Polite masters change rules for household helps

Unlike her Indian friends,Essa Duhaime,32,who shifted to Pune around three years back has no problem getting domestic helps unlike her Indian friends. She is not only polite to them but also assigns her different tasks on different days to break monotony of her household help’s work. “I don’t give her work in bulk. If it’s laundry and bathroom cleaning one day; the next day she will be doing vessels and terrace washing,” says Duhaime,who also gives two weekly offs to her maid.

Caroline Devaltar from the US admits to not just paying her two domestic helps Rs 5,000 each but also taking care of their food,clothing and even medicines. Another role model for maids is someone like Pune-based expat Benedikte Cremer who pays Rs 7,000 a month each to three of her full-time helps. While the two of them have been working with her for more than a decade; one of them joined three years back. “I don’t think I overpay or underpay them. They are like family and we trust them completely,” she says.

Having been into placement of housemaids in cities like Pune,Mumbai and Delhi,Raj Patil,owner of Honest Services,feels that since houses of NRIs and expats have gadgets for every house work; the helps enjoy working with them. Besides,he says,“Most expats do not get housework done on daily basis; it’s just three-four times a week. That is the reason they stick to these families,” said Patil.

The offside of domestic help gravitating to foreign homes of course is their sudden shortage being acutely felt in most middle and even upper class homes these days. After being without a maid for a considerable amount of time,city-based author Sonja Chandrachud vented her anguish through a social networking site by writing a post on Facebook. ‘Where are all the maids gone?’ A huge number of her women friends immediately ‘liked’ it.

Chandrachud admits that more than the money,it’s the treatment that the maids get in the houses of foreigners that attracts them.

“A friend of mine took her maid along for a dinner to one of the five-star hotels in the city,” she says adding,“Guess the rules have changed”.