Partial or full payment for something that the maid breaks.
What is the right answer?
We're going to talk about that today.
Hi there. I'm Angela Brown and this is Ask a House Cleaner.
This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question and I get to help you find an answer.
Now, today's show is brought to us by HouseCleaning360.com
And if you have a kid that's going to college this fall and they need to pay for their college
tuition or they're paying for student loans, a great place to list their business is on
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Now, we know that college kids are able to clean house and they're also able to run errands
and do grocery shopping and landscaping and all sorts of other tasks that takes place
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So if you want to help your college kid pay for their own education, you can help them
set up a business listing on HouseCleaning360.com and in the area where they're going to school.
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All right.
On to today's question, which is from a homeowner who has this question.
Speaker 2: We have a maid come for the first time.
They broke a fan blade off.
The hardware was unreplaceable and I had to buy a new fan that costs over $250.
The fan I had was 10 years old but worked perfectly fine and the part was unreplaceable.
Should I ask my housekeeper to pay for the whole fan, part of it or none of it?
Angela Brown: All right.
So there are a couple of things going on here about your house cleaner breaking your fan.
Now, this is the first time the house cleaner has come, so you guys don't have much of a
rapport with each other.
This is a brand new relationship.
Now, I am hoping that the house cleaner left you a note and said, "Oh my goodness.
I'm so sorry I broke your fan.
I will do whatever I can to replace it."
That is their responsibility to replace your light and I hope they took responsibility for that.
Now, if you break a ceiling fan, a ceiling fan is a piece of equipment that is used a
lot and so it does need to be replaced, whether it's one-year-old, whether it's brand new
or whether it's ten-years-old.
And so since it's no longer made and you cannot find a replacement, you did a right thing
by replacing the entire unit.
You had to do that.
You did not have any other options.
Now, if your house cleaner for some weird reason did not take ownership of that mistake
and offered to completely pay for it, you as a homeowner have a couple of options.
Now, my first option and suggestion to you is yes, the house cleaner is responsible and
should have pay for 100% of your new replacement light/ceiling fan.
It was in use.
Like you said, it was perfectly usable, you were using it up until the moment where she
broke off the fan blade.
Okay.
So having said that, you have about a 24-hour window where most house cleaners have
a satisfaction guarantee.
And if in that 24 hours, you contacted the house cleaner back and you said, "Ah, I'm so shocked.
The ceiling fan is broken.
We're not going to be able to use it.
It's the heat of the summer, all these things.
How would you like to take care of this?"
Now, hopefully, they say, "I'll just write you a check or buy a new one, then give me the receipt."
Because right now, it just bought you a new one and it cost you $250.
I'm sure you have a receipt for that or you have a receipt on your credit card.
That needs to be submitted to the house cleaning company.
Say, "Hey.
I understand this was an accident.
I'm sure that you're fully insured in this event.
How do you want to take care of this?"
And send them an invoice and let them pay that.
Then, it is up to you to determine whether or not you would like to accept
a barter agreement in return.
There are some house cleaners quite frankly that do not have the money to replace things
that they've broken and they will work out a barter deal with you where they will clean
your house in exchange for whatever the cost of the broken thing is.
So it might be a free cleaning or two free cleanings, whatever it is that you guys arrange.
So that is up to you.
You may say, "No.
I only want cash" which you have full right to do because you had to take cash out of
your pocket to pay for the broken equipment, so that is up to you.
My suggestions is, from the very beginning, that you just treat it like a very normal
everyday transaction.
Don't be all like, "Oh, I'm so sorry that you have to pay for this" and whatever.
No, they broke it.
They're responsible and so it's just a matter-of-fact transaction.
And a lot of times, what happens when stuff breaks, we don't want to hurt their feelings
or we know they're going through a tough time or it's a brand new relationship.
We kind of tippy-toe around on eggshells and we're a little bit uncomfortable being confrontational
and asking for the money.
By the same token, the house cleaners, "Oh, no.
It's a new relationship.
I'm sure they're going to fire me.
I feel so bad.
I feel horrible.
What am I going to do?"
So both of you are like dancing around on eggshells and it's just this weird energy.
So what I would recommend is that you just blow all of those weird emotions away because
they're not helpful to anyone and if you're really uncomfortable, it's going to make the
house cleaner really uncomfortable.
And if they were really great at cleaning, they might decide to leave because now they
are embarrassed that they broke your fan.
It just is what it is.
So you broke it, so you pay for it.
The end.
And then once it's repaired, once it's replaced, once it's paid for, don't ever bring it up again.
Don't tell your neighbors.
Don't go on social media.
Don't leave a rating and review that brings that up.
It's just a weird thing to happen and you took care of it, the end and then you move on.
There are a lot of weird things that happen in house cleaning.
Lots.
Both from the homeowner's perspective and from the house cleaner's perspective.
The sooner and the quicker you can get over that stuff, just like, "Oh, okay.
That was weird."
Yay, and then you move on.
And you just blow it behind you, you don't think any more about it, it's not a big deal
and you never talk about it again.
Then, you move on and the relationship picks up where it left off and everybody is good to go.
It's the weird energy that people hang on to and, "I wonder if they're thinking about that.
I wonder if they're talking to their neighbors about that."
It just gets weird.
So yeah, your house cleaner should replace your ceiling fan.
There should be an invoice.
There should be a receipt.
You should keep all of those things and just keep records.
And then when they pay it off, just, "Hey, thank you very much.
I appreciate that."
And then like I say, don't ever bring it up again.
Now, if for some reason the house cleaner refuses to pay or they don't claim ownership
and they say that it's not their fault and they didn't do and whatever, now you have
a different problem.
And so I would let your house cleaner go if they're not responsible and they don't take
ownership of their problems because that is not professional and we don't want someone
in our house who is unprofessional, who may not be insured, who is not playing fair.
That's not cool.
And so if that's the case, I would replace your house cleaner and I would move on.
All right.
That's my two cents for today.
Until we meet again,
leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.
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