Before you read my house rules, please read the following page :
to understand why I have all these house rules. Note that these house rules are given to a maid who has just arrived at my home. The purpose is to let her understand how she is expected to behave and perform. I do NOT punish my maids for not following any of the rules. My maids have no problem with the house rules because these help them to perform their jobs better in my home.
1) You cannot use handphone during the day. You can only use your handphone at night after you completed all your tasks, and you can call your family as often as you like. But you must pay for your own phone bills.
2) Cannot use the home phone. Do not tell anyone my home telephone number.
3) Cannot steal.
4) Cannot tell lies.
5) Long hair must be tied up.
6) Fingernails must be kept short.
7) You must bathe and wash your hair everyday.
8) You cannot choose your food. You can tell me if you cannot eat certain types of food. You can also tell me what you like to eat. I will decide the type of food to buy for you.
9) You cannot eat any food in the house unless I give to you.
10) You can sleep after 10:30pm. You must wake up at 6:30am.
11) You must listen to Ah Gong(my father) and Po Po(my mother), and do everything they ask you to do. Cannot talk back or argue with them.
12) Cannot go out of the house without my permission.
13) Cannot open any cupboards or drawers in the bedrooms or living room, except the cupboards for baby clothes.
14) Cannot sit or step on any bed or mattress except your own.
15) You can only go into the children’s bedroom. You cannot go into the other 2 bedrooms unless I told you to.
16) You will use the shampoo and soap I bought for you. If you want to choose the brand, you must pay for it using your own salary.
17) You can only use the toilet in the kitchen. You cannot go into the master bedroom toilet, except when bathing the children.
18) Cannot scold or beat the children.
19) You must watch the children carefully and make sure they don’t get hurt. If they fall down, it is your fault.
20) You cannot use the washing machine or dryer. You must hand wash your own clothes and bedsheets. Hang outside to dry. Do not hang your clothes in the kitchen.
21) When washing your clothes, use a pail for your clothes only. Do not mix with other clothes.
22) You must wash your hands with Dettol handsoap and wipe dry before you prepare the children’s food and after you use the toilet.
23) After washing your hands, wipe dry immediately, do not drip any water on the floor.
24) The floor in all rooms, kitchen and toilet must always be dry. You must wipe immediately if it is wet.
25) Do not put any bags on the dining table. Put the bags on the floor.
26) Fold the children’s clothes on the mattress in the children’s room.
27) Must always knock on the door before opening. You must open the door slowly because the children may be playing behind the door.
28) If you have finished your work, look after the children.
29) Only do the work I asked you to do, or Po Po ask you to do. Don’t need to clean windows/clean shelves everyday, I will ask you to do when needed.
30) Always keep the floor clean and empty. If there are any toys on the floor, keep in the correct boxes.
31) You cannot turn on the TV to watch yourself. You can listen to the radio when you are working in the kitchen.
32) Must eat every meal.
33) You must tell me when you are sick. I will pay for you to see the doctor.
Note that every household in Singapore is different, and our society is very different from Europe, America, etc. For example, we do not wear shoes into our homes. This may be very difficult for people from other countries to understand, but please keep an open mind and do not judge us by your own standards.
Regarding my house rule about food :
8) You cannot choose your food. You can tell me if you cannot eat certain types of food. You can also tell me what you like to eat. I will decide the type of food to buy for you.
I listed this rule because one of my ex-maid was very fussy about food. Another ex-maid finished a 1.4 kg can of Milo(chocolate and malt powder) in one week on her own. Note that most employers in Singapore are not rich. Our average monthly salary is about $4600, and the maid costs us about $800 to $900 a month. We had to pay about $1000 monthly instalments for our car. Monthly fees in a good kindergarten for our children can cost $1000. We simply cannot allow our maids to eat whatever she wants. What if she wants to eat cod fish and wagyu beef everyday ? In my home, the most expensive food is reserved for my children, I cannot afford to let my maid eat the same thing, but I do make sure that she has enough chicken, fish, vegetables, rice, bread, etc to eat every day.
One of my ex-maid liked to eat instant noodles every day and another ex-maid liked to eat only an egg with rice for every meal, even though I gave them lots of meat/vegetables to cook for themselves. If maids became ill due to poor nutrition, they will accuse employers of abusing them. This is another reason why I do not let my maids choose their food when they first arrived at my home. I do relax the rule after I know the maid better.
My current maid is a sensible maid who knows how to eat healthily. Now I give her a fixed allowance every week and she has the freedom to buy whatever food she likes from the supermarket to cook for herself.
Another house rule may seem redundant :
32) Must eat every meal.
I wrote this because I had a maid who wanted to lose weight, she only ate one meal a day.
Regarding these house rules :
20) You cannot use the washing machine or dryer. You must hand wash your own clothes and bedsheets. Hang outside to dry. Do not hang your clothes in the kitchen.
21) When washing your clothes, use a pail for your clothes only. Do not mix with other clothes.
Note that the Chinese people consider it very unlucky to mix the clothes of men and women together, especially underwear. I do not allow my maid to use the washing machine because I do not want her to mix her clothes with our clothes without letting us know. I am too busy to supervise her work every day. Note that maids do not have the luxury of washing machines in their own homes, they grow up hand washing all their clothes. My own mother hand washed the clothes of the whole family until I graduated from university. Please do not consider this as a torture to maids. In fact, I still hand wash some of my own clothes now, because some clothes cannot be washed in the washing machine and I don't trust the maid to wash it for me.
I also have colour coded pails for different purposes, for example, a pail for washing floor towels, a pail for washing tablecloth, a pail for washing underwear, a pail for washing socks, etc. I have many pails and I admit that I am idiosyncratic. That is the way I like to live, I am not going to change my life style just because I have a maid.
Regarding this house rule :
12) Cannot go out of the house without my permission.
Please note that I am not keeping the maid as a prisoner. Our government used to require employers to pay $5000 if the maid disappears. $5000 is a lot of money to most of us so it is better to be safe than sorry. My maid can go anywhere she wants, so long as she tells me where she is going.
Regarding this rule :
19) You must watch the children carefully and make sure they don’t get hurt. If they fall down, it is your fault.
I wrote this rule when my younger boy was about 1 year old and was learning to walk. He was very unstable and often fell down as he walked. The maid working for me at that time loved to chat on her mobile phone. When she was supposed to be watching my boy, she was busy talking on the phone to her friends. As a result, my boy fell down numerous times and had many bruises on his legs. On one occasion, she put my 1 year old boy on a tricycle and pushed him along the corridor. Then she went and chat with another maid, and my boy fell off the tricycle. I never punished this maid, and never even scolded her. I sent her away about 1 year later. After that, I listed down my house rules for new maids, and included rule 19.
Also note that maids from Indonesia and the Philippines do not grow up the same way as women in developed countries. I had an ex-maid who had menstruation when she first arrived and did not dare to ask me for sanitary pads. I discovered it only when I saw lots of blood stain on her skirt. I was shocked because if she sat on my beds then I had to throw all the mattresses away because menstruation blood is considered very unlucky by the Chinese people. This is the reason why I had my next rule :
14) Cannot sit or step on any bed or mattress except your own.
Note that I do provide toiletries and sanitary pads to all my maids.
My house rules are written based on my own experiences. I advise other employers to write their own house rules. Note that I do NOT punish my maids when they do not follow my house rules. These house rules only help them perform better in my home. A good maid will try her best to follow every one of my house rules. A maid who does not like my house rules can always ask to leave and I am happy to send her away.
My current maid has worked for me for more than 5 years. She is very happy working for me and she has always followed all my house rules.
