Suspect house cleaner is stealing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mother gave our cleaning lady “hand-me-downs” to deter stealing.

Because it’s a given that cleaners will steal so you have to head them off? Nice.


We hired undocumented workers. Marni was a saint. Never a day off, always reliable. She broke a vase once and was in tears. We told her it was ok, it wasn’t worth anything, it didn’t mean anything to us.
After ten years she and her family moved back to Brazil and bought a farm. She recommended her friend to take her place.

A neighbor asked why she didn’t refer her friend to work for her. I knew it was because she was a demanding b@tch. Cheap too. No bonuses. No paid holiday or vacations.

You give your cleaners holidays/vacations? Bonuses I get, but how do you work holidays? Just giving them random days off with pay?

Yes. I don’t have them work the two weeks at Christmas and New Years and I dont have them work two weeks in the summer but pay the four weeks. Just like most people get paid time off.

[Anonymous]

stealing something is a cost of doing business for someone who hires domestic help and doesn’t pay them well enough.

that's ridiculous. So, if you pay them more they won't steal? I doubt that.

And, some people can't be home when their house is being cleaned. I'd rather work at my job than clean my house. And I should be able to do it reasonably and without anything being stolen, closet open or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you have teenagers?

no. we've been empty nesters for 10 years.

Damn you older than Barbie

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you have teenagers?

no. we've been empty nesters for 10 years.

Damn you older than Barbie

The government should take their house and give it to a deserving couple, amiright?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Clean your own house.

NP: this is not helpful. For example, I work full time, as does DH and we would rather spend time doing fun things with our kids than with them standing in the doorway of our bathroom talking while we're scrubbing a toilet. So we hire someone to clean for us. Nothing wrong with that.

My point is: cleaners stealing something is a cost of doing business for someone who hires domestic help and doesn’t pay them well enough. You seem uniquely bothered by it, like it may be more stressful than average for you, and like this thing that is supposed to be saving you time/focus may not actually be giving you those things because of it.

So you might consider whether having a cleaner is actually a net good in the way that you thought it would be.

I think a lot of people justify their actions with this line of thinking. But that’s pretty messed up, don’t you think?

If the cleaning lady is underpaid, the correct action is to either quit or demand a raise, not to steal someone’s stuff!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you have kids? Bc I would suspect them first!

yes but they're grown and live elsewhere.

NP. Is this OP posting above about having grown kids? Because someone posted earlier, responding to "Clean your own house," saying how they wanted to do fun things with their kids rather than scrub the toilets. I thought that person posting was the OP.

So for the actual OP -- young kids you want to have fun with, or grown kids who live elsewhere?

I wish OPs would make the tiny effort to identify themselves in replies. This came up on another thread I saw recently when answers started to get confusing about which people posting were or weren't the OP responding to questions. Yeah, I know, anonymous site, anyone could claim to be an OP, but...still.

Oh, and OP, you should have zero expectation of gettig your stuff back like you said you want. You already said (if that was you) that you figure she's selling the clothing, right? So why do you have any expectation she'd give you back items you think she's sold--? Put up cameras if you want but if she sells things as soon as she steals them -- IF she is stealing -- having evidence on camera does nothing but help you fire her. It won't get stuff back that's long gone.

Good lord, your reading comprehension is terrible. This has already been clarified a couple of times in the thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Clean your own house.

NP: this is not helpful. For example, I work full time, as does DH and we would rather spend time doing fun things with our kids than with them standing in the doorway of our bathroom talking while we're scrubbing a toilet. So we hire someone to clean for us. Nothing wrong with that.

My point is: cleaners stealing something is a cost of doing business for someone who hires domestic help and doesn’t pay them well enough. You seem uniquely bothered by it, like it may be more stressful than average for you, and like this thing that is supposed to be saving you time/focus may not actually be giving you those things because of it.

So you might consider whether having a cleaner is actually a net good in the way that you thought it would be.

I think a lot of people justify their actions with this line of thinking. But that’s pretty messed up, don’t you think?

If the cleaning lady is underpaid, the correct action is to either quit or demand a raise, not to steal someone’s stuff!

I don’t think it’s justified or correct, and I wouldn’t do it. But it doesn’t matter what I think; it matters that OP has been unsuccessful finding someone who does not think this way and it REALLY bothers her.

She has total control over whether she brings a person she doesn’t know well into her home and around all her stuff. She could stop. That’s all.

[Anonymous]

I never understand people's logic that the protection from this scenario is hiring a cleaning company that is licensed and bonded. Those people pay their people shit and they send new people all the time. This group of people is literally the most likely to steal from you (low paid workers who you'll never see again). I guess your protection is you can get the company to pay you back? That seems like a crappy, inefficient strategy. Seems better to just find someone who doesn't steal from you.

I had multiple housecleaners over the years (we've had to move a lot) always recommended by friends or neighbors. My current one for the last 6 years works for like 8 different people I know/am friends with. They're obviously never going to steal from me (nor have they) because if they did, they'd lose all their jobs. We also treat them (she and her sister) well - Christmas card and bonus, I don't care when she takes a week off and reschedules, if we don't need them we still pay, and a couple years we volunteered a 25% increase in weekly pay when inflation was significant. This seems like a far better strategy than assuming you're going to be robbed by some unknown cleaner but you have insurance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never understand people's logic that the protection from this scenario is hiring a cleaning company that is licensed and bonded. Those people pay their people shit and they send new people all the time. This group of people is literally the most likely to steal from you (low paid workers who you'll never see again). I guess your protection is you can get the company to pay you back? That seems like a crappy, inefficient strategy. Seems better to just find someone who doesn't steal from you.

I had multiple housecleaners over the years (we've had to move a lot) always recommended by friends or neighbors. My current one for the last 6 years works for like 8 different people I know/am friends with. They're obviously never going to steal from me (nor have they) because if they did, they'd lose all their jobs. We also treat them (she and her sister) well - Christmas card and bonus, I don't care when she takes a week off and reschedules, if we don't need them we still pay, and a couple years we volunteered a 25% increase in weekly pay when inflation was significant. This seems like a far better strategy than assuming you're going to be robbed by some unknown cleaner but you have insurance.

+1 if I didn't trust my housekeeper I wouldn't have hired her! I have never once in seven years suspected her of anything. Because I'm not in the habit of employing people I don't trust. That goes triple for our nanny. This is someone I supposedly entrust with my CHILDREN, why on earth would I suspect her of stealing a pair of pants??