Anonymous wrote:We have ap room and bath cleaned.

We have a cleaning service every week. Ap suite adds 30 a week.
If ap closes their door (maids won’t go in) twice in a month we suspend the service for them.
In a week or so they complain the maids forget their room and ~m we explain why it was stopped.
They typically ever leave their door closed after that.

Some variation of this. AP needs to pick up their crap from the floor and keep surfaces clear, otherwise they’ll get skipped or your service will be charging a lot more than $25. Try it for a month and see if AP keeps up

Oh, just get it cleaned. Wouldn't you want the space to have a decent clean? It's petty not to have it cleaned.

I would just to maintain the space better.

I think your housekeeper will ask for a raise soon, as she should. Perhaps she’s using this as an opportunity to indirectly broach the topic?

We have a separate AP suite. Our housekeeper cleans it every week/two weeks depending on AP's preference and availability.

Maybe I should offer her the choice of having her space cleaned or giving her the cash for her taxes next year (I'm serious)...

Our cleaner cleans the whole house. I would just go ahead and pay the extra $25. Seems exclusionary to not have them clean the au pair's area - makes them feel less like a part of the family and more like a servant. If you didn't have a cleaner for the rest of the house, I wouldn't see it that way.

We have ap room and bath cleaned.

We have a cleaning service every week. Ap suite adds 30 a week.
If ap closes their door (maids won’t go in) twice in a month we suspend the service for them.
In a week or so they complain the maids forget their room and we explain why it was stopped.
They typically ever leave their door closed after that.

Is your current AP as clean and tidy about her living quarters as your previous APs? If not, then I would say it’s worth the extra $25 to clean her room, otherwise you might end up with more expensive problems. I’ve had APs who didn’t inform us of leaks, puddles of water, and who “threw away” empty Starbucks cups a few feet shy of their bedroom trash can, but my housekeeper was able to step in when necessary.

Did you establish during matching that AP has a private suite and would be responsible for the whole of it (bedroom/bathroom)?

If so, then she can clean it or pay the $25/week. She's being lazy or trying to get the most out of the host family.

If you didn't talk about it, then you might have to pay the cleaning fee if you care about having the space clean. She could be a slob and never clean all year and it gives you a chance to check every two weeks.

We have the whole house cleaned, including AP’s dedicated bathroom. But, given the apparent isolation of AP’s space, I wouldn’t look at you askance if you, say, asked her to split the expense with you.

Our cleaning service asked for $75 to add the AP's space so I didn't do it, but feel bad about it. I'd do it for $25, for sure.

They didn't cut the rate when they stopped cleaning it 4 years ago but they also haven't increased their cleaning rate since then so I think it evened out.

I should mention that they ONLY vacuum the kids' rooms, I make the kids do all the other cleaning of their own space... but they do clean the kids' bathroom.

We have had ours done from the start just like the rest of the house. Did the cleaning company cut your rate when you removed the bedroom/bathroom from the tasks? Personally it seems petty to have the entire rest of the house cleaned and only the au pair’s space put as DIY.

We have a cleaning service come every other week to clean the house. Our AP room has an en suite bathroom with a toilet, sink, shower. It is hers 100%, it is only accessible through her room. Our first AP didn't want the cleaning service to clean her space because she had usually gone back to sleep when the cleaners arrived (kids at school). The next 2 APs just never mentioned it. When the AP switch happens each year, I clean the bathroom and bedroom (although all 3 APs did a good job and it didn't need a super deep clean anyway).

The current one asked me if she could have her room and bathroom cleaned too. The cleaning service will do it for an extra $25 every other week. It's not a lot of money...but I also am not sure it's how I want to spend an extra $600/year.

What do other people do? If she shared the bathroom it would be a much more straighforward thing, I would totally pay to have it cleaned....but I certainly didn't have a cleaning service to do my room and bathroom when I was 21 years old....