<Complaint by Nana Wan>
I am writing this post to warn fellow Singaporeans about a particular maid that had terrorized my family the past two weeks.
Please share this post, and be warned not to employ this Indonesia helper.
Ernawati is her name.
Ernawati was under my employment for merely two weeks and had already created much havoc and turmoil for my family. Within her first few days, she started complaining that she could not stand for too long as her leg will cause her intense pain (apparently, she had met with an accident a year prior to coming to Singapore). She also had selective hearing and is extremely lazy. Any work she found tedious, she will claim that she didn’t understand our instructions or didn't know how to do and will just stand around doing nothing instead! Just imagine, you want to come to Singapore to be a helper but you do not even know how to iron!
After two days in our home, she had broken a wooden cutting board into half, two knives, the magnetic door stopper and dented my washing machine! I did not even raised my voice at her but instead, simply told her to be more careful...
The beginning
The real drama happened two days ago (Friday, 15 January). That fateful morning, we left home to send Ernawati to my in-laws place so she will be able to learn how to do housework from them, before heading to the office. However, on this particular morning, she told me she still have loads of housework to do in my house and will walk over to my in-laws place herself later. As she had only been with us for less than two weeks, I did not feel comfortable for her to walk to my In-laws place herself. I told her it's alright if the housework wasn’t completed and told her to follow us. She had no choice and left with me. Ernawati locked the main door and gate using her set of keys (she does not have my master bedroom key).
In the car, on the way to the office, I realized that I had accidentally left my set of keys (which included my master bedroom key) in my master bedroom and had locked the door. Assuming my husband had his set of keys, I didn’t bother too much.
$80 Locksmith
When we returned home later that evening, my husband realised his keys were not with him. Thinking that he might have left them in his office, he drove back to search for them. He spent 30 minutes searching in vain. He came home and thought his keys might be in the room as well. We had to get a locksmith to open the door and changed the lock. Set us back $80! At this point in time, she was fully aware of my husband’s missing set of keys. She had even assisted us in trying to get into the master bedroom by climbing up a ladder from the balcony.
Drama
Saturday morning (16 January), The family had errands to run and was in and out of the house until I came back at around 4pm. I instructed her to take a bath and get changed. She did not know I was sending her back to her agent for retraining. When she got out of the bathroom, she was wearing a pair of shorts I had given her. I told her it was better to wear her jeans and explained where I was about to send her to and why. As she did what she was told to do, I went to her room and took out the backpack she had brought with her from Indonesia (strangely, she had her backpack wrapped inside of a plastic bag). I started to open the many zippers of her bag and lo and behold… My husband’s set of keys was inside. And it was all scotched taped tightly! (Eventually, we had to use a penknife to pry open the tape from the keys – that was how tightly bound the keys were!) I kept the keys my pocket.
Just then she came out of the toilet, and I asked her to pack her clothes. At this point, she still hadn't mentioned anything about the keys to me. I got so pissed, I took out the keys and asked her, why were they in her bag... Her reply, "I found the keys in the morning and wanted to return them to you!" Nicely said... I asked her where did she find them. She told me they were in the kitchen near a particular power point... I asked her, “why the need to wrap them?” She said, she wanted to packed them neatly to return me! At this point, I lost my temper, flared up at her and proceeded to checked through all her belongings.
I found one of my girl’s toys, a Chinese coin (which she claimed was given by her friend), a few Singapore coins... She even kept sweet wrappers taken from my cupboard! So, for past few days she has been secretly snacking in the room!!!! Throughout all this, she did not even utter a word of apology and defiantly insisted she did not steal the keys! In fact, she even showed her temper and made faces!
Police
At the agency, I decided to call for the police. They came, took my statement and then questioned her. She started giving lame reasons, like she wanted to make me angry so I will send her back to agent, etc!!!
While waiting for Inspecting Officer to arrive, she even attempted to slash her wrists using her hairpin! Fortunately, one of the Chinese police officer and myself saw her in action and stopped her. When a Malay police officer went in the room to ask her why she did that, her answer, "No, the hairpin on my head, not on my hand" (she said this in Malay) she dared lie to the police!
In the end, she confessed stealing the set of keys.
Right now she is still with agent and I definitely do not want her to be in Singapore and am now waiting to send her back to Indonesia.
Ernawati was not here to be a maid but a thief! She had the intention to steal right from the start! Took my Husband keys thinking that I will allow her to stay in my house till she finish her "work". She also knows that we were usually out during weekends. Perfect opportunity for her to get into my room to steal! Thank God, I left my keys in the room, which made us call for locksmith, and we changed our lock... So she did not manage to go into my room on Saturday.
And to think we celebrated her birthday just 3 days after she started working for us...
Please remember her face!
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