Well intentioned, but annoying things cleaning people do. archived

Our new cleaning ladies make a fancy pattern out of the end of the toilet paper. What is this, a hotel or something? Well, OK, it's cute, but it's really not necessary.

Tom, our cleaning girls fo the same thing. I always think about how much paper they are wasting by doing that in every bathroom (3) and then I think about whose hands were touching the once "sterile" tp that I am about to use.

Wrong. That's a quality Cleaning Person. You guys don't understand the spirit of this thread. Think, "Ironing blue jeans."

Or, scrubbing a seasoned frying pan.

Folded toilet paper? I should be so lucky.

Sorry babymakes3, but I doubt the toilet paper was ever sterile. You have to hold above where you're tearing it off, otherwise it spins, so either way someone else is touching that paper before you use it.

Years ago my mother had a really large dry-erase board in the house for family messages, schedules, etc. An Aunt was visiting from out of the country and had no idea of what it was. From years of use it had some colored shadows on it, but nothing too bad. I guess my Aunt thought she was doing us a favor by cleaning it with a brillo pad. Destroyed.

Re-shelving books. AAaaaaaaaaaaargh, where is that book I was reading!!!


Putting away a 1/2 finished puzzle my husband and son were working on for a week.

Taking an misc papers around the house and putting them in piles.....

They always wipe down the electronics, which is nice, but inevitable knock the little Remote repeaters for the Cable box. Now when Tivo sends a signal to change the channel nothing happens and I end up with 6 hours of Telemundo recorded.

I love my team, but sometimes they move the furniture to clean behind the beds, sofas, etc. but don't move it back when finished. I have to beg Mr. Kibbegirl to go around the house with me to push everything back and hide those unsightly dents in the carpets!

kibbegirl - they do that so you know they cleaned under stuff, not just around it. Kinda like leaving hanging pictures crooked, so you know they dusted them.

Our cleaning people run the dishwasher and/or put away stuff on the drying rack. They will put dishes and glasses in random cabinets so that we are constantly finding stuff in the wrong spot. This may be TMI, but I left part of my breast pump drying on the dishrack one day, I meant to put it away before they cleaned but I forgot. They put it in the small drawer that contains coffee, filters and a box of Splenda. Took me 4 days to find it!

OK, this is stupid and sooooo trivial, but it bugs me! Not lining up the area rugs on top of the rug pad so the pad shows. Every cleaning person in every house I've had does this. :angry:

Taking every toy that's on the floor of the kids room and flinging it into the bottom of closet (ignoring all the toy baskets that are on the shelf just for this purpose). I'm not asking that they organize the toys, just put them in baskets.

Doing the same with any shoes or items that are on the ground in our bedroom (books on the ground beside the bed, clothes etc.). So now it looks tidy but sometimes I can't find things for days.

Shelving books with the spines towards the back so you can't see what the book is.

Putting the dishes away in places we simply cannot find. We try to put everything away (including empyting the dishwasher) the night before they come. I once had to call her at home to find out where the cord to the coffee pot was. We have a humongoid copper skillet that sits on the cooktop. They managed to cram that into a cupboard once.

Leaving the shutters/blinds open. On more than one occassion, I have come home from work, undressed and walked into the bathroom to wash my make-up off only to flash the neighborhood because the shutters are wide open.

At the office, stacking the papers on my desk. Once this happened in April when I was at wit's end from tax season, and when I came in (on a weekend) and saw it I just burst into tears. Well, Maria was still in the office. when she came by she so sweetly said (you have to imagine the concern and the accent) What's wrong? Is your husband? I just couldn't say anything mean to her at the time, but we straightened it out later.

Oh, and my previous housekeeper...........drank all the liquor in the house.

I promise you that my house was not dirty enough to drive anyone to drink.

My sister's maid cleaned all the little sprouts off the head of her Chia Pet, thinking it was dirt.
That was tragic.

leaving the mini blinds askew so that I know that they have been dusted as well as the windowsills, leaving pictures cockeyed so that I know that they have been dusted. Doing laundry when they change the sheets, or finding clean sheets folded in a basket and changing my sheets without being asked to. Never putting the waste basketsz where they are supposed to be.
I now that a list that I have done on the computer and I leave a note every week about what is not to be done and what should be done.
Bottom line, the house is always clean and they have been with me for about 8 years...just that when different crews show u p, I have to leave notes/reminders.

we have a toy rule with the Kibbeboys. The night before Miss Vera is to arrive, they are responsible for picking up all of their crap. Any action figure, Lego block or K'nex left on the floor will be vacuumed away. I told her to do this but of course, she never does :wink:.

Our bottom lock on our front door locks automatically when shut if the inside buttons are engaged. If you double lock it with the key once outside, forget about getting back in. The springs are all wonky, etc. I have left several notes begging them not to double lock the door when they leave and I am sure they are just trying to ensure my safety by locking it, but I keep getting locked out of my house on cleaning day!

Then we have a door from our entrance "vestibule" to the foyer. The house key does not work in this door for the same above mentioned reasons. If for some reason someone locks it with the buttons on the inside of the door panel, you are locked out. So even if you are lucky enough to get past the front door, there is always the real possibility that the vestibule door is locked too. (I wised up and put a piece of duct tape over the buttons of this door when my pleas went ignored).

Not a huge problem, I know--certainly they meant well. But when it is dark out I have to go around the back to get in and can't see the keys or the lock (oh, did I mention that they shut all the lights I leave on in the morning?) They even disabled the motion sensor light we had installed for just such occasion. Again, I'll bet they just thought they were saving electricity.

I'm with you on the paper stacking. What was to me nicely organized, separate areas with bills to be paid, mail to deal with, checks to deposit, etc become one big pile of papers on a table I prefer to keep empty.

She also has a tendency to take any little object she finds (e.g. pens, pacifiers, small toys) and put them in various receptacles around the first floor, but never consistently. So for instance sometimes kids' stuff ends up in the crayon box we leave on the dining table, sometimes in the bread basket in the kitchen, sometimes in the diaper basket in the playroom, sometimes in the decorative wooden bowl on the fireplace mantel. Any empty basket or bowl I leave around, decoratively or otherwise, instantly becomes a new place for her to put things. I've started affectionately referring to them as my crap baskets and when company's coming over I move them to a shelf in the basement. Then I never bring them back upstairs to go through them and put things where they belong, so someday when I'm dead my kids will find a whole bookcase in the basement loaded with small bowls full of random items.

I'm pretty surprised that no one has posted about us being "lazy and whiney and to clean our own damned houses" by now.

:tongue:

I was thinking the same thing, and I should note for the record that the annoying things the cleaning lady does when she cleans my house are nothing compared to the annoying things *I* do when I'm cleaning my house. :bigsmile:

I was going to take credit for that. My introduction was self effacing enough to neutralize even the most fervent agitator.

J.B.

"Well intentioned, but annoying things cleaning people do."

Sounds like a scene from "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie."

Broke a valuable piece of art pottery, then claimed to have expertise in repair of such. Took the pieces and brought something back that looked like a third-grader had put together with Elmer's glue.

I'm staying out of THIS discussion.:devil:

Posted By: wharfrat"Well intentioned, but annoying things cleaning people do."

Sounds like a scene from "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie."

Greenetree, you spoke too soon.:shocked:

Taking all the porcelin things I had on the kitchen window sill and dumping them in the sink to be cleaned.
They were my "salt and pepper" (s) collection. Now I don't store salt in them any more.

Huh?

Posted By: greenetreeI'm pretty surprised that no one has posted about us being "lazy and whiney and to clean our own damned houses" by now.

You were just the first to call any attention to the thread rather than just join in.

One of my customers and I always talked about how we had to hide everything before the cleaning lady came over. We joked about how we would have to lock a door to keep them out of a certain room so they would not disturb important papers. We would laugh at how long it took us to find things that they put away for us and the unique places they would find to hide things. We chuckled bout how both of them were Portuguese and amazed that they even had the same name. About 6 months later, we found out that we both had the same cleaning lady.