How easy is it to be sued by a nanny here?

[mmoon]

Let's be honest here.

One of the main benefits to being an expat in Latin America is that help is cheap. That's one of the big reasons why people voluntarily move here. They want "luxurious" living for low prices. Part of that is having someone do the things you don't want to do (i.e. clean your house).

Now, I never had a cleaning person in the US because it's quite expensive.

But in Argentina... it doesn't make economical sense to NOT have someone come clean.

We have a woman who comes 1-2 times a week to clean for a few hours. She does a very good job. The place is immaculate afterwards. And it rounds out to ~$18 USD a week. That's ~$3-4 an hour. You might pay more. You might pay less. But that's the price she quoted. So we pay it.

Now, here's a question:

Is your personal time worth $3 USD an hour? Would you do a job you don't like for $3 USD an hour?

And even if it only takes you 2 hours a week to clean your apartment yourself... that's ~104 hours / year... or 4.3 days a year just spent cleaning.

Time is the most precious thing we have. Those days add up. If you can afford it, why not pay someone to clean your house so you can spend more time doing the things you love to do?

Personally, I scrubbed many toilets working fast food jobs in high school and college. I'm okay with not having to do it anymore.

I agree 100% with the first part of your post. I've also spent plenty of time scrubbing my own toilet, working lousy jobs and saving money so I can hire someone to clean my place.

However, my understanding from the OP (which focused on a nanny, but the issues of a maid also can apply) is that it is full-time position. You clearly don't have a full-time cleaner. But, many, many of the expats and locals I know in BA do have a full-time maid, even if they have small apartments. They all tell me they can't live without them, even though none of them had full-time maids in their home country. I'm just confounded by what these maids do all day, and do people really love having a stranger in their house all day (some of my friends don't have outside jobs) when they are clearly stretching out work to make it full-time. Sorry to say, but I don't think any of them have full-time help just to be nice to the employee. Also, once you have full-time help, I think it opens you up much more to being sued. That was the original question. So, is it worth it? I can see that a nanny is different, because if you have a full-time job and a child, clearly you need a full-time nanny. It is my fault we changed subjects from nanny to maid, but the risk of being sued is the same.