Tips on Hiring New/Transfer Maid (Feel free to share)

ariajo

Active Member
Dear Mummies,

Starting this thread to create a venue for all mummies to share their tips or advice. I have never hired a maid before and recently I have hired a transfer maid. All along, I have a notion only to hire new maid based on the feedback from my colleagues. But after seeing my SIL's transfer maid, hubby and I decided to try one thinking that if this maid is bad, at least we can keep her while waiting for new maid to come from Indo. Sometimes it’s really a matter of luck, new maid might not be good and the waiting time is long. So, we decided to give it a try.

Here sharing with you my personal views and all info I gather from my gfs, colleagues and the forum. I want to especially thank a gf who share with me her advice and her 24 pages of house rules complete with English and Bahasa translation
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She is so detailed that she amazes me! But I would say the house rules does give a good understanding to my maid on my expectation.

Sorry this is going to be a lengthy post. Hope this posting will somehow help you in choosing your maid. All the best!
 


<u>Criteria for my maid in general</u>

1) Communication - As I can speak a bit Bahasa (albeit not so fluent) and my in laws can speak Malay, we decided to hire an indo maid. Having said that, nowadays, indo maid can speak a bit of English and they do pick up fairly fast. My SIL's family also hired an indo even though none speaks malay. She's conversing with her maid in broken English. So far so good. So, do consider language barrier when you pick your maid.

2) Must be single – Because I do not want her to miss her husband or do not want any marital problems to haunt her and cause her to lose focus. Do not want husband to call her all the time too. Mine is a divorcee and I ensure that she has no children because I do not want her to miss her children and then lose focus or be burden with worries if her children fall sick, injured in accident etc.

3) Must not be the only child in the family – Because if there’s anything happen to her parents, at least she has bros or sister to look after them and not having the full responsibility on her. Also, I prefer her not to be the eldest in the family if possible because of the same reason as well. And not the youngest also, worried she might be too pampered at home. Hah.. Just to be a bit kiasu lah..

4) Must not have acne (not so important) – As you might need your maid to take care of your babies and she might accidently touch her face to your baby face? More for hygiene purpose and do not want to spend unnecessary money to cure her acne problem later on. Having said that, my current maid do have pimples problem but not those big big acne. Her previous employer bought her facial wash. Will continue to supply that to her too.

5) Not too plump and no body odor – I’m worried abt body odor. Usually a plump lady tend to sweat more? No offense to plump ladies hor..

6) Not too short (150 and above is ok) and not too thin – Afraid she has no strength to carry my 21 months girl and certain requires a minimum height. I have seen a biodata of a maid who is just 34kg and 140cm??? She’s very very petite. We were thinking how to carry my 11kg girl? My girl might break her back? And if too short, how to hang clothes? I will be worrying for her safety when she take out the laundry to dry in case she needs to use the stool.

7) Child care experience – We prefer a maid that has no child care experience. This is because we want to train her from scratch and want her to do it our way. Some maids with childcare experience are so use to their own method/ experience they refuse to listen or has problem changing their habits. After all habits are not easy to untrained.

8) Look – pleasant looking (does not mean pretty hor). Clean and neat looking. This criteria is set by my hubby because he said don’t want to scare my daughter…what logic is that huh? haha..Anyway, it’s true my girl is very wary to strangers. Surprisingly, my girl (21 months old) like my maid the first day she came to my work for me!

9) No dandruff problem – I didn’t check for this but luckily my maid is ok.

10) No facial mole – No big mole.noticeble mole on her face. My colleague insist this is a feng shui thing. Haha.. well no harm to follow though I’m not a strong believer in Feng Shui.
 
<u>Interviewing the maid</u>

For transfer maid, first you need to find out from the agency why the previous employer send the maid back. Anyway, whatever they says, just believe 50% of it. You still need to interview the maid yourself. Besides the normal questions like can you cook, do you like pets, can you handle pork, can you take care of babies, can you take care of elderly, etc, I found out that it’s good to ask abt these too:

1) Have you work in your hometown before? What do you work as? What kind of chores did you do?
This will give you an idea if she’s totally new to household chores. My maid work as housekeeper in indo for 2 years before coming here and I found that she hardly requires any guidance when it comes to household chores. I was thinking did the previous employer really train her so well??haha…

2) Do you cook for your family back in Indonesia?
I never ask my maid during the interview but later one I found out from her she cooked for her family. No wonder, she can cook quite well for us
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Her chili prawn and curry is quite yummy..She told me she can even cook rendang! So so surprise! Total bonus to me as I though initially I need my MIL to train her how to cook.

3) Transfer maid: What time did you sleep and wake up when you work for your previous employer? What’s your meal time?
This will give you an idea how she was treated by the previous employer and whether their style suit yours. You do not want a maid that is so use to good life over there and if you’re slightly straight only she start to complain. I was told by my agency that my maid could not cope working with the previous employer and hence they send her back. She was working for 2 household and need to look after 3 kids ( age 7, 3 and 1). As I only have a child (expecting another one soon) and her main task is 80% housework and 20% child care, I think she can fit my criteria. Morever, we’re definitely not letting her alone with my girl and will be under my in laws supervision. Anyway back to Q3, later I found out from her that she’s usually sleep around 1-2am and has to wake up at 5am and her meal time is breakfast at 10am, lunch at 3-4pm and dinner at 10pm. I think it was absurb! A sleep deprived maid is the least you want. How can she concentrate on her work the next day? And food at such odd hours is ridiculous. Anyway, we change her timing to suit us or rather I would say change to a more humane timing and make sure she has enough sleep (sleep by 10pm and wake up at 6am) and eat with us at normal hours. From this I realize that if you engaged a maid that has been ill-treated by the previous employer, she will appreciate you more? I don’t know, this is what I feel. Might not be 100% true..hehe…
 
<u>Maid matters</u>

Maid personal laundry – I had dilemma choosing btw hand wash by herself or let her use the washing machine. Her clothes definitely should not mixed with ours. In the end, I choose to let her use the washing machine and let her accumulate her clothes for 2 days before using it. My reason for doing so is that I do not want a case of hand wash and it’s not clean and her clothes smell. But she took the initiative to hand wash during her night bathing time even though I told her she can use the washing machine. She said she’s use it already. So, I just let her be and make sure she doesn’t smell. So far so good.

Toiletries ( tooth brush, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, sanitary pad, comb, etc)
I decide to supply her as it doesn’t cost much to us and I do not want her to stinge on this things. I have read how a maid stinge on the sanitary pad until she bleed through her pants! OMG, I certainly will not want that to happen because hygiene is my most important criteria. So, I told her I will supply you this but you cannot choose the brand you want and you must use them wisely and not waste them. If I find you wasting them, I will stop supplying you but use your money to buy (just to warn them lah). I provide her a container to put her toiletries in the bathroom and liquid shop for her, not the conventional soap though it’s much cheaper. But I would say conventional soap quite messy right? I also bought her the bathing sponge so that she can just squeeze a bit on the sponge to generate good amount of lather. I thought this is a good way of shaving the liquid soap.

Food – She will share with us during meal time because I do not need her to look after my girl. My girl will sit with us during meal time. But soup wise, she is to scoop into another bowl.

Telephone – No mobile phone and no using of home phone. This is to ensure she does not abuse the house phone. Her phone card is to be kept by me. If she needs to call home, I will bring her to a public phone to make her phone call. This is also a way for me to monitor her phone conversation. I do not want her to make calls to her mysterious boyfriend one day! Some of my colleagues will let their maid keep the phone card and them to monitor her usage. It’s really up to you.

Letters – My girl said it’s better that I have the liberty to read her incoming and outgoing mails. Well, a lot of mothers will say that’s privacy intrusion but according to my gf, you wouldn’t want a case of your maid doing black magic to you or plan to do black magic on your family. I know it’s a sensitive issue but I also do not want that to happen to me. So, I have told my maid that she has to let me read the mails (one of my house rules). Of course, I will have to approach her with reasons when the time comes. Wish me luck!

Pay – There are many ways to pay her. I’m going to open an account for her once her pay accumulates more than $500 ( minimum to open an acc I think) and then will tt to her account every month. The bank book will be kept with me all the time and I will help her send the money back as and when she wants to. Another colleague of mind didn’t open and account but to calculate the total pay till dtae and transfer the money when his maid requested him to. The third method is to pay her cash which is of course the worst method.

Eating/Drinking Utensils – Shared with us except her cup and water bottle.

Way of doing things– It is good to show her how to do it the first time round and not telling her how to do it. For example, a lot of employers usually just ask the maid to clean the milk bottles and ask her to clean thoroughly but they did not realize the maid sense of cleanliness might be way below our standard. If you have a specific way of doing things, show it to her. Visual is always better than verbal. She will understand better and will really know your standard.

Work Schedule and daily task– Initially I plan to have one but my agency called me up too soon for me to prepare for one. In the end, I only share with my maid what she has to do daily at which period of the day. I think it’s good if you have a schedule but try not to squeeze too many things within a short period. You want your maid to do a good job but not a rush job right?

House rules– It’s good to brief her on the 1st day of work (yes, 1st day of work) to set her expectation and what you required of her. I sat my maid down for 2 hours reading to her pages of my house rules which clearly states how I want things to be done, what are the important things to take note, what are her chores, etc. Of course, she might not remember all of them but at least you share with her. Give her a copy so that from time to time, if she forget something, you can ask her to take it out and remind her that you shared this with her before. I of course did worry whether she might be stress out with all these house rules but still I decided to go ahead and just have to tackle it slowly and in a nice and firm tone with her. The first page of my house rules state my 7 golden rules and that whatever she does, she has to remember these 7 golden rules. You might want to set your own golden rules. My golden rules are:

<font color="ff6000">The 7 Most Important Rules/ Tujuh Peraturan Yang Terpenting</font>
1. Safety/Keselamatan/Keamanan
2. Hygiene/Kebersihan
3. Hard Working/Tekun/Kerajinan
4. Honesty/Kejujuran
5. Initiative/Inisiatif
6. Respect/Kehormatan
7. Obedient/Taat
 
Have you engage the maid already?
I have bad experiences. I interviewed quite a lot of transfer maid. They seems to agree with everything til they reach your place.
 
jot,
yes. she's working for me for abt 3 weeks already. Actually today I wanted to post the problem i face with her ie waking up problem. well, in her 2 weeks, she overslept for 4 times despite with an alarm clock given to her. On 2 occasions she actually switch off the alarm clock and went back to sleep! I monitored her first and didn't reprimand her. Just asked her why she overslept. I think it's self discipline she lacks for this.

But then I also must admit that her bedroom is very very hot at night as the aircon ledge is just outside her room and draws in all the hotair when she turn on the fan. Moreover, her room kena sun. So, I give it a benefit of an adult that her sleep was disturbed. Also, she might be adjusting her sleeping time and might recovering from all the exhaustion she suffered from the previous employer.

But having said this, the 4 times of the same mistake is too much for me to accept. So, I sit her down and talk to her. In the end, I told her, this time round is me talking to you, if SIR talk to you the next round on this issue, it’s not a good thing anymore. She nodded her head and I asked her from tomorrow onwards, I want to see you change. I didn’t scold her, just sit down and do a review with her performance. Praising her first and then telling this problem of hers. It’s been abt 4 days and I caught her once (abt 15 mins late), I just keep my eyes close for now. If it stretches 30 mins, I will have to talk to her again. This is after all a discipline issue.

Yes, my SIL also commented they nod to everything you said and she was wondering whether she understands what she was asking her. But her maid turned out fine but of course again, not all maid is perfect. She has some minor issues with her maid but overall, she’s ok. Everytime I go to her place, her house is very clean and neat. The only complain I heard from her is that her maid always have to be reminded to put back all the ironed clothes into the wardrobe. If not, she will just absent-mindedly leave it hanging on the window grills. Her maid too had problem waking up initially and after talking to her, she did not repeat the mistake liao.

My maid so far so good. Certain things really exceed my expectation like cooking. May be my expectation also not very very high lah. As long as her standard of work is acceptable and the basic 7 golden rules have been abided, I’m ok.

One of my house rules is to make sure all daily chores to be done even if she’s to follow us to go out in the morning and came back late. But like yesterday, we brought her out with us and only come back like 3pm, I didn’t really insist on her to mop the floor with detergent. She just use the magic mop to go one round after she cooked dinner. After all since she’s been mopping every day, will not be too dirty if we just skip for 1 day and I also noticed she’s tired, so I just leave it. She didn’t wash the toilets , didn’t do laundry, didn’t iron clothes.. I think simply no time for her to do so many things and I don’t want her to sleep pass her usual time, 10pm also. But today, I will make sure she did mop the floor with detergent and wash the toilets.

How many transfer maid have you engaged so far? What kind of problem you have encountered with her?
 
Thanks ario,
this is so informative. me too intend to get a maid as i'm expecting my 2nd too.
 
red tea,
you're welcome!
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The tips are just my personal opinions. You might want to check out other threads or google for it. You know, I notice i have some funny typo errors! haha.. for e.g i wanted to type saving and it becomes "shaving"! oops
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aria jo: Some are good with their work. But caught stealing, gossiping. The latest one took about 3 hours to clean the floor. Refuse to vaccum the floor. When i ask her, she said she only want to cook and take care of my bb. This is weird. For i m the one cooking. My bb is unborn yet. She has a lot of tomorrows. When i refuse to give in. She will sulk, cry, threaten me that she wants to go back to agent/ change employer. I spent many hours counselling her. I am so happy without her now. Waiting for the next disappointment to arrive in a few days time.
 
jot,
Yeah, your previous maid sounds horrible. To avoid stealing, do not leave any money around or any expensive jewellery around.

For gossipping problem, i do not let my maid bring my girl to playground by herself to avoid the chance of her mingling with the other maids. When i need her to buy things from the supermarket, i will take note of the time she takes to return home. My gf suggested setting a time if it's just a simple task as buying newspaper or bread, etc in case she wonders else where or go and chit chat with bangla or what. For major shopping, I will go with her.

You know yesterday i just learnt from a lady taxi driver that her ex maid had midnight rendevouz with bangla. All along they thought she's very obedient and work wise also good until one night she discovered her missing from her bedroom at 3am! She totally trust her maid and left her unsupervised at home and that gave her the opportunity to mix with the bangla cleaner downstairs her place.. So, we really cannot leave the maid unsupervised. One day, things will bound to happen.

For your next maid, I suggest you sit her down and tell her your expectation and all the task (now and future) that you might requires her to do. This is to prepare her mentally for your expectation. It's good if you can give her a copy of notes so that you can always refresh her memory if she forgets and she has no excuse to not acknowledge it since you told ehr abt it on the 1st day of work? This is also thought by my gf.

Tell her nicely that this is your second chance (i assume she's a transfer maid?) at employment, so do cherish it. If you work hard and follow ma'am rules, ma'am and sir will appreciate you. This is what i told my maid.

are you getting an indon maid?
 
Thanks for sharing. For me, I tend to keep it simple. I treat her like an employee and I always put myself in her shoes. I find that when I follow these rules, I don't go wrong. My maid respects me, and I respect her. And, many times, she does more than what she needs to, and she never complains.
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I'm very lucky to have my maid. Everytime I hear horror stories from my friends, I thank my lucky stars that my maid is normal and we can live together.
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<font color="0000ff">2kidsmommy,</font>
Totally agree. If you want your maid to respect you, you have to respect your maid. I think it's rude to scold your maid stupid, brainless, or use your finger to point at head.. I feel it's demeaning. Nonetheless, having said this, you really need to maintain the employee and employer relationship and not getting overly friendly, too trusting and take things for granted. I find this extremely challenging as I want my maid to be happy working for me and not slack and not taking me for granted too.

Sometimes getting a maid is really a matter of luck. I have heard of stories where the employer treated the maid so nice until they were taken granted for. For example, I have an ex-colleague who was so happy with the filipino maid and even bring her for holidays and give big ang pau and buy her gifts, treated her part of the family but in the end, she got pregnant by a bangla. My ex-collegue was so devasted and when she told me her story, she broke down in front of me because she said she felt so betrayed by her. The maid was very remorseful but my colleague felt that she cannot no longer trust her and with such a heavy heart, she decided to send her home.

<font color="0000ff">sweetnov</font>
Personally, i will not. I will get a phone card for her and will keep it with me. The phone card is solely to call back home to indo and not to chit chat with gfs/bf in singapore. If she has a phone, one day she might use it to communicate with any tom/dick and harry. Some maid might get carried away and start chatting way into the night and over time might lose focus if she have bgr problem. This is how i see it. May be some mummies who are lenient and not worried abt their maid making bfs outside will allow lah but for me strictly no.
 
Sweetnov, for me, it's a yes. Because from an empathetic point of view, if I were her, I would want to have friends and to talk to my family as and when I like. My maid has been with me for over 2 years now. For me, my rule is simple, as long as she finishes all her work, that's fine with me. She can talk on the phone whenever. Because of this, I think she feels like she can tell me anything and be honest with me. So, she tells me about her friends from the neighbourhood. I know who she mixes with, and I know where she goes when she goes out. She doesn't try to hide anything from me, which I feel is very important.

When she is unhappy with her home situation, she will tell me, and I will try to "counsel" her and cheer her up. After all, she is a human and is allowed to have emotions.

I'm abit more extreme I guess. In the past, we used to tell her that she cannot have a boyfriend, but now, I feel that even if she does, I will be alright with it. Just like if an employee of mine wants to have a BF, I cannot stop her. But, like I said, my views are abit extreme and controversial, but I'm lucky because my maid doesn't take advantage of me, and she is very pro-active. So, I feel at ease with giving her so much lee way. At the end of the day, it really depends on the personality of the maid that you hire. I'm just lucky that I have found a sensible one who knows when not to cross the lines, and can manage the kids and housework for me.

If I had to look for another maid, I think the most important thing I would emphasize to the maid agent is to get me a maid with a GOOD personality. All the rest would be secondary to me. If the maid can cook and take care of kids, then it'll be a bonus. But one thing I cannot negotiate with is the personality.
 
sweetnov,
i though the online course stated we have to provide the toiletries but my gf said no. So, i'm not very sure actually. Personally I will provide for her because it doesn't really cost us much. But i told her she cannot choose her brand. If she want to choose, she has to buy it using her own money. as for facial wash, it depends. If your maid has pimple problem, you might want to buy for her. If she has good skin, no need lah..
 
Hi ario jo
I found out recently that my maid is dishonest. She will use our things without telling us, and my clothes also missing. I'm cannot decide whether shall I continue to keep her or find a new maid. I need a maid to look after my baby. any advise
 
lifeisrich,
First, you need to be very sure and have concrete evidence she's being dishonest. Have you check in her drawer to look for your missing clothes? Do this when she's not around so that she is oblivious of you checking on her. If you can't find your clothes, then lay a trap to test her honesty by putting the money o the table or place you usually put mundane things like key, etc. Once the money is gone, check her drawer/her room.

Once you find concrete evidence abt her dishonesty, you have 2 options

1) expose her and make her admit it. warn her sternly that you're giving her 1 final chance to change and if you caught her stealing again, you will sent her home. I have a gf who chose this and her maid did repent after that incident.but i'm sure she's going to be more wary abt her.

2) Personally, I will terminate her contract and sending her back to the agent. This is abt integrity. If she's being dishonest, will you feel safe to let her taking care of your baby? She might be dishonest with other things in the future too like when your baby sustain some injuries she might lie or not tell you the full picture etc? You know, i just don't feel safe living with a dishonest person, don't you?

You might want to try transfer maid because you do not need to wait too long. Hiring a maid is really a matter of luck. If you decided to try for a transfer maid, do not let your current maid know you're sending her back until the day itself so that she doesn't do anything funny.
 
Hi aria jo
Thanks for your advise. I've actually asked her about the missing items. At first, she denied and insisted that I do not have those things (of course I know what I have in my house)and claimed that she don know. Finally after some pressure, she reluctantly admitted that she actually washed away my clothes unintentionally into the toilet bowl. I did checked her drawer and find that she has taken stuff like towel and use it without asking us. And worst still, after sometimes (after using) she actually put it back to the wardrobe. She tot that we didnt notice. I questioned her, she just said "oh is it, I tot madam got 2 similar towel". Huh wat kind of answer is this? Anyway, I brought 2 new towels for her and asked her to keep the one that she took without asking us.


Honestly, like you, I can't stand or feel safe living with a dishonest person. I've discussed with my HB to change to a new one, he was quite reluctant at first and we have a big argument over this. I was extremely stressed out and could not concentrate on my work cos I was worry sick about the safety of my baby at her hand and wanted to quit my job immediately to stay at home to look after my baby myself. Nonetheless, I was not able to cos if I quit then there will be not enough to support for my family cos my HB alone is not enough to support himself let alone me and my baby.

At that time I wanted to quit so much and could not afford to do it and was worried about my baby and was desperately looking for job that I can do at home. Can you imagine how a mother feel with this kind of situation.

Of course, my HB has his concern as well. His reason was the next one we hire might not turn out good. And this is the 3rd maid that we have hired. The first one, Indonesian, first time working and was very young. She could not take the hardship (she is the youngest child at home and never do housework at home) and kept crying (at that time I'm still pregnant) we could not imagine what will happen if we will to let her handle the baby. So we asked her do you want to go back home and she said yes. So we sent her home and look for another maid.

This time we tot, may be Indonesian can't handle baby so we get a fillipino one, the second one come, she was quite good for the first 2 weeks, then suddenly she become very "stupid" and started spoiling things at my home. We are really puzzled how can a person become "stupid" overnight. So we called the agent and sent her back. Later we find out from her that she actually don want to work and becos if she call her agent herself to transfer she will need to pay extra 2 mths loan however if the employer decided to transfer her then she don have to pay extra. So now we got the picture, on what she become "stupid" suddenly and our things all got spoilt.

And this third one was a long story. She was a transfer maid. At that time we are also in a hurried to hire one becos I need to go back to work in 2 weeks time and was in urgent to get a maid. I guess it all depends on luck. We are pondering to hire another one or put my baby at infant care.

I have consulted many of my friends and colleagues and majority of them advised that it is not so good idea to put at infant care cos baby get sick very frequently. Even we hire a new maid there is no guarantee that the new one will be good and honest. Really big headace.
 
life is rich,
well, personally i do not feel safe if i need to leae the maid alone with my baby and i guess you're doig this since you didn't mention anything abt elderly watching over her.

before i decided to hire a maid, i was keen on putting my NB at infant care too. but my hubby was not too keen citing the same thing as your friends and colleagues (bb wil fall sick easily). but my concern then was i'm uncomfortable having stranger in the house and we might not be lucky to get a good maid. at the time my MIL was willing to help to take care of my girl and hence getting a maid is not our top priority but now that i'm pregnant, my MIL raised her concern of taking care of 2 kids. so, this time round, no way out. since my hubby is totally against infant care (he trusted his mum and seriously speaking, i can trust my MIL to take good care of my kids too), i decided to hire a maid. firstly, the expenditure will be almost the same with infant care. secondly our living standard will be better since the maid can help out on the household chores and child care. well, of course provided she did not give you problem. 3rdly, my girl will not be exposed to sickness from other kids. so, with these in mind, i decided to get a maid and try our luck. my SIL's transfer maid is so far so good and so is mine. of course no maid is perfect but as long as she doesn't give me discipline problem and violate my 7 golden rules, the rest, i can slowly educate her or accept her flaws..

now, back to you. if your job is ok for you to take leave to tend to your sick child, then putting her in the infant care should be ok. sometimes it's not abt taking leave to tend to our sick child but rather the fustration and sadness when we see our child fall sick. everytime my girl catch a flu, it's like nightmare! she can't sleep well and so are we! now that she's older, her immunity is slightly better and flu are usually mild or manageable. when she was less than a year old, tell u, it's nightmare!

by the way, i'm just curious. why is she taking your clothes to wear? she doesn't have enough or she's wearing the nicer ones to go out?
 
Hi aria jo
Thanks for talking to me. I felt a sense of relieve at least I can talk to someone and get some advises.

On the mention of elderly, yes, my mother is at home. Nonetheless, my mother is not able to take care of my baby as she is quite old and also have long term illnees, need to take medicines. She is able to walk however she is not able to do housework. She only sit at the living room most of the times and sometime even will fall asleep. My maid will prepare meal for her.

On Sunday, my mum mentioned to me that my maid has took one pear and went inside her room and put the pear inside her cabinet. We find it very strange, I suppose pear is to eat and not to keep in the cabinet? (We have told her that she can eat whatever foods/fruits if she likes to). So I decided to check what's going on. I checked her cabinet and to my Surprise!!. I discovered one of my soft toys (I have a collection of soft toys inside my wardrobe) was inside her cabinet. I thinks she has a habit of taking things or can I say steal? Last time when she did that (took our towels) I forgive her and asked her not to do it again. I told her it is no good to take people things. I told her it is not easy to come to work here, and should treasure the opportunity, clear your debts, work hard and save enough money then you can return home, start a small business or buy a land or get married. She said she would not do it again. I'm really disappointed that she did it again.

I told my husband, we need to look for another maid. He agreed. We will start to look around for a new one. If you have any good recommandation of maid agency or hear of any good transfer maid. Do share with me. Thanks a lot.
 
life is rich,
Dun mention. forum is meant to share things and get advise
happy.gif
seriously, the agency that i went to to hire my maid is not so good but i got quite a good maid. so, you see, it's irrelevant..haha.. the important thing is really your luck to get a good and OBEDIENT maid.

the one i went to doesn't have good feedback from the forum here. i didn't know until my SIL told me..haha..if i knew abt this, i wouldn't have found my current maid.. so, pray for a good maid and not a good agency!
 
Hi aria jo,

do you mind to share your copy of house rule? If they are in Malay, even better.

I did try to come up with written house rules but find that I m not so organised in writing. seems a little bit here and there. I try to come up with a list of areas that I need to brief and show the maid about housework, also in a mess. not very fluent in malay too. so, it's rojak. english mixed with malay.

can u help? pls pm me of not convenient to post it here.
 
By the way, she has also a diploma with early childhood edu and she indeed have a way with the kids. I guess she will be a good advisor for you.
 
I was reading the thread and wanna to share with you a freelace lady whom offer home visit guidance to new maids. Well, it is a unique services that ti hardly seen in singapore. This is the second one i came to know about such services after Channel 8 talks about it the other evening.

This lady have a long history having maids. She is indeed a good employer and a fren to the maid. The maids she gets are all new and have no experience but I really admired her is that all her maids exit with good cooking skills, spoken english, house keeping, childcare and some with even PC skills !

she is patience and her advices was great. I know she provide numerous guidance to the maid @ theri workplace and her advice/guidance is so personalized to the famly needs, ( of cos with a small fee).
It is really not easy to get the maid to do wat you wanted but I am sure with this kind of services, it do help
happy.gif


Oh, btw, she can be reach @ [email protected]. Strictly by appt
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Dear all,

for those who wants a copy of my house-rule, pls pm me as i only check this thread once in a while. my house rule is in english and malay.
 
Hi, just wondering how do you guys do it for your maids

for dinners at home,
- do u set aside the food for her, or she does it herself? or
- do u finish dinner first, but ensuring u leave enough for her?

we go out quite often &amp; would often dine out at hawker centres and restaurants

when dining at hawker centres, (which we do for most of the 3 meals over weekends)
- do u buy her food?, or
- pass her the $ to buy herself?

when dining at restaurants,
- do u let her help herself? if so, does she use her own chopsticks or she needs to use a serving spoon to take her food?, or
- do u set some food for her aside when each dish arrives?
 
Dinners at home
- she takes herself from those she can eat as she is a muslim and doesnt take pork.

Dining out
- Hawker centres mostly I buy for her after she tells me what she wants cos she doesnt really know what contains pork.

- restaurants she orders off the menu if eating one dish meal. If ordering zi-char style, same thing applies like at home but using serving spoons whenever available.

I also allow her to share food like desserts with my children but using separate utensils.
 
kelly, for me:

dining at home
-- if the food is a lot, we will eat and leave later, if the food is just nice, i will set aside a portion for her in case the other family members over eat lah..hehe...

dining outside
-- hawker: i will buy for her. sometimes i will ask her preferance but most of the time i will choose the food (though she's muslim, she eats pork).. i think it's good not to let her choose all the time because this might become a habit later on.

--- restaurant: if buffet, she will take hers or share food (ala-carte buffet) with us. if ala-carte, i will order for her.

most of the time, my maid will wait for us to finish our meal before taking hers because she has to look after the kids or feed my elder girl while we take ours. more manageble this way.
 
Can anyone share about dental cost for maid?
My maid told me she wanted to go to dental to do a denture.
Can anyone recommend a good &amp; cost effective dental for maid in the east?
I have check with neighbourhood dental for denture can cost up to $400++.
 
Hi, can try this dentist at Eunos, near Eunos MRT, her shop is at the void deck of a HDB block, previously brought my maid there for tooth extraction, price is reasonable.

Unity Dental Surgery
Blk 410 Eunos Road 5 #01-138 S400410
Tel : 67463373
Dr Lim Geok Hwa
 
Hi, you know my ex-maid who murdered my husky, i totally cant trust maid anymroe! now i get part-time clearner instead. no point to put a bomb at home!
 
Hi aria jo,

Can I also have have a copy of the house rules? My indo transfer maid arriving this thurs. will be good that I can prepare the list and have the agent to run through in bahasa once.

Thanks so much.

[email protected]
 
we have to issue an advance payment to part-time-maid.com right? Do they give you any no-show? Thanks.
 
hi everyone,
I have not been checking this thread for some time. Pls pm me if you need a copy of the house rule. My PM is active all the time and I do reply pms.

I am going to look for a new transfer maid soon as my current maid of 3 years intend to go back and get married. yes, she's with me for almost 3 years already. time flies!
 
Hi,

Quick check but how do you pay your maid? Definitely not using cash right? Do you open a saving account in our local bank for her and if you also help her to send money back to her country?
 
Koalarie,
Definitely not cash. Because I do not want her to anyhow spend the money and also have freedom to purchase HP, and god knows what etc. I opened a POSB savings for my maid and deposit/transfer money into her account monthly. Will update the bank book and show her.

So, throughout these 2 year plus coming to 3 years, she hardly spend any money except to buy phone card and gifts to bring home during her home visit. All daily necessities (from pad, toothpaste, tooth brush, under garment, etc) I will provide for her but she will not get to choose the brand. Some mommies will make the maid pay for these items but to me these necessities are not very expensive and can last days, if not months. So I am not so calculative with her but I do not expect her to abuse my generosity as well. This is one of my house rule too.

Yes, I will transfer to money to her home country using western union. You can give her the western union receipt to show her the transfer. There is a serial number that she has to reveal to the recipient in order to retrieve the money. You can check with western union how to open an account for her.
 
Another important thing to note is the maid agency you choose. Some maid agencies are just out to earn $$$ unethically. I am happy with my current maid agency because of the way they screen and prepare the maid (mindset, attitude) before coming to my house.
 
Hi all,

I'm in process of hiring a filipino maid and was asked to sign a standard employment contact (believe meant for the embassy and also a copy will be given to the maid). However, the terms listed in the contract and my agreement with the agency differs, like for eg.

- I am required to give 1 rest day per week but agreement with agency is no off day.

- and salary is US$400 though i am only paying SG$480.

Is it ok to sign the contract though actual term differs. Am worried about the legal implication but was told that it was compulsory to sign such undertaking, otherwise the application will not be approved.

Anyone can advise?

Thanks.
 
lemonade88
which agency u took. i had took a maid from an ex agency, anyway bad exp and was made to sign simialr. my current one dont have e rule.
 
Hi Fion,

It's one of the agencies at hougang green... not convenient for me to mention their name here... is urs fr hougang green too? tt mean, the embassy rule (as they termed it) can be bent?
 
Sorry I check on e current transfer maid e rule don't apply. only for new maid. ur rate seems high for new.

My first was new and bad exp. stop for six mth n current is transfer w 2 employee 3 yr in sg. I realise maybe e new ones got prob adapt to sg life. my maid tell me she is not aware when she first come she won get salary for seven mth. nite inform till she is in sg.

I needed someone to help and be independent as always away from home. so far she Herr two wk and gv me a sense of trust. hope things go well for long.
 
Oic...

She has exp elsewhere.. hopefully, she will turn out to be good.. will have to get a tranfer one too if she dun wk out..
 

Just to share,

After my first maid went home, I hired a second maid from one of the mummies at Singaporemotherhood forum. The maid ran away after working for me for 10 days, accusing us of ill-treating her. What was told by the mummy and by the maid was two completely different stories.

I suspected that the mummy duped me into hiring the maid so that she does not need to pay transfer fees. The maid wanted to have go to bed at 8 am. She claimed that when she was working in Saudi Arabi, her employer allowed her to wake up at 1 pm. Who in the right mind will believe her? I went to the restroom for 5 mins and leaving her with my child and my boy almost choked. She can only cook vegetables when the mummy mentioned that the maid has been cooking.

The wretched maid ran away leaving my house unlocked. I cannot believe that a fellow mummy will do this to another since she herself has two kids. At day 10, my son has mysterious scrachmarks on his back. The marks only appeared on day 10. I suspected it was the maid. And she was with him for 10 mins while I took a bath! I told the police officers about this but they cant do much as I cannot prove that the scratches are done by the maid.

I KNOW SOME MUMMIES MEANT WELL BUT I HAVE DECIDED NOT TO HIRE ANYONE BASED ON RECOMMENDATIONS. I PREFER TO GO DOWN TO THE AGENCY TO TAKE A LOOK. IN FRONT OF THE AGENT, MOST MAIDS WONT DARE TO LIE.

Anyway, I took a risk and hired a maid where Im her 4th employer within 6 mths. She was supposed to be my temp maid while I waited for a new maid to arrive. However, she was quite good that she has been with me for close to a year. Looking back, I realised that:

1. She comes from a family of 11 siblings. She needs the money.
2. She has a son but is divorced.
 

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