STONE COLD HAVEN

If there’s one thing I envy about living back home, it’s the options available to any working family to get an affordable house help or maid, more popularly known as a mboch. Having a live in house help out here could easily cost you the better part of your salary after tax – and for most of us, we have to make do with tackling those oh so unwanted chores , come rain shine or snow.

You see, some of the most drama generating issues for any couple are the mundane things like who does what in the house from washing the toilets and changing diapers, to mowing the lawn and scrubbing the pots and pans. They say it’s the stuff relationships are made of, but in the same token, it’s most definitely the stuff drama is made of. Of course, it doesn’t help that you’re both probably busting a gut at work to make ends meet, and there’s a small matter of kids who might not see things as you see them when it comes to being reasonable.

So once in a while, you resolve to lighten the load for both of you and sub-contract some of the more straight forward chores. A live in house help is most definitely not an option, so the natural thing is to pick up the yellow pages, and look for the locally advertising domestic cleaners, who can pop in once or twice a week. The truth is, doing most of the work yourself for the simple reason that it saves money is a false economy. For the sake of sanity, investing in external help on occasion makes perfect sense.

I thought finding a cleaner would be easy. Back in my bachelor days, it was most definitely easy. I found a nice lady on the other side of the phone, she came with a cleaner on the first day, we laughed and chatted, haggled on a price, and I gave her the spare key, and that was that. Twice a week, I’d come home from work and my apartment would look like a million bucks.

I didn’t have to worry about much, and even if I wasn’t able to leave a few bob under the biscuit tin when I was broke, I could always square things on payday. They were even flexible enough to pop in on an additional day to do a spring clean if I was expecting a booty call (a sparkling clean house never harms your chances of wooing and convincing an undecided chick that panty removal isn’t such a bad thing after all)…but I digress.

I had a bad feeling about this one from the get go. The first sign should have been that a man with an annoying voice answered the phone. His response to my simple question about how much they charge per hour was delivered with an air of disdain that only Ugly Betty would expect from the pretentious, back stabbing colleagues on her first day at Mode magazine.

“I need to arrange an appointment to come and view your house”, the Pratt kept insisting.

“I don’t think you need to see my house to answer a simple question about your hourly rate. Does it change depending on the number of rooms I have?”, was my simple riposte.

“Oh no – sir, we have to follow a certain procedure and make sure that everything is right”.

I should have hung up and just left the fucker out to dry, but I needed to get someone in to do some regular cleaning, and I really didn’t have time to call around left right and centre. And so I gave him my address, and told him that either ‘er indoors or myself will be at home at a certain time, and that he should call before he gets there to make sure that someone is at home.

I found the freak waiting up front 15 minutes before he was due to visit, and his blunt excuse was that he had other appointments so he thought he might turn up early. This was a clear red flag that I ignored (maybe I’m getting soft in my old age), but I decided to just get it over with.

The dude reminded me of a former college lecturer who was a few sandwiches short of a picnic. His arrogance oozed out in everything that he did, how he moved and his appraisal of the living room as he entered the house. Now, every parent with a toddler will know full well that a living room looking like a building site with all manner of toys and implements is a normal state of affairs. I don’t know if he was more pissed off at the fact that Pepper Pig, a popular kids TV show was playing on TV – and clearly, it didn’t make any sense to him (not that it was ever supposed to, it’s a kids show, or the state of the living room was not up to his standards. I would have normally said “sorry about the mess”, but considering I wanted them to clean the mess regularly, I figured it was appropriate that he had an idea of the intensity of the chore.

He started by giving me a history of his company, to which I responded by cutting him off. I didn’t have the time for niceties and I had to go back out again. And so the ridiculous started.

“I have to look around the house and then describe it to “my lady” who will be cleaning. They usually clean from top left to bottom right.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less”, I responded, “but it still doesn’t answer my question about how much it costs per hour. I’ll only agree to it if it’s a reasonable cost”.

“Well, this type of house we would charge x and y per hour, and it has to be a minimum of z hours”, he answered with anger as if I had twisted his arm and slammed his face onto the wall.

“And you couldn’t tell me this on the phone?”

“No sir, we have to agree on the terms and conditions”.

“What do you mean – it’s a cleaning job, I’m not asking you for a loan”.

“Well sir, we usually sign a contract with clients, and then we go through a check list of issues. I have to examine the house for health and safety and for insurance purposes to satisfy that our liability insurance will be met.”

By this time I was rolling my eyes and wishing this fucker had never walked into my house.

“I also need you to sign a direct debit mandate and we normally collect payment 3 months in advance for the first payment as a deposit, and then a monthly payment in advance”.

“For what”, I cynically asked.

“It’s our policy”, the freak says.

“It’s a cleaning job. Why would I want to do something as stupid as sign off a direct debit to you? Besides, I haven’t agreed to it yet”.

He still insisted that they had to take the first deposit and payment in advance and by this time I was already pissed off enough to try find a way to get him out of my house without drop kicking him onto the front yard.

“You see Mr. So and so” I calmly said, “Where I come from, the only people who get paid before a job is completed are prostitutes. Unless “your ladies” are coming here to regularly get laid for a fee, I really don’t see why I should even contemplate paying in advance”.

That clearly got him as he stormed up and suggested that I need to think about it then and give him an answer.

To which I responded, “don’t call me, I’ll call you before the end of the week”….which was clearly a mistake. I should have perhaps said, “fuck off”.

A few days later, ‘er indoors hands me the phone and says “your friend is on the line asking why his lady is still waiting”.

Lo and behold, the dude had the arrogance to say that he had been waiting for my phone call, and that he needed to respond to his lady as she was waiting to know when she can come and start and to organize her schedule to accommodate me.

“I thought I told you I’ll call if and when I decide to go ahead with this”

“But my lady has been waiting”, was his persistent response.

“Then tell her to stop waiting”, and with that I hung up.

Did I mention that he insisted that I needed to buy cleaning materials for his so called ladies? At the hourly rate they were charging you’d think that they were hiring a cherry picker to clean the windows and roof.

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Posted on Sunday, August 23rd, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Filed underLakini some people....
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