to accuse anyone of anything

the most you can do is just tell your regular lady you only want her cleaning your house. that's it

[Anonymous]

I would talk to the owner, ASAP.

For some reason, it seems like less of a big deal because these are inexpensive things.

Maybe the shifty lady is a klepto.

Hoping you don't find more expensive things missing.

[Anonymous]

Put up a camera. Put a piece of clear tape on your drawers so you can see if they were opened

[Anonymous]

Create a honeypot trap. Leave some flashy looking fake jewelry out on a container that spews glitter on anyone who moves it.

[Anonymous]

The likelihood that your cleaning ladies are stealing your old used pants is low.

[Anonymous]

I would get rid of all of them.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn’t directly accuse anyone of stealing because once you do that > it is next to impossible to go back to the status quo.
Meaning that you likely will lose ALL of your cleaning crew.

At the same time you also cannot keep having items disappearing.

I personally would ask the main ladies (the ones you like & do not suspect) if they wouldn’t mind not bringing in other/different individuals into your home moving forward.
Just say you feel a little uncomfortable w/different workers inside your home.

Hopefully they understand - - Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Fire them if you even suspect it. Don't have to tell them why.
Hire someone else.

[Anonymous]

Fire them and don't say why. Just say you have a family member that wants to earn some money.

[Anonymous]

You need to fire all of them. You can’t say you only want two of them to come. I would make up am excuse like your husband or you just got laid off or you have to now send your parents money.

And you need to change any codes into your house and reprogram garage door openers.

We had a cleaning lady who was great but then she started bringing an extended relative along. Things went missing and later our garage was broken into and we realized a garage door opener was missing.

[Anonymous]

You think they stole your sweatpants.

[Anonymous]

Those are weird things to steal.

Anyway, I would just tell the main ladies you only want those two coming to your house.

Or fire the whole team without explanation.

I don't think I'd accuse anyone of stealing. The management might not handle it well and it might screw over someone who is in a bad life situation to begin with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fire them if you even suspect it. Don't have to tell them why.
Hire someone else.

Next ones are just as much of a risk if not more.

[Anonymous]

You hire a different cleaning company. You have doubts. Whether you are correct or not doesn't much matter as you will not be comfortable with this company going forward.