When Housekeeping Services are Ableist and Traumatizing #MentalHealthAwareness

Vacuum and Coco

I’m continually amazed how using social media to find a housekeeping service ends up being an exercise in disrespect and dismissive futility.

My most recent provider does not have staff who are vaccinated so we cannot work with them any longer. It was an amicable parting, but now I’m back in the jungle looking for a provider.

Very few people who hire a housekeeper want to feel judged and certainly don’t want to undergo a mandatory mental health assessment. In fact, what’s creepy and predatory is assuming a role in my treatment team without being asked or invited. It is a paternalistic business model and I’m exhausted by that after 51 years

Sometimes housekeeping is just housekeeping — a respectful mutual transaction. You come to my home and do the mutually agreed upon tasks with the mutually agreed upon tools/supplies and I provide the mutually agreed upon compensation. Housekeeping can look like other things, too. But assuming that someone seeking housekeeping services wants unsolicited mental health compassion is condescending ableist fuckery.

It isn’t that the support itself is bad or unhealthy, it is the way it is packaged so to speak. Using active listening skills is a good start. Assuming I need you to teach me how to clean or…