# Cleaning help



## MangoTango (Feb 8, 2020)

Moving away from selling houses for a moment... (I honestly bring some of these topics up both to maybe learn and at the same time get others to think). 

I have a woman who has been coming one day a week to clean my (almost empty) house for maybe the last 4-5 years ?
She is supposed to show up a 9. She arrives at 9:30+ (ok she walks here). 
If I put my keys on the end table next to my chair and then get up from the chair, she will pick up my keys and put them on the key rack.
If I take off my sandals by my chair they could end up almost anywhere in the house.
I have a dishwasher and I put just about everything through it (sterilize it). She insists on doing the dishes by hand.
I mean - she is not a 'professional' cleaning person. Actually - my wife used to spend her entire day next to the woman kabutzing as she 'worked'. 

My wife left me a note, something like - my fingers have gotten so small I have had to take my wedding band off. I have placed it in the orange bag in my closet. Well I never could find an orange bag. I asked the cleaning woman and she says she has never seen it either.

I've been going through a lot of closets lately and getting rid of things I know I will no longer need. Things of value I give away. Things I put no value on I throw in the trash.

At the end of the day today I go to pay her and she has gone through my garbage and collected all the things she wants to take home with her. She sees me looking at these things and asks - can I have these gifts ? Please - tell me that is a cultural thing... 

I'm a pretty private person. I'm a little worried I might have to put private things (papers etc) under lock and key if I were to leave the house for a week's vacation or such. 

I am not going to seek to replace her. I am rather 'close' with some of her family members. I really don't think she is a bad person. I just don't know what to do.


----------



## surabi (Jan 1, 2017)

Absolutely lock up your valuables or move them to a safety deposit box. Papers, jewelry, credit cards, whatever. Do not provide temptation to those who have less than you do or who may not be perfectly honest. Always better to take precautions than to have to suspect or accuse someone.

I had a maid for years who was a totally trustworthy person, very religious and upright. But I never gave her a key to my house because I never wanted to have to face a situation where I had to suspect one of her teenagers or their friends, or her husband having taken my key from her house and using it to steal from me.

When I was raising my daughters and my house was full of their teenage friends, even though I liked their friends and they were all nice kids, I kept my bag securely stashed in my bedroom, not hanging on the kitchen hook where it normally lived.


----------



## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

I totally trust my maid. I have let her clean when I'm not here, but usually I don't just because if I'm not here it doesn't need it.

I tend to withdraw the maximum in cash when I visit an ATM, then I come home and unload a lot of it from my wallet. I was stashing it in my drawer under my socks (that's a cliche, isn't it?). I think the maid saw it one time, because now sometimes I'll toss my socks in with one of the loads she's doing (towels) and she always folds up the socks and leaves them on top of the dresser, right above the sock drawer. She knows which drawer they go into, but doesn't want to get that close to the money. 

I've found a new hiding place. I should tell her there won't ever be any money in the sock drawer anymore so she can relax. Though I'm not quite sure how to approach that. She won't be happy to know that I know that she knows where I was keeping my money. 

Lol.


----------



## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

MangoTango said:


> Moving away from selling houses for a moment... (I honestly bring some of these topics up both to maybe learn and at the same time get others to think).
> 
> I have a woman who has been coming one day a week to clean my (almost empty) house for maybe the last 4-5 years ?
> She is supposed to show up a 9. She arrives at 9:30+ (ok she walks here).
> ...


On the garbage thing, I have learned long ago not to throw anything away and always ask if someone wanted it, because it is pretty rare that the maid or the gardener will let me throw away anything.. They find use for things I see as useless so now I always ask before things away.


----------



## MangoTango (Feb 8, 2020)

When we purchased the house we were left a large bag of keys - perhaps 100+. Some have labels attached, but many do not. We never messed with the bag. We just made sure we had keys for the 'outside' openings. Recently, for when I showed the house, I moved all the cats (and their stuff) into one bedroom and put a sign on the door - "GATOS - NO ABRIR PUERTA". To the best of my knowledge that was always honored by the realtor and people she brought into the house. Interestingly - my cats are very intelligent - and if they want out of that room they are very capable of opening the door. The closet in that room has some drawers and I put some important stuff there. Last night I opened the bag of keys and found the key to that door. I think I can take the sign off the door now, but I may put some things in that room and leave it locked (always). 

Ya know - if I ask my gardener to come into the house with me to look at something, and I go in - he will wait outside the open door I just entered and wait for me to explicitly ask him to enter. When needed we buy large bags of dirt for the garden (inflation - I think they cost 25 pesos each now - the empty bags may fetch a few pesos). Well he buys this dirt after his lunch and brings it to the house in his own car. At the end of the day he will have the empty bags folded by the trash can. It is always the same conversation - would you like the empty bags - si senor, gracias...


----------



## surabi (Jan 1, 2017)

Eastwind- why instigate a possibly uncomfortable conversation? How long does it take you to put the folded up socks into the drawer yourself? 2 seconds?


----------



## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

It's not that, it's that she will be more comfortable putting the socks away properly - that's the way she is. It drives her nuts when I leave junk around and won't let her put it away.


----------

