Discussion on getting a Domestic Maid (compiled)

[PictureHouse]

1.  What time does your maid wake up and go to bed everyday? 

 

2.  When she wants to call home, do we buy her a. Phone card and ask her to pay us back? 

 

FYI,  our maid does not need to go marketing and cook at all.    When I'm home at 5pm,  she is sitting there in and not working 

[Steve5380]

I read with amazement all the issues about domestic maids.

In my long life I have never had a domestic maid.

As a little child my grandmother had a cleaning lady coming once a week.

Even when married with children,  we did all the house chores by ourselves.

Now that I live by myself,  I reasonably clean, wash, cook, shop groceries, keep house and cars in working condition

 

My boss kindly lets me take time for all these chores because...  I am retired and he is me! 

 

[Guest Guest]

8 hours ago, Steve5380 said:

I read with amazement all the issues about domestic maids.

In my long life I have never had a domestic maid.

As a little child my grandmother had a cleaning lady coming once a week.

Even when married with children,  we did all the house chores by ourselves.

Now that I live by myself,  I reasonably clean, wash, cook, shop groceries, keep house and cars in working condition

 

My boss kindly lets me take time for all these chores because...  I am retired and he is me! 

 

 

That's why stupid angmohs can never understand the context of a Singaporean life. 

[Steve5380]

5 hours ago, Guest Guest said:

 

That's why stupid angmohs can never understand the context of a Singaporean life. 

 

What is so special in the context of a Singaporean life?

.

Edited May 6, 2019 by Steve5380

[robin]

20 hours ago, Steve5380 said:

I read with amazement all the issues about domestic maids.

In my long life I have never had a domestic maid.

 

 

We cannot compare those times when we were a kid & now. Different people also have different lifestyles & priorities.

 

Recently, my mom who was living on her own (but 10 mins walking distance from me) had a fall & I had to engage a live-in domestic maid for her. 

 

For myself, during those times when I was in the corporate world, there were months where I have to work from 9am to 2-3am, 6-7 days a week. So for the little time I have, I will not want to spend on ironing & cleaning the house. So a good & reliable part-time domestic helper is always an angel to me

[Steve5380]

4 hours ago, robin said:

 

We cannot compare those times when we were a kid & now. Different people also have different lifestyles & priorities.

 

Recently, my mom who was living on her own (but 10 mins walking distance from me) had a fall & I had to engage a live-in domestic maid for her. 

 

For myself, during those times when I was in the corporate world, there were months where I have to work from 9am to 2-3am, 6-7 days a week. So for the little time I have, I will not want to spend on ironing & cleaning the house. So a good & reliable part-time domestic helper is always an angel to me

 

There are always special circumstances.  I have an aunt in her 90s who requires domestic help around the clock. But if there are differences between now and 60 years ago, home care has become easier today.  Washer and dryer machines, robotic vacuums, one-stop food stores, some with delivery to the home,  microwaves, all sorts of electric kitchen appliances, etc.   

[Guest Jeremy]

Is there any male house cleaner here in sjngapore for part time only? Usually can work weeekend.

[Notorious]

some maids fulfill the role as caretaker for elderly hence no off days and salary wise is negotiated with agent.

like others said why not ask the agent if you have any questions

[Guest Mary]

1 hour ago, Notorious said:

some maids fulfill the role as caretaker for elderly hence no off days and salary wise is negotiated with agent.

like others said why not ask the agent if you have any questions

That is the whole idea of this forum , anything , they asked here on cyber strangers who most of the time gives half-baked answer

INSTEAD of asking the right channel. 

After a while you realise, none of this questions are real, just created to garner hits ..... some are too obvious (to blame the TS no brain w that type of topic ) 

[Guest FDW - maids]

1 hour ago, Notorious said:

some maids fulfill the role as caretaker for elderly hence no off days and salary wise is negotiated with agent.

like others said why not ask the agent if you have any questions

MOM does not make any difference on Maids who take over roles as caregiver for elderly or others. Therefore, the rest day rule applies for them as well. 

 

MOM states: 

Rest days and well-being for foreign domestic worker

As an employer, you are responsible for the health and well-being of your foreign domestic worker (FDW). You must provide for rest days, proper accommodation, adequate medical care and safe work conditions.

Rest days

To ensure that your foreign domestic worker gets enough mental and physical rest, you should allow her to have a regular rest day.

Your FDW is entitled to a weekly rest day if her Work Permit was issued or renewed after 1 January 2013.

You and your FDW must mutually agree on which day of the week she should take the rest day. To avoid disputes, both of you should have this agreement in writing.

If your FDW agrees to work on her rest day, you must compensate her with one of the following:

• At least 1 day’s salary.

 

•  
• To ensure that caregivers, including FDWs, have sufficient rest, families can access respite care services at eldercare centres and nursing homes for periods ranging from a few hours to a month. These services allow care to be provided when FDWs have their rest days or go on home leave.

[Notorious]

ya just give them 1 day salary

[Guest tony000072]

Just wondering, if you are working and staying alone, will you hire a maid who has to stay with you in the same house.

 

Personally, I'll never do that. I rather sleep less to do my house chore. 

[Guest Fatty]

Only if The Maid is a cute young boiboi

[Meowz]

Well TS, you can hire those weekend or ad hoc kinds just to help with the cleaning and stuff. 

 

Unless you need someone's constant physical assistance, I suggest you not to have a live-in domestic helper. 

Edited August 13, 2020 by Meowz

[Neh Neh]

No. I want privacy. I usually walk around in my underwear at home.

[zyjd]

I tried to hire a maid but MOM rejected my work permit application! Tried to hire one during the circuit breaker when my part-time maid couldn't come to my home as-per government's instructions, and I really needed help with housework because I confess to not knowing how to do housework as I've grown up with maids all my life haha. Apparently now you must be living with someone over the age of 65 or have a child under the age of 5 for them to approve your application. I already paid for and went through both the online course and the permit application only for the ministry to reject it... 🤬

[Guest Crazy idea]

Who on earth would a Gay  want a Maid for?  No privacy.  Cannot walk naked, cannot watch porn, cannot bring a man home to play.  Is cleaning your house so difficult, no time is not a good excuse.  You still need some form of exercise during your free time and what better way than to do your house chores?  I am still trying to wrap my head around this silly topic. 

[Guest Guest]

13 hours ago, Guest tony000072 said:

Just wondering, if you are working and staying alone, will you hire a maid who has to stay with you in the same house.

 

Personally, I'll never do that. I rather sleep less to do my house chore. 

please pay these maids justified salary. If you require them to work 8 hrs a day 5 days a week, pls pay them $1300. If you require them to work extra days its $97.50 per day. If you require them to work extra OT out of the 8 hrs, its $12.20 per hour.

 

Unless you are a PAP supporter, you will pay your maid a justified salary.

[Meowz]

2 hours ago, zyjd said:

I tried to hire a maid but MOM rejected my work permit application! Tried to hire one during the circuit breaker when my part-time maid couldn't come to my home as-per government's instructions, and I really needed help with housework because I confess to not knowing how to do housework as I've grown up with maids all my life haha. Apparently now you must be living with someone over the age of 65 or have a child under the age of 5 for them to approve your application. I already paid for and went through both the online course and the permit application only for the ministry to reject it... 🤬

 

Yes for new domestic workers it would be hard during the start of the CB but I thought it was relaxed as they are essential worker? I might be wrong. Nonetheless, you can work with a maid agency to get someone who is already in Singapore but I guess you have standards lar  

[zyjd]

haha I can't employ one even if I wanted because I don't meet the >65yo / <5yo criteria! It's only my bf, 2 housemates, and I, in our apartment. But now all's well because CB is over and my part-time maid can come back during the weekends to clear the mess we've created during the week. 😅

Edited August 15, 2020 by zyjd
typo

[Guest Blank]

17 hours ago, Guest Crazy idea said:

Who on earth would a Gay  want a Maid for?  No privacy.  Cannot walk naked, cannot watch porn, cannot bring a man home to play.  Is cleaning your house so difficult, no time is not a good excuse.  You still need some form of exercise during your free time and what better way than to do your house chores?  I am still trying to wrap my head around this silly topic. 

Find a cute male maid. You can still walk around naked but he may not want to see a beer belly man... 

[mate69]

22 hours ago, Guest Crazy idea said:

Who on earth would a Gay  want a Maid for?  No privacy.  Cannot walk naked, cannot watch porn, cannot bring a man home to play.  Is cleaning your house so difficult, no time is not a good excuse.  You still need some form of exercise during your free time and what better way than to do your house chores?  I am still trying to wrap my head around this silly topic. 

 

Exactly. 

So much deprivation that I can't. Cannot.

[Guest Crazy idea]

58 minutes ago, mate69 said:

 

Exactly. 

So much deprivation that I can't. Cannot.

Ya Lor!!!!  I usually shower with door opened oso.  If maid is horny or cunning and tried to call the police saying you molested her or tried to insult her modesty, you ended up in jail, canning and then she took control of your home.   Now, I don't trust maid.

[Meowz]

15 hours ago, zyjd said:

 

haha I can't employ one even if I wanted because I don't meet the >65yo / <5yo criteria! It's only my bf, 2 housemates, and I, in our apartment. But now all's well because CB is over and my part-time maid can come back during the weekends we've created during the week. 😅

 

Ahh i see. I noted that but I found it strange... coz I read this literature:

 

https://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/work-permit-for-foreign-domestic-worker/eligibility-and-requirements/employer-requirements 

 

Technically, there's isn't anything to deny you based on this hence I said what i said, but it brings to wonder on so many scenarios where a single person might need a domestic worker right.

e.g. i'm 40yo living alone but on a wheelchair, bachelor living with aged parents, etc. etc.

 

Sigh dunnno lar... Anyway very sorry about the outcome.

 

[Guest crumbled]

On 8/13/2020 at 7:38 PM, Guest Guest said:

please pay these maids justified salary. If you require them to work 8 hrs a day 5 days a week, pls pay them $1300. If you require them to work extra days its $97.50 per day. If you require them to work extra OT out of the 8 hrs, its $12.20 per hour.

 

 

8 hours ago, Steve5380 said:

Many people in rich families are trash.  

 

Fewer people in Singapore would need to have maids if they were not so cheap to get.   It would be a denigration of the value of human life,  if not for the fact that coming from such poor countries, the maids also benefit from the system.  But this does not justify abusing the system.

 

 

I am so happy that I don't need a maid.  Even if I had one, it would be difficult for her to steal $34K from my house.  The most expensive thing I have is my grand piano,  and it is too heavy for a maid to take with her.   

 

4 hours ago, Guest I DO!!! said:

Singapore has a crumbling social system.   The high cost of livings has crippled many families and forced them to work and leave their elderly and baby behind in the household. Thus maids became part and parcel of necessity to take care of the vulnerability at home, while the fit went out to work for survival. 

 

Maid should not be employed by rich people to do triple chores - household cleaning, looking after their adult child, manned the owner's business and do other beck-n-call breaking service.   Some of these people, can even allowed to employ more than 1 maids per family, because they could afford too.

 

US:

The rich people in the US are not that innocent as to hiring maids, servants, drivers...

You, Steve, might personally not engage any maid, but in there still are in plenty of US households doing so. I m quite certain Melania T is not cleaning the golden toilets at her golden New York Mansion herself...

 

Singapore:

I wouldn't take the excuse of a crumbling social system for hiring maids in Singapore. The same goes for "high cost of living".

There is some truth, hiring a maid is very cheap in Singapore compared to other developed countries. These other countries have minimum wages, regulations on working hours, leave and rest days which make hiring maids very expensive and only financially achievable by richer people.

For many Singaporean middle class families it seems to make more sense to hire a maid and both parents collecting a salary. The background of hiring a maid has to be seen in increasing revenue collection per household and not due the fact of being "forced" for both parents to work due to high costs of living. Plenty of such families could afford living from one income earner per household. But to be honest, the vast majority of middle class families would not need to hire a maid and could afford living on the basis of one income earner at the family.

I like to rebut and draw the conclusion, in Singapore the high number of maids per household is due to the low monthly cost to hire a maid, which is even cheaper than leasing a car per month!

And, many Singaporeans forget they are increasing the revenue of the government by hiring a maid.

Maybe, you can even categorise hiring a maid as a hidden tax if you talk about the government fees?

 

There might be other factors for those middle class families in having both parents going to work and the root is not "high living costs", but which might be driven by high personal expenditure, purchase of a condominium and even the fact of the wife wanting to work (the latter: not that I m against it).

 

If it had been true, then I must wonder, why so many families around my area with "stay home mums" and no grandparents at home still have hired a maid?

 

Nevertheless, there are some families in the lower middle class, who require for both parents to work as they would not be able to meet the monthly expenses.

Yes, I agree, for these, hiring a maid might be a must, if the family has elderly grandparents or very young kids at home. But please don't say this applies for all families in Singapore.

It is rarely seen for the poorer segments in Singapore society to hire a maid, mostly for those families the caretakers would be parents (grandparents) or even elderly siblings.

 

Depending on which country your maid comes from, the salary that you can expect to pay may differ.

Country	Minimum Monthly Salary
Philippines	$570
Indonesia	$550
Myanmar	$450

 

As of 1 April 2019, the current maid levy in Singapore is $300 per month. For subsequent FDWs, it’s $450.

If you qualify for a concessionary levy, this will be reduced to $60. The concessionary rate applies to families who have family members as stated below.

• Child or grandchild below 16 years old.
• Elderly family member who is at least 67 years old.
• Family member who needs help with at least one daily activity.

However, you stop qualifying for levy concession when the:

• Child or grandchild turns 16 years old.
• Person needing care (young child, aged or disabled family member) has passed away.
• Person needing care no longer stays with you.
• Person needing care is no longer a Singapore citizen

What is cost of car leasing in Singapore?

10 June 2019

Car leasing refers to renting a car for a fixed lease period of between 2 and 5 years. Popular sedan cars like a Mazda 3 or a Honda Vezel cost approximately $1,700 a month to rent.

	1 year	2 years	3 years
Mazda 3	$1,658.50*	$1,605	$1,551.50
Honda Vezel	$1,712	$1,658	$1,605
Toyota Sienta	$1,936.70	$1,904	$1,819
Mercedes CLA180	$2,878.30	$2,835.50	$2,782

 

*per month

 

 

 

I do not neglect there are Singaporeans who are not well off and struggle financially as due to lack of education or other personal backgrounds they are not high income earners.

But if the argument "crumbling social system" and "high cost of living" had been the reasons for hiring maids, then you would need to ask why these segments of society do not hire any maid?

 

As to the working conditions of maids in Singapore. It might be advised to place more restrictions (working hours, living conditions) and complaint channels. There is too much abuse and exploitation. In many families essentially all "dirty works" are  tasked to maids, even car washing at midnight and laundry hanging, which easily can be done by family members.

And I m not sure these habits are good for implementing/ to instill a good work culture for upcoming generations.

 

 

 

[Guest Try and see]

Can hire this maid.

Her criminal charges have all been dropped, so legally, she's clean  😃

 

[Guest Try and see]

On 8/13/2020 at 5:46 AM, Guest tony000072 said:

Just wondering, if you are working and staying alone, will you hire a maid who has to stay with you in the same house.

 

Personally, I'll never do that. I rather sleep less to do my house chore. 

 

Unless the maid looks like this?

 

 

[Guest crumbled]

I would take the one on the right, but sorry, only without the glitter. Maybe can clean other parts too instead of the house.... wonder wonder

[Guest guest]

 

[Guest Just10]

Hi,

 

I intend to hire a maid to take care of my eldery mum. Any of the bros here who have experienced in hiring maids could advise:-

a. what is the market price for indonesian, myanmar and pinoy maids ?

 

b. is agent fee a ONE time payment ? or every time I change maid, have to pay agent fee ?

 

c. can maid levy be lesser or even waive ? if waive, under what circumstances ?

 

d. is it true that most maids DO NOT get paid for a few months until they have paid off their `loans' to their respective countries agent ?

 

e. is it the employer have to buy health insurance for maid ?

 

f. the employer have to buy airtickets for maid return trip even though it is for her home visit (i.e own vacation)?

[Guest Just10]

Up

[Guest Yyl]

My previous Myanmar maid came with an "Work & Travel" mentality. Within 3 months, she asked to change her biweekly off to weekly off day. During her off day is when she zhng until like Ah Lian and pick the undesirable nonsense like smoking, comparing with her friends on their benefits and having new thought to go China to work. She did not complete her contract with us and returned to Myanmar (with a boyfriend) at 1.5 year mark with <$200 saving.

 

My Indo helper came intention to work and she did not want any off day. I like that and don't mind paying her more. Less nonsense and wild thoughts. She is at her 3rd year, saved loads of $ to buy her 3rd property in her village.

[Tim Lee]

Do u guys still keep a maid to help you with your household chores ?

Do you guys feel comfortable with a maid around the house ? 
Do you feel that the maid is intruding into your privacy at home ?

I certainly do . 
 

[Steve5380]

1 hour ago, Tim Lee said:

Do u guys still keep a maid to help you with your household chores ?

Do you guys feel comfortable with a maid around the house ? 
Do you feel that the maid is intruding into your privacy at home ?

I certainly do . 
 

 

I would feel the same way.  

 

I never had a maid.  I had a wife, and she did a little more maid work than I did.  But I can perfectly do everything around the house,  clean, wash dishes, wash clothes, cook, without spending too much time with it thanks to being practical and having reasonable expectations.  Today house chores are not what they were 200 years ago,  technology has helped. 

[herodai]

My helper (from Indonesia) is asking me how to arrange her to go back home for visits. I called the agency and they say call Indonesian embassy. I find it weird they are clueless about the procedure. Anyone can point me in the right direction? 

 

PS I have since sent a message to Indonesian embassy but hoping anyone else has other advice to give.

[tapsilog]

A lot of these maids are not really familiar with processes related to travelling home from Singapore. Most of them came here guided by their agencies. They tell them what the steps and what to do. Now when they go home, they are basically on their own so most likely wont be very familiar how.

 

As there are different Covid restrictions per country and it keeps changing every now and then, I check Singapore Airlines for detailed requirements. Embassy websites sometimes have too many information which can quite get overwhelming.

[XcasualmaidX]

Hi, im interested for a part time job as a maid if anyone’s enquiring. 

 

telegram @telexul

 

34/malay/174cm

Edited December 17, 2022 by XcasualmaidX

[Guest Yangshen]

is it legally to put webcam at home for living room, master bedroom and common room to monitor the maids?

[radiusulnar]

i don't think there is any issue installing CCTV in your own home in the non-private areas, e.g. bathroom. Bedroom is probably also ok if the camera is clearly visible so no one will be misled

[Balestier]

35 minutes ago, Guest Yangshen said:

is it legally to put webcam at home for living room, master bedroom and common room to monitor the maids?

I have it at kitchen and living room

[Sky894]

.

Edited February 1 by Sky894

[Agoenk_pku]

Are there any male maid that we can hire? Why in Singapore the maids are woman only?