Secret life of a housekeeper: ‘My wealthiest clients are the stingiest – one poured cheap soap into a Jo Malone bottle’

A housekeeper has revealed: ‘My wealthiest clients are the stingiest – one poured cheap soap into a Jo Malone bottle’. Photo / Getty Images

My mum suggested I become a housekeeper. It’s a job that has very much changed since the 1920s when you’d have lots of staff and everyone would have an area of expertise – whether that’s food service or laundry. Now I do the housekeeping and the nannying and work a bit as a PA.

I’m based in Manchester and I work around there. It’s a completely different job in the North and in the South. Down in London, you have a lot of Russians who are looking for housekeepers. Those clients are used to being treated like princesses. They’ll have a household with a nanny, a housekeeper, security and cleaners.

In the North, it’s different. The clients tend to be footballers and wealthy businesspeople. Being a housekeeper up North is more of a rounded job, I think – you just kind of muck in.

I started off working for one client, just one day a week, and then through word-of-mouth it spiralled. I’ve been a housekeeper for 12 years now and I’ve had five clients.

Housekeeping has very much changed since the 1920s. Photo / Getty Images

On a typical day while working for a former client, I’d arrive at about seven in the morning. I’d tidy up downstairs, give the children their breakfast, then they’d go to school and I’d empty the bins, put the dishwasher on, do the laundry and clean the floors. I did everything in that house: the food shopping, organising parties for the children, and cleaning the pool area.

Sadly, the salaries are very different between the North and South.

Down in London, an experienced housekeeper can earn over £50,000 ($105,874), whereas even with 12 years’ experience, I am getting paid £17 ($36) an hour in the North. I’m working part-time right now as I’ve had an injury, but I think the average full-time housekeeper gets about £35,000 ($74,111) around here.

Footballers tend to pay well – obviously we have Manchester City and Manchester United nearby – but those jobs are not always permanent, you never know when your boss is going to move on.

‘You have to be very thick-skinned’

You have to be a very good multitasker as a housekeeper and you have to be very thick-skinned. When I walked in on my first day, one client looked me up and down – I’m a size 12 – and she said very pointedly: “We don’t eat takeaways here.” I only worked for her for a few weeks because I wasn’t keen on her attitude.

In the past, I’ve had a client from an older generation who, when we were having some banter, joked that he’d have to spank me. I thought that was a bit too far and I didn’t say anything back.

It’s hard working in someone’s home – it’s difficult to have professional boundaries in a domestic space. If he’d said that in an office, it would have been treated differently. In that case, I decided it was just his humour. As a housekeeper, you need to know when to challenge something and when to let it go.

'He insisted that I pour cheap hand soap into a Jo Malone bottle'. Photo / Getty Images

In terms of nightmare clients, I think I’ve been lucky but I did have one client who was really stingy about the smallest things. He was always going on about money. He lived in a house with 10 toilets and a pool but he insisted that I pour cheap hand soap into a Jo Malone bottle so that it looked like he was buying expensive hand wash.

His children were having a pool party once. He had a slushie machine and, when the kids had left the pool area, I caught him tipping the dreg ends of the children’s cups back into the machine so that they could be reused. I said: “That’s disgusting.”

‘A client made me lie to a neighbour about stealing their Amazon package’

One day, an Amazon man dropped off a Dyson stand-up fan at the house. It was a mistake – it was addressed to a neighbour. But my client said: “Oh no, we’ll have that.” The neighbour came around and said: “You haven’t had a parcel, have you?” And my client made me answer the door and I had to lie to the neighbour. I really didn’t like that.

Even though my clients are usually very wealthy, I don’t feel jealous of them except for one thing. I do find it frustrating when I hear them talk about making profits from properties they own and rent out because the rents in Manchester are so high and there’s so many young people who can’t afford to get on the property ladder.

'My client made me answer the door and I had to lie to the neighbour. I really didn’t like that.' Photo / Getty Images

My favourite part of the job is doing the laundry. You have to know your stuff in the laundry because if you throw everything into a 60 degree wash, it will be ruined.

I always wanted to do fashion design (I did study it for a year but I couldn’t afford to keep it up) so I love fabric, looking at all the nice clothing that I can’t afford to buy. It fascinates me what my clients will pay for things as well – they’ll think nothing of spending £3000 ($6352) on a handbag.

The worst part of the job is doing the beds. I dread pulling back bedding in case there’s a sex toy in there. That has happened to me before – I found one in the bedsheets. That’s probably the worst thing. And I didn’t know where to put it because there’s usually a locked drawer for it. I just threw it in the top drawer. You’d think they would check the bed before I came in to clean.

I used to get a sense of satisfaction from my work but I don’t anymore. I think it’s because the cost of living is just so high. I’ve had to move in with my mum and I just wish there was more of a sense of progression in my industry.

There are jobs advertised asking for one to two years’ experience, paying £19 ($40) an hour, but I think there needs to be some for people with more experience than that – with pay to match. I’m self-employed so I don’t get holidays.

I’ve tried to go for live-in positions that would cut down my costs, but the feedback I’ve received is that I’m not a strong enough cook. And I think I’m a little too old to be a live-in housekeeper – always at someone’s beck and call.

What I’d really like to do is set up my own training school for high-end housekeeping. I think there’s a gap in the market.