How safe are we?

A few days ago there was a report of a horrendous attack on a housewife by her live-in maid. She was napping when the maid attacked her with a stool and pestle, breaking a few of her ribs and cracking her skull before stabbing her with a knife. Her left ear was almost severed. After the attack, the maid left the house to fetch the twin boys from school!

This lady is very lucky to survive her injuries. Her wounds required more than 100 stitches at the hospital and the maid has been arrested for attempted murder.

Malaysians are in the enviable position of being able to hire maids to do the housework and mind the children. The majority of households have a maid, whether or not the lady of the house holds a job outside the home. Maids are obtained through recruiting agencies thus they are total strangers when they come into your home.

Come to think of it, having a person who is a complete stranger in your home is risky and also foolhardy. We know nothing of her character and her predispositions, yet we put our home into her charge and our precious children too. In households where both husband and wife are working, they have no choice but to trust the maid to perform the tasks that they are entrusted with. If they have an elderly person in the home, they are very lucky as the maid can be supervised.

Some take their maids and children to their in-laws' homes so that there is an element of supervision and their minds can rest easier that their children will not be abused in their absence. Minding small children can be a trying experience, especially if they are very precocious and hyperactive.

Others install hidden cameras to monitor the maid.

Time will tell if the maid turns out to be trustworthy or otherwise. There have been stories of maids who stole, who abused the facilities in the home and worse, whose abusive behaviour has been recorded on camera. Swopping stories of their maids is a common topic among women at any gathering

We had a very good maid once. She worked for us for about 12 years before she finally returned to Indonesia. She ran the house very well and we could go on holiday without any worry as she was absolutely trustworthy. After her we had a few maids but none could measure up to her. Some of those who passed through our home were horrors. They stole, they lied, they abused the use of the telephone. The last one we had, spent most of her time on our landline, running the bill up to more than a thousand dollars. We had gone on holiday and our daughter who works full time trusted that the maid would do what she was supposed to do. Unfortunately that was not the case as on our return home, we found that she had sacked the maid.

It was only later that we discovered that the phone bills were missing. She had disposed of them and when we got a notice that our phone line was to be cut, we found out the maid had been making many phone calls during the day while she was supposed to be working and one call to Indonesia had cost more than RM400. Just that one call!! The rest were to mobile phones. My houseplants had withered as they had not been watered at all. This maid had been with us for two months and she left us with a very hefty phone bill.

Now we have decided that we will not have a maid. My daughter tells me that there is substantial savings in the consumption of food and other household items. We used to run through 10 kg of rice and a 3-litre bottle of cooking oil every month. Now the same lasts us at least 3 months!! I am puzzled as to how the extra person could amount to such a difference!

That aside, the issue of personal safety is really a cause for concern, now that there are cases of maids abusing their employers. One case was that of a maid abusing a senile old lady under her care. She hit the old lady's head until her eyes were swollen and there were also bruises on her.

One can never tell when a maid will turn violent. I'm sure many people will not rest easy at night after reading of the housewife's traumatic experience at the hands of her maid who had been working for her for almost two years. She certainly didn't anticipate such a horrific attack.

As my friend shuddered and said, " You dare to employ a maid now????"