Our cleaning lady (or her sister) stole my promise ring!

[Trekkie]

Lizzyann01: Yes, it will be hard bringing someone else into our house now, so we've decided to go without help in the house for a while. I have changed our alarm code (even though she never had the code, I'm paranoid) and notified the armed response guards that we've let our cleaning lady go and she might be vindictive, so they should be on the look out for anything suspicious. I'm probably over reacting, but this is the only way I will feel safe again.

B.E.G: Hehe! I'd love to send out some thugs! My grandmother suggested that I put a hex on them - that's the African way of dealing with disputes!

Bliss: That is precisely how I feel! I told my SO that if we ever again get a cleaning lady I will only pay her the minimum wage directed by law. If she needs more money she'll have to work more hours. I also won't help with food and clothing and furniture anymore as this is clearly abused. No more Ms Nice Girl.

Reader: No news on the scarves or clothing. She is currently in a town about 90 minutes away from here so I have given her until the end of the week.

Thanks so much for checking up. I will post an update once I have news.

 

[Steel]

Trekkie I am so sad to read this thread. It really makes the story worse that you tried to be as giving as you could. I agree with your new working practices - if you do take on another housekeeper in the future.

I understood your comment about buying your Hermes scarf at 19, and that the purchase was made possible by your saving in other areas. I think many of us on PS are like that. Not silver spoon folks by any means but we have got where we are and have what we have because serious commitments and sacrifices have been made along the way. So many other begrudge posessions and circumstances when they have no idea how hard fought they are. Anyway, rant over.

I do hope you get your belongings back - I especially felt for your CB LV . But I am a LV nut.

 

[sparkle-magpie]

Trekkie-

I am so sorry for what happened. I think you were right to let both sisters go. Neither one sounds innocent, it sounds as if they probably nick things from their other employers and share the items around as mentioned above. Aside from that...who would wear a ring while working...not one serious about housekeeping, imo. All the other items you mentioned going missing are a heartbreak. Personally, for every little luxus item I have, I have paid for personally. In German you can say "bleed for", which is really graphic, but fitting, in my case.

Clearly, the housekeeping job for them isn't about an honest day's work, it is about finding likely "marks" and ripping them off. Most likely, they enjoy the items and then resell them when they tire of them. Jewelry especially gold is easily pawned, so when they want a little extra cash they dispense with the item.

This whole thread has renewed my goal of cleaning up and cataloging my family's heirloom items and books and figuring out a way to put them under lock and key for my own peace of mind. You would not believe how my fiance stores the items he inherited.

In the end, we don't have household help because I'm very picky (about the employee, and about how the cleaning is completed), and because I don't trust easily. For some families household help is a must, and I don't envy them having to employ strangers to come into their home.

Do post updates on your scarves and jeans and bag. If you go to their home with your husband, would that bring them to giving you your things back? Take care and be well. You made the right decision.

 

[centralsquare]

a) GET THE RING BACK

b) SHOW THEM THE DOOR

c) you don't need unethical people in your home - even indulging the THOUGHT of keeping them makes me question your judgment!

+1

 

[jewelerman]

i may be the mean one here ,but i would have contacted the police and made a report.At least there would be a report that the two sisters were thieves and when future employers did a background check they would find out and not become their next target. I would have also asked police to talk to the maids other employers about possible theft. My best friends sister's maid was stealing thousands of dollars in jewelry,silver,purses and make up from a whole neighborhood for months before getting caught. No one ever did a background check on her or locked up ANY of their valuables,gave her a key, and gave her free reign of their homes! She had a drug and gambling problem, but was hired because she was a good maid and everyone trusted that the person giving the recommendation had done a background check or never thought they would be a victim of theft.The only reason they found her out is that she wore her employers oval cut 2 carat twt diamond earrings while my friends sister was home!

 

[Black Jade]

I am glad you let them go and I think you should prosecute.
I am surprised you even considered keeping me--this reminds me (this is really true) of black women I know who were raped or molested and did not report it because they thought the 'brothers' had enough troubles because of racism without dealing with the police. Like, if you go around raping people, you SHOULDN"T have to deal with the police?

I honestly think that someone who doesn't report crimes (unless they are afraid for their life or their family's safety or something on that order) becomes complicit with the criminal, because if the criminal were in jail, they couldn't attack the next victim and the next and the next..and there will be a next. They didn't pick you out for a victim because of a problem with you or something you did--you were just convenient today and somebody else will be tomorrow. Criminals make all kinds of excuses to themselves to lull their consciences and one of the most common is thinking how the victim deserves being attacked, ripped off, or whatever else, rather than thinking how evil they are to have to done it (and stealing someone's promise ring is really pretty low on the scale of things, in my view). So they make up a pretend life for you in which you are so lucky because you are white, or middle-class in appearance, or because you are engaged and they aren't--sniff, sniff, sob, sob. When really they know nothing about you and what you have been through. And anyway, they will be doing the same thing to someone black and poor also if they get a chance--and then making up some other sorry excuse.

IT is good for the criminal also to pay, because the longer they go on getting away with things and making excuses, the worse it gets. Many young people who start with a 'minor crime' if they have to do some time or even get a good scare, decide they never want to do it again. Or at least some of them. But even they don't, that's not my problem or yours--the point is, keeping non-criminals safe from them.

The utter CHUTZPAH of the woman wearing your ring back to your home is astonishing to me. There are honest cleaning people of course, but in general, I would be safe rather than sorry with them, or with any other stranger that comes into your house to work. This is why maid services are more expensive, being bonded and insured in case of things like this--my mother keeps hiring people working on their own who are paid less and keeps finding that they pay themselves knicking her stuff and denying it--most recently she lost some bracelets to a new maid, which were gold plated, not gold--only becuase I had just been to visit and had asked her to give me all the gold jewelry she had laying around that she was not wearing. she has 'lost' all kinds of things before, and my sister had her engagement ring stolen, when she'd only had it two weeks (and then found out that her maid had a criminal record)--it'sone of the drawbacks of hiring help nowadays I think, they come and go and they don't know you and there is no community to keep them accountable and also, an amazing amount of people have a chip on their shoulder about working for someone else in their home. I don't know if it was always like this. My maternal grandmother worked as a live in maid for a few years and like her 'ladies' and they liked her--she was studying at the time and later became a nurse companion. I used to come with her and visit her 'ladies' sometimes. My other grandmother had a maid for about forty years who lived in a little house next to my grandmother and did everything for her and would never have stolen from her--but it's not like that nowadays, if it ever was common. It's no longer considered a job like any other but something degrading to work for other people even for a while, I don't know why.

 

[luv2sparkle]

You guys do realize this thread is a year old, right?

 

[sparkle-magpie]

!!! Didn't realize that- I've been an insomniac/ jetlagged, so I probably answered this during one of those phases of no sleep