Is this a universal trait of servants?

My feeling is this; in this day and age no-one should have servants, no matter how well off they are.

I know where you are coming from Kala. In our scenario, it's not a surprise. The house helps mostly go to any extent to gather things that they can either recycle or sell off. These plastics are saleable here and perhaps the reason why the people restore them. I think they do it all in the name of better living.

Here such behavior by a household helper would be considered praiseworthy not a complaint, I think. We do not have servants in my family. Here, the men help with the housework if the women are employed outside the home or if the men are not employed as fully as the women. For instance when I worked 60 hours at my administrative job and my late husband worked 15 hours on location and the rest of his salaried work was done at home at his convenience, he did all of the vacuuming and laundry and more than half of the general cleaning. We shopped together, but I did most of the food preparation, and put the dishes in the dishwasher to clean. I think one of the reasons we tend not to have servants is that people here like their privacy and have efficient high tech tools and supplies to assist with the labor. Another reason is that our social structure is different, with more people changing their social class. For instance, my best friend used to be rich and now she is poor and I used to be poor but now I am quite comfortable. Some of my ancestors worked as servants and they passed down the belief that family members who survived them must get an education in order to never have to become servants and also that we must respect them by never hiring servants. It is a completely different mind set.

kalav56, I believe sometimes this is what it means about one man's trash is the others' treasure. For one, I think you will need to understand your domestic helper's family background and the reason(s) behind what they are doing especially with your household's trash. I think you will need to tell them when they are in the wrong especially when they are contaminating your house or kitchen where food is being prepared and cook. The latter will have serious dire consequences when it is not addressed properly. In my house, I would allow our maid to choose any of our house's old clothing or kitchen ware which we intend to donate or dispose, for her to send or bring back home. In a way, it does not go to waste and that our maid will not be keeping the wrong things which otherwise may become health hazard to us and her.

Dear ms. Kalav Not sure as we dont have any maid at my place here. But I think she is doing it on a purpose. Going by what I have seen (I was at Mumbai for a few days and more at Pune some years back) - we cannot throw the garbage anywhere we like in those cities. So maybe the maid is keeping all of these at a place and plans to dump them off on some specific date (when the collection is worth). or maybe she plans to make use of these sachets and other plastics - they might have a resale value too. The one that visited our stay place at Pune, did something similar and when confronted she mentioned that it is not always that easy to get downstairs (it was a 12-storey apartment) for just one or two milk sachets - so she was storing all for about 15-20 days and then disposing them off.

Kalajinamastey They take the milk sachets, bottles, plastic containers, because they sell them, but what i feel is, they should take them home not store in your place.. We are facing so much problem here due to the maids, at times i feel we are the servants and they are the masters, our maid recently got her salary raised to 2000 pm, but she has not come for 2 days again, kalyani and vidhya are fade up doing the chores.. kalyani is having fever and waist pain due to this.. Thanks for sharing Best of luck. Professor

Hi Kala! I feel that servants in Mumbai appear to be lazy and they would just throw the garbage or useless stuff anywhere. It is really bad on their part, but I think you could not mend their ways.

No, I don't see the same trait with our maid here. The maid working for my mom has a different character. She consider herself one of us after faithfully working in our matriarch home for the last 14 years. She is the one throwing away anything that are unused and the old lady (mom) will retrieve anything she sees that have been thrown away. She will then tell the maid not to remove anything without her permission. And I can understand why cos my mother is a hoarder.

Dear friend, We do live in an indiependent house in Kochi, here we either have to bury the waste or burn it off. Moreover some waste cannot be buried nor burned. The Corporation has kept a person for collecting the waste from every house here and monthly we have pay for him also and during festivals another extras. In home we never keep any waste. In my parents village it was easy for dumping these wastes. But here in Kochi it is really a mess, it is punishable and fined we dump the waste in other places.

hi kalav I have different problems. I am retired and in a retirement center. I am rather pampered as caregivers come daily change the linens, make our beds, vacumn the floor and clean the bathroom loll. also some not all sometimes see something they like and zoom its gone. You can look around but what it comes down to is they think as we are elderly ladies we do not know what we have. wrong. wrong. I have an IQ of 150 so am not senile or stupid. but I put in a complaint and the missing items showed up again lol and a few were fired too. so these people are in a sense servants and they are good and bad and some just indifferent too.

I cannot contribute anything to your discussion Kalav because I do not have a servant...I am the servant, lol! I cannot imagine having another person in my house taking care of things but I’m sure I could get used to it! The problem with your servant Is sounds like a culture difference, perhaps, anyway I just wanted to drop by and say hello!

Hi kala, LOL, it definitely is a universal trait among the maids...they like to hoard anything and everything that they can find whether they can use it or not.To tell you about my own personal experience - my maid Ganga has been with us for more than 12 years and she does exactly what she wants.She has her own outhouse in the backyard and after helping me out in the morning she works in other houses all day.Every now and then, she brings something or the other and keeps it in a small shed built next to her house ,meant for keeping gardening implements.The other day, I wanted to clean and clear it out and was amazed to see the kind of stuff that came out.There were wooden planks, kitchen tiles,old buckets, plastic trays,several cups and saucers,all kinds of plastic items and many many more such things...The best part is that she convinced me to put everything back , a little more organised and leaving a little place for the garden tools too...lol

Hi! Oh my I think it is just a coincidence that both your and your sister in laws servant have the same trait. You should instruct her about that garbage thing or ask her why is she doing that.

Maybe you could list all the things that need to be done by your maid. Sometimes an specific instruction is effective than letting them do the way they think things are right from them. Make a checklist and explain all the things that you want to be done.

I have not had a similar encounter. I always feel that they are not really concerned much about these things because, they are not the ones buying them. If it is thrown out, well its thrown out, except for the softdrink pet bottles, cans, etc that can be recycled, i know they would take them and sell them for like 1 peso a piece here in Manila.

I think the servants store this and then later sell this later. We have this problem everywhere. Ofcourse we complain of mess and dirt collecting and then mosquitoes. And they think of a little more pocket money. I dont have a servant to help me in the house. But when the man comes to collect the garbage everyday I see him sorting things out that he could sell and make a little money from.

My situation is the reverse. I have shifted from a Metro to a semi rural town where we have constructed a house with a nice garden around. I have traded my social life to this lifestyle with no regrets whatsoever excepting that when we shifted we had 4 helpers but now I have two one gardener and one cook. They do not stay with us. I have never done house work but these days I do potter around. I have no problems of the kind you have stated. Probably your maid sells those plastic sachets.