I just got hired to clean houses, and at first, the owner seems okay, but then stress or something gets to him and a switch flips.

Me: “The vacuum isn’t sucking. I think it’s clogged.”

Owner: “What, you don’t know how to change a vacuum?!”

Me: “Not this one, no.”

I’ve tried to change a new vacuum before and it didn’t end well, so I figured he could show me. He huffs and puffs and takes out the hose. It’s completely clogged.

Owner: “You should change the vacuum before you come!”

I wanted to say, “Hey, it’s YOUR vacuum!”

Owner: “You have to do it like this!”

He puts his mouth on the hose and blows out the dust.

Me: “Ew!”

He really thinks I’d put my mouth on a dirt-filled vacuum?! NOPE. I decided to quit, and he wasn’t happy, saying I put my hands in toilets. My hands yes, not my mouth!

I work for a company that does commercial cleaning jobs, mostly restrooms, in businesses around the area. I have a big machine I use to pressure wash bathrooms that has a cleaning chemical in the water. I put up plenty of signs while I clean that say the bathrooms are closed for cleaning. The ones I have hang at eye-level in the door frames and you have to physically duck to get under them.

I frequently get people who come up and look at the signs and ask if they can use the restrooms. I always politely say no because they’re closed for cleaning, and I have a cleaning chemical on all of the fixtures. They usually are fine with that and either wait or go to a different restroom.

I clean both the men’s and women’s at the same time when I do these, so sometimes, I’ll be inside of one of the restrooms and not see someone sneak into the other one to use it. This means I have to sit there and wait for them to finish before I can finish cleaning that restroom. If they’re fast, I might just give them a look, but if they cost me a lot of time, I’ll tell them that I hope they don’t get a rash.

They usually get confused, so I explain that the chemicals I spray on the fixtures are harmful to the skin and that’s why I have to close the restrooms while I work. I usually put on a worried, sympathetic face and tell them that they may want to go take a shower as quickly as possible; otherwise, it might get really uncomfortable to sit down for the next few weeks. This usually freaks them out a bit and they rush away.

Our chemicals are actually pretty harmless, so long as it’s not straight from the jug of undiluted stuff. If I’ve sprayed it through the machine, it’s been heavily diluted so it won’t ever cause a problem, but that fear feels really good to see on someone who thought the rules didn’t matter to them.

I’m a cleaner in a school and our morning shift is 5:00 to 7:45. It’s not too bad, as I live two houses away. [Cleaner #1] and I usually help out in other areas when we’re done. Normally, only one other area needs it and only in the afternoon. [Cleaner #1], on top of her own work, has to do the supervisor’s small bit as he’s really lazy.

[Cleaner #1] and I are taking out our many rubbish bags when the supervisor joins us. He’s got not even HALF of a bag of rubbish. It turns out he’s done a single toilet set. On the way back in, he’s b****ing about the area manager.

Supervisor: “Oh, yeah, I’m supposed to send you off to help out in other areas if it’s 7:40 am. But that’s ridiculous; you guys do too much already, so I’m not going to do that.”

We get inside. The majority of the coworkers are sat there together, and the only ones missing are those in the area that generates more mess. We are supposed to wait until everyone arrives, but the supervisor immediately tells us to leave. [Cleaner #1] and I usually wait, but [Cleaner #1] has to leave today. The supervisor complains that the others are taking too long but doesn’t head down to see if they’re okay. Instead, he heads down to his area. I decide to see if the others need help, and then they round the corner.

Me: “Sorry, guys. Normally, you’re all right in the mornings, so I didn’t think to head straight over there after taking the bins out.”

Cleaner #2: “You’re fine. You usually help.”

Cleaner #3: “At least you waited. Where is everyone?”

Me: “They left — places they needed to be. [Supervisor] has gone down that way.”

Cleaner #4: “Reckon he’s gone to make sure [Cleaner #1] has also done his workload?”

Cleaner #2: “Probably.”

We see he’s heading back.

Cleaner #3: “Hey, I thought people were supposed to wait and see if other areas need help when they’re finished?”

Supervisor: “Oh, I know. I told them that they needed to go help or at least wait, but they all had places to be, apparently! Not sure where [My Name] had to be; she only lives a minute away!”

Cleaner #4: “She’s here. Literally next to me.”

He clocks me and gets an “oh, crud” expression on his face.

Supervisor: “Oh. Oh, I mean [Cleaner #1]! She lives nearby, too, and you two are usually together!”

I give my fake retail-learnt smile. [Supervisor] leaves even though he’s supposed to wait until the rest of us are gone.

Cleaner #2: “So, what actually happened?”

Me: “Oh, he’s supposed to tell us to help other areas if it’s 7:40, but that’s ridiculous because we work too hard so he’s not gonna. And he told them to leave. [Cleaner #1] was gonna stay, but her grandson is being dropped off at 8:00 so she had to get back.”

Cleaner #3: “Why didn’t he just say he told them to leave? He could have just pretended he hadn’t realised we needed help rather than try to throw them under the bus”

Cleaner #4: “Because he didn’t know [My Name] was still here. Just saw a group of female cleaners and didn’t think much more other than, ‘Hey, I can paint myself in a good light!'”

Cleaner #2: “He’s a d**k!”

Cleaner #3: “Not to be crass, but d**ks have a purpose and a use. He doesn’t.”

I was working a job where we had to live on-site in dorms made from sticking trailers together. Being one of the rare female tradies, I shared the sole women’s trailer with a lot of the housekeeping staff, and they seemed a bit hostile, as if they owned the site and we tradies were unwelcome intruders. I like to keep to myself, anyway, so I hoped to avoid any friction with them.

One somewhat unusual thing I do to have a bit of privacy while working on a huge bustling mine site, eating in a huge bustling cafeteria, etc., is putting up the “Do Not Disturb” sign and doing my own cleaning, to have one little six-foot-by-ten-foot area that is mine and mine alone.

After I had been there a couple of weeks, one night, I was up for a midnight visit to the washroom when the cleaner for our trailer broke away from the party they always had going to appear in the washroom doorway as I tried to exit.

First, she rambled aggressively.

Cleaner: “Were you the one running up and down the hall, pounding on the doors and walls?!”

Surely I was visibly half asleep and she should have understood I hadn’t been doing a thing, but to avoid friction, I offered her the respect she felt she deserved and politely answered her questions.

Me: “No, that wasn’t me. I haven’t even heard anyone running or pounding, just the usual party noise.”

Then, she decided to find a new topic to hassle me with.

Cleaner: “Why do you keep that ‘Do Not Disturb’ tag up?”

Me: “I like my privacy. But if there’s any worry about me not doing a good enough cleaning job, I’m willing to let someone have a peek now and then, so you can rest assured I haven’t trashed my room.”

Apparently, she didn’t want supervised access, though; she wanted to be in there alone. 

She gave a big sob story about how diligent and dedicated she was and how she could barely cope with the nagging worry that dust bunnies were accumulating under my bed. It being the middle of the night, I was desperate to go back to bed, and she was blocking the bathroom exit, so finally I agreed to allow her in, just to get her off my case.

True to my word, the next day, I left the “Do Not Disturb” tag off. When I came home, I looked under the bed, since she had made such a stink about her obsession with cleaning there. And what did I see? The same old smudges from my casual weekly wipe-down with a damp paper towel, and the same old dust bunnies around the edges, where I had been careless. The bed was even made worse than I do it so that the sheet dangled down the back side of the bed into the dreaded dust bunnies. Hm.  

So, if she didn’t actually have a dust bunny fixation, what was her motive? Maybe she wanted to steal something. Maybe it was just a power thing. A month later, she spray-painted a slur on the truck of another tradie who asked her and her gang to keep it down. So, perhaps she just hated guests defying her imaginary authority. 

Every time I see a dust bunny, I think of that creepy woman with her inexplicable NEED to get inside my room. 

What did you want in there, Dust Bunny Lady?

I work at a store franchise as a cashier, among other small jobs around the store. I open the store relatively often or at least work early in the morning. We hire a cleaning company to clean the store with their industrial equipment, and they are also employed by a few other large franchises to clean. To avoid doing it in front of customers, they come in the middle of the night, and they have their own key and alarm code to enter.

One day, a coworker and I are talking about how all the jewelry in our display sold — about $3,000 worth — and we are wondering who bought that much jewelry.

Turns out, our store cleaners were caught on camera stealing the jewelry in the middle of the night! At least $3,000 worth! On top of that, we realized they have been stealing for years! So now, there are years’ worth of camera footage to look through to calculate how much they actually ended up stealing, as my company is suing them.

I’m assuming if it adds up to more than $5,000 worth of product, they will also be going to jail for theft over $5,000. Also, of course, our company has informed their other employers, so it is more than likely that they have lost all their contracts. And who knows if they were stealing from them, as well?