Employed by the rich and famous, housekeepers get to see some pretty interesting things. Here, they share some of their craziest and funniest stories.
“I know for a fact that some of my co-workers try on the clients’ clothes if they’re left alone in the house. Some other cleaners always help themselves to food or even alcohol. Plus, there’s just general snooping. If you leave important papers laying around, most of us are going to look to see how much you charge on your credit card, what you owe on your mortgage, or what your bank statement looks like.”
“I’ve had husbands outright flirt with me. Some have even offered me money — clearly hinting that they’d hope to get something in return. I’ve had guys hire me and then call me to ask me out. I do consider myself an attractive woman, I just didn’t realize how desperate some guys are.”
“Two months after I started working for this millionaire, she got a goat — in addition to her 10 giant dogs. The dogs had access to the entire house. Soon enough, she started feeling bad about leaving the goat outside, so she started letting it sleep in her bed along with the dogs. I would go four times a week (for at least six hours a day) and spend the entire time just cleaning up after the animals. The goat peed on everything. It got to a point that was just too much. I cleaned everything with such attention to detail and she’d go back hours later — after the dogs and goat had been through again — and complain that I wasn’t doing a good job. After a year, I had to drop her as a client.”
“A client asked me to set up a filing system with crazy category names such as ‘easiest way to kill someone without being traced,’ ‘types of murder weapons,’ and ‘types of poisons.’ At first I was horrified; then I found out that this client is a successful mystery writer.”
“After working for nearly eight months for this one family, the wife accused me of breaking her mini blinds. I reminded her that they had been broken since I started, but she didn’t believe me. She said I had to pay for new ones or she was going to dock my pay. I said it was unfair but she didn’t care — she fired me on the spot.”
After four weeks of caring for a baby on no sleep I was a zombie.
As I lay staring at the ceiling for another night while my husband slept next to me, and I got out of bed at 2am and I called a taxi. I wrote my husband a note and I took myself to the hospital because I knew that I needed help.
When I got there they weren’t sure what to do with me. They kept asking me if I felt like I was going to kill myself, and I answered that I didn’t feel like a danger to myself at that stage but I knew that this could not continue and end well.
My baby was six months old, and I then fell pregnant with my second child. It wasn’t entirely planned, but we were happy about it. Everything had been going fine when I suddenly got insomnia that didn’t abate.
I wasn’t anxious or thinking about anything in particular, I just could not sleep. I was still breastfeeding, but I wasn’t resting between feeds. I was dropping weight rapidly even though I was eating normally.
By the time a couple of weeks had passed my mum and my mother-in-law were alternating coming to help me during the day because simple things were starting to unravel. I couldn’t drive because it was no longer safe, I could barely see straight.
I’d been to see my GP but his greatest concern was my weight loss. He was certain I had an eating disorder and I felt like he wasn’t hearing me. He prescribed Valium, but even two couldn’t knock me out. I felt like I was drowning. I felt like I was failing. Motherhood was so much harder than I anticipated, and I didn’t feel like I could tell anyone.
When I finally went to the hospital they weren’t sure what to do with me. Eventually, they checked me into the psychiatric ward. I was terrified to be in there. I was petrified to sleep although sleep was the thing I needed most. I was worried about the other people in my room, and I felt like I needed to sleep with one eye open. I couldn’t relax.
I was anxious and depressed simultaneously, and I knew that I needed to be in hospital but I didn’t think I was going to get better there. After only 24 hours we decided I would continue treatment as an outpatient.
I stayed at Mum and Dad’s house for the next week, and everyone juggled the care of the baby. My husband just pulled his shoes on and kept walking through; doing what needed to be done. We’ve been together since I was 18 so he knew that I have had anxiety that I was medicated for in the past but I had been fine for six years before this.
I went back home and I continued therapy and I began attending parenting school. I told the therapist there what had been playing on my mind about my failings as a parent and she laughed good-naturedly and replied “is that it?”
I realised my fears were normal, but because I didn’t click with anyone in mother’s group I didn’t have any peers to talk to. Nothing makes you feel more normal than someone experiencing the same things as you.
My recovery from postnatal depression was very slow. I was on anti-depressants, which helped but I felt foggy. Some days I would do the bare minimum to get through the day and other days I would feel like getting dressed and going out for a walk.
Getting out was great once I was out but it was the execution that was hard. One day a therapist told me that I needed to create the habit of going out, make a habit of acting “as if” I wanted to go in order to change my brain patterns.
I had become almost obsessed with checking in with myself to see how I felt, how sad I felt, and finally I started to notice that I’d go three whole hours without checking in. It felt like a victory.
When the new baby came I was worried. I was scared if I worried too much I’d create an issue, so I tried to stay under control and just keep an eye out for the signs. I knew what to look for this time, but it was a different experience.
I got a volunteer job at a Women’s Health Centre one day a week because I realised that much of my identity was wrapped into my work, and soon after I got a job two days a week at the Health Department.
I think ultimately I was unprepared for motherhood. I was unprepared for how difficult it would be to lose myself into another being. I knew what to expect the second time around so I felt more in control.
My biggest advice would be to trust your instinct and get help. If you’re talking to a GP but not getting the help you need, find someone else. Don’t wait until it’s bad.
One brave woman has come forward and shared her difficult 16-year battle with meth addiction.
Sarah, as she was identified by The Daily Mail Online, was a former private school girl from a regular middle class family who found herself hooked on drugs by the age of 13.
Sarah, 30, tells the Mail that as a result of a series of traumas in her youth – an incident of stalking and sexual abuse at age nine and school bullying – her world felt like it was collapsing around her and she turned to drugs to cope.
The Victorian native spoke of spending several months in her teen years living in filthy Melbourne squats strewn with needles and using ice, GHB and pharmaceuticals daily with rehab and psychiatric hospital stints becoming a regular occurrence.
“My life was full of chaos, pain, shame, abuse, crime, sex, lies and hospitals. I was involved in toxic and violent relationships. Yes I was alive, but I wasn’t living,” Sarah told Daily Mail Australia.
In a journal recounting her arduous journey to recovery Sarah gave a breakdown of the kind of life she was living at various ages.
“By the age of 13 I was drinking vodka regularly and chroming fly spray daily to try to numb my emotional pain. I just wanted to escape,” says Sarah.
“By 14, I was addicted to speed and ice. But I used anything and everything to escape reality.”
Sarah adds: “If my head could have spun 360 degrees like the exorcist it would have.”
The once troubled teen talked about how she managed to get clean at aged 17 and return to school for years 11 and 12 but because she was around other addicts her sobriety was quickly compromised.
“I tried many home detoxes. I tried going cold turkey. I engaged in many different religions and practices such as Buddhism, Energy Healing, Reiki and New Age beliefs,” Sarah said.
“I wrote my funeral plans and suicide notes … but my suicide attempts failed. I was running out of options fast.”
While Sarah says that she had relapsed and overdosed too many times to keep count she recalls herself in December 2013 weighing just a tiny 41 kilos and pondering her fate.
“My body was yellow and I had bruises all over my arms and legs. I was so weak, I could barely stand and hold my own body weight.
“Of all the moments in my 16 years of being hooked to ice, I knew this was it. I knew I was about to die a junkie.”
But that same day Sarah was admitted to hospital and began what she calls a “miracle” journey to healing.
Not only did Sarah find herself under the expert care of drug addiction specialists but she began a spiritual journey that she believes saved her.
“If it wasn’t for my faith in my higher power, I know I would be dead by now,” says Sarah.
“I don’t blame “ice” or “GHB” for my past. I have a history of addiction, and in my experience addiction is a disease of relationships … Recently I have learned that ice and GHB were just symptoms of addiction.
“I became addicted to food and gained 35kg. I also became a compulsive shopper. Learning what was beneath the urge to fill the void in my heart has been a huge lesson for me.”
Sarah, now a healthy and glowing woman, has decided to use some of her negative life experiences to help others who are still battling addictions.
“I dedicate many hours per day into my Facebook page Transform My Lifestyle, where I have a strong following of other recovering addicts, families of addicts, and people struggling with addiction,” Sarah said.
“I was literally loved back to life and I now want to love others back to life.”
Apart from her candid ‘lifestyle blog’ Sarah also volunteers in Thailand and Indonesia, helping teach English to children.
“I am a firm believer in giving back, especially after living such a selfish life in active addiction. For me helping and supporting others is so important in my recovery.”
While Sarah’s story can be seen as a shining beacon of hope for the many thousands of Australian’s battling addiction, the future of many ice users remains bleak.
Highly addictive synthetic drugs – like ice – are still flooding Australian towns at a rampant rate.
Last year Prime Minister Tony Abbott called the deadly scourge of crystal methamphetamine a national “epidemic” appointed a task force aimed at combating it.
That task force – headed by former Victorian Police Commissioner Ken Lay – has not yet managed to curb the noxious tide but Sarah, who now lives in Brisbane, says she has hope for the work that is being done by authorities.
“I personally have full faith that Mr Ken Lay and his National Ice Taskforce are doing their very best to hear firsthand from ice addicts the effects ice has had on their lives and the many communities within Australia.”
As Hillary Clinton clinches the Democratic presidential nomination, we look back on our interview with the first woman to be in the running for the American Presidency.
It’s a question spat across dinner-tables the world over.
How did Trump get this far?
Is it possible he will win?
What about Hillary Clinton?
The Australian Women’s Weekly sat down with Hillary Clinton before she had kicked off her Presidential campaign. In a candid interview, she revealed the rough road she has walked to get to the top.
You see, the line Hillary’s opponents like to put around is that she can’t win the US election because she is too old.
So, let’s cut to the chase, shall we: Hillary Clinton is not young. She’s 68, but how old is that in the context of the US Presidency?
Well, if Hillary were to win, she’d be 69 before she was able to move into the White House.
That’s 20 years older than Barack Obama was, but it is younger, by some months, than Ronald Reagan was when he got elected.
Mr Reagan deflected questions about his age with tremendous wit, saying he refused to use the youth and inexperience of his opponents against them.
“Age is a factor that voters have a right to take into account,” she says, settling back into a lovely old armchair in her room at an historic New York hotel, where she’s surrounded by books and flowers, and security guards.
“But I think people should be judged on who they are and not how old they are.
“My mother lived a very vital, fully intelligent life until the age of 92. Plus, I still feel pretty much the same on so many fronts like when I was 21. At the same time, I feel really grateful for all the experiences I’ve had.”
Ah yes, the experiences. Where even to begin? Hillary’s back story is well known in the States, perhaps less so in Australia.
She’s rich now, but doesn’t come from a wealthy background.
Hillary and husband Bill Clinton
Hillary’s father, Hugh Rodham, was a draper.
Her mother, Dorothy Howell Rodham, was a stay-at-home mother whose own background was terrible (abandoned by her own mother at the age of eight, Dorothy was sent by train with her three-year-old sister across America to live with her harsh grandmother).
As a child, Hillary was bright and, after blitzing through her local public high school, ended up at Wellesley College and then Yale, where she met Bill Clinton.
He hadn’t had it easy, either, having been raised by his grandparents and a single mum in the Southern state of Arkansas.
The Clintons were still in their early 20s when they hooked up.
Hillary had already been featured in Life magazine for being an outstanding young student, but she had never been overseas.
Bill took her to England, where he had studied at Oxford, and opened her world.
The couple married in 1975 and their daughter, Chelsea, was born in 1980.
Hillary was by then 33, ancient for the times.
She has never spoken all that much about why she had only one child and she’s had to put up with people saying it’s because she was ruthless in her political ambitions, but in his book, My Life, published in 2004, Bill Clinton said they “badly wanted to have a child and had been trying for some time without success”.
In the summer of 1979, by which time he was already Governor of Arkansas, they made an appointment with a fertility specialist in San Francisco, but before they could get there, Hillary got pregnant.
Her waters broke, three weeks early, at the Governor’s mansion.
State troopers got her to hospital as she sucked on cubes of ice to help manage the pain.
Chelsea was breech and Hillary needed a caesarean section.
They were never able to have another baby.
Hillary tells The Weekly that her daughter’s arrival was joyous, but the early weeks were as difficult for her as they can be for anyone.
“I remember when Chelsea was just a little baby and she was having one of those baby times when she was crying inconsolably,” she says.
“I was rocking her and I finally said, ‘You know, Chelsea, you’ve never been a baby before and I’ve never been a mom before, and we are going to have to work this out together.’”
Now, Chelsea has grown up and has a baby of her own with husband Marc Mezvinsky.
Given that Hillary knows first-hand how difficult those early years of motherhood can be – here comes a bombshell – if Chelsea at any point reached out and said, “Mom, I’m not coping. I just need you”, Hillary is adamant that she would immediately withdraw from the Presidential race.
“I would do anything for my daughter,” she says and, for a moment, she’s fierce.
“I will be there. I mean that. In any way that she wants.”
Then Hillary laughs and adds, “But she will probably be saying the opposite, ‘Enough, Mom! You can move out now!’ I’m hoping that she wants me there as often as I want to be there, so that I can help her, as my mother helped me.”
Hillary and Bill with their granddaughter, Charlotte.
Hillary’s writes about her own mother in her book, Hard Choices.
“Mom was a fighter her entire life, but it was finally time to let go … I spent the next few days going through her things at home, paging through a book, staring at an old photograph, caressing a piece of beloved jewellery.
“I found myself sitting next to her empty chair in the breakfast nook and wishing more than anything that I could have one more conversation, one more hug.”
She tells The Weekly that “everything is profoundly different” now that her mother – her chief supporter – is gone.
“I’m so well aware of how lucky I was. I had my mother for so long. I have friends who lost their mothers as children, or young adults, and I can hardly imagine the pain and anguish they have lived with, trying to imagine what it would have been like to have their mother at their wedding or their graduation,” she says.
“So I was very fortunate. My mother lived to 92. She was vibrant, intelligent, good company until the very end. I miss her every day, I think about her all the time.”
And Hillary still hears her, in her own voice, just as she’s done her whole life.
“I remember when Chelsea was about four and she was running outside to play, and I said, ‘Chelsea, don’t forget, put on a sweater’, and she goes, ‘But I’m not cold’, and I go, ‘But, please put it on’, and she goes, ‘Mom, if you’re cold, you put on a sweater’. [That’s when] you start to hear your own mother in your voice,” she says.
Hillary took four months’ maternity leave in the Governor’s mansion after Chelsea was born. As Governor, Bill was able to work from home.
The delicious privilege of such an arrangement caused pangs of guilt.
One of the first things Bill Clinton did as President was sign a bill to extend (unpaid) maternity leave to more Americans.
Unfortunately for Hillary, it was also in the White House that Bill left what has proved to be an inerasable blot on his copybook: he had a fling with an intern, Monica Lewinsky, and in the process, tore both his legacy and almost his marriage apart.
Hillary’s distress and dismay at those events was laid bare in an earlier book, Living History, published in 2003.
She could “hardly breathe”, she said then, when Bill told her that rumours of an affair were true.
“I started crying and yelling at him, ‘What do you mean? Why did you lie to me?’ ’’ she wrote.
“I was furious and getting more so by the second. He just stood there saying over and over again, ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was trying to protect you and Chelsea’.”
Hillary says she felt “nothing but profound sadness, disappointment and unresolved anger” in those days after the affair was revealed, but time has gone by and her book since, makes plain that she’s put it behind her.
Bill encouraged Hillary to run for the Senate in New York and he offered immense support when she became Secretary of State (after which, she stopped telling him her secrets, including the fact that the US was about to try to kill bin Laden.)
Probably they thought the affair was behind them, but then Monica popped up again in 2014, in a glamorous photo shoot for Vanity Fair, going over all the old ground again.
It feels awkward to bring up the affair in the interview with Hillary, but she makes it easy, coolly acknowledging the distress it caused and the fact that she has moved on – on Bill’s last day in office, she waltzed down the halls of the White House in his arms.
For this couple, facing the trauma head on paid enormous dividends.
While Hillary wouldn’t presume to lecture anyone else about their partnerships, she does have some advice for those people who are facing personal challenges.
“I don’t think it’s possible to speak for every person,” she says.
“It’s so unique. There may be common experiences [in long marriages], but everyone feels them differently. My view has always been that I support my friends – I support women – to make responsible choices. And sometimes, the responsible choice is to stay.”
She pauses, then adds, “Not always. Sometimes, the responsible decision will be to go. It’s hard to make broad, generalised statements about when that might be appropriate because it’s so personal. But that’s what friends are for. You need somebody who will listen and support you, to offer ideas, but not substitute their judgement.”
There were people who thought Hillary should leave Bill, but she still loved him.
And when she saw how horribly humiliated he was, she wanted not only to throttle but to comfort him, and so the marriage survived.
By many if not all accounts, they now live amiably together, walking the dogs and watching political dramas, which makes it sound like they’re retired.
They’re not.
She’s definitely not.
When The Weekly met with Hillary she had just finished her Hard Choices book tour (during which she was much criticised by the media for the use of Gulfstream jets and Presidential suites, but members of the public queued for hours to see her.)
She had launched a new initiative, No Ceilings, designed to break down those barriers that prevent half the population – women – from achieving their potential.
It’s an issue about which she’s passionate.
As Secretary of State, Hillary encountered leaders who would not shake her hand because she was a woman.
Still, of all the countries she might have criticised for entrenched sexism, it was Australia that got a special mention in her book.
“It’s an unfortunate reality that women in public life still face an unfair double standard,” Hillary wrote.
“The former Prime Minister Julia Gillard of Australia has faced outrageous sexism, which shouldn’t be tolerated in any country.”
Hillary tells The Weekly that she was acutely aware of the attacks on Ms Gillard because the two women met several times while Ms Gillard was in office, and Hillary was dismayed to see her friend being described as a witch on placards, as “deliberately barren” by political opponents and as having “small breasts, huge thighs and a big red box” on a stunt menu, distributed as some kind of nasty joke at a fundraising dinner for a conservative politician.
For Hillary, it was akin to watching an old movie.
She has copped criticism for her hair (while Secretary of State, she took to wearing scrunchies because who can really be bothered with hot tongs and blow-dryers when you’ve got 112 countries to visit?); her clothes (pantsuits are so much easier when you’re on the move); and her weight (it fluctuates, which apparently matters to somebody).
Hillary used to get upset, but now, like Germany’s steely Angela Merkel, she tends to let it slide, for the drivel that it is.
Was Ms Gillard’s mistake to let the criticism get to her?
“It’s a very hard question to answer,” Hillary says.
“You have to stand up to it. You have to try to make it unacceptable, beyond the pale, in political discourse.
But how you do it and the impressions that your efforts leave are often unpredictable.
“Humour is always a good tool, but not always sufficient. Much of the attack, as I saw it from afar, on Prime Minister Gillard, was really beyond that, beyond the bounds of appropriate political discourse. It’s one thing if a shock jock on the radio – we have a lot of those – says something that’s sexist, but when people in governmental positions or elected positions join in, then it’s not just disrespecting one woman, it’s disrespecting all women.”
Hillary says she encouraged the former PM to get on the front foot and was impressed when Ms Gillard launched into the so-called “misogyny speech” on the floor of Parliament, attacking then Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.
“I thought it was very brave,” she says.
“I thought that it was a well-argued rebuttal of the sexism that had been deployed against her, but also putting it into a larger context, by pointing out that it should not be acceptable to engage in that kind of discriminatory speech and behaviour.”
Of course, Hillary is keenly aware of the fact that Mr Abbott has said many things over the years that have made women cringe, such as the time he told The Weekly that a woman’s virginity was the greatest gift she could give her husband and when he prefaced some remarks about the cost of electricity by saying, “What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing …”
Asked directly what Australian women should do about a bloke who says things like that, Hillary looks firm.
“Laugh,” she says.
Laugh at the Prime Minister?
“I think that may be the best response,” she says, nodding grimly.
Indeed, she speaks warmly throughout the interview of Australia – she visits fairly often and has a close friend from college now living in Adelaide – and more generally of Australians, with perhaps one exception, Julian Assange.
Hillary was Secretary of State when Assange leaked tens of thousands of top-secret diplomatic cables, in which US diplomats spoke in sometimes withering tones about politicians in their host countries.
What punishment does he deserve?
“Oh, I don’t know that I would use that phrase,” Hillary says. “He caused us a lot of bother. People’s names were mentioned in sensitive cables that could have resulted in quite dire consequences.
“We had to move people. We had to bring home ambassadors because of their honest reporting about [former Libyan leader Muammar] Gaddafi and others. So he [Assange] caused a lot of annoyance and we certainly reacted to that.
This story originally appeared in The Australian Women’s Weekly.
Scientists have found that people who get themselves into a tizzy about mundane grammatical errors online have “less agreeable” personalities than their more relaxed (much cooler?) counterparts.
In a new University of Michigan study titled “If You’re House Is Still Available, researchers found grammar police tend to be disagreeable, close-minded, and conscientious introverts – jerks, basically.
The study’s authors asked 83 participants to read emails – some with typos, some not – and evaluate the sender’s level of intelligence. They were then asked to evaluate themselves on the 5 Big Personality Traits: extraversion, agreeability, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness.
Overall everyone rated the fictional applicants with typos worse than those with perfect spelling but those with less agreeable personalities got more upset by grammatical errors.
Researchers noted that this could be because “less agreeable people are less tolerant of deviations from convention.”
So before you point out any typos in this article, think about what that really says about yuo.
While most of us wear our favourite clothes until they are holey and threadbare, celebrities have a strict one-wear policy.
Even garments donned for a coffee run or to pick up some groceries are henceforth banished from the average star’s wardrobe – no matter how gorgeous they are or how much they cost.
These thrifty stars have rebelled against the norm, dusting off their favourite items again and again as the years go by.
Michelle Obama and Kate Middleton
Cameron Diaz wore this outfit twice in five days last month.
Kate first wore this coat in 2009, and again as the Duchess of Cambridge in 2011.
Style-savvy Victoria Beckham shocked fans by wearing the same outfit twice in 2009.
Michelle Obama loves this dress so much, she has worn it five times.
Prince William wore the same outfit two days in a row at the Calgary Stampede.
Kate recycled her cream engagement dress for Canada Day celebrations.
Crown Princess Mary loves this blue dress so much she has worn it twice.
Mary has worn this headpiece to the christening of three of her children.
Princess Anne at Charles and Diana’s 1981 wedding, and at another wedding in 2008.
Camilla recycled her royal wedding outfit to wear to Ascot.
Kristal Kinsela, 35, moved to Sydney four months ago which means she only sees her nine-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter every second weekend.
Scroll down for video
A descendant of both the Jawoyn and Wiradjuri nations, Kristal’s decision goes against the Aboriginal culture she was brought up in.
“There were very few jobs for someone like me in Port Macquarie, unless I wanted a really mediocre job,” she says on tonight’s episode of Insight.
Kristal explains why she only sees her children every other weekend
Loading the player...
After her marriage ended in 2012, she and her husband decided to share the care of their children 50/50 until just four months ago when she decided to move to Sydney.
“My kids told me they loved both parents but they found the weekly changes over from house to house was too much,” Kristal, a supplier diversity expert, said.
“They enjoy living in the one home and their happiness is the most important thing.”
She hopes that her work will set a good example for her children but she worries “about what people think of me as a mother.”
“I want to set an example for them and make a change for other Aboriginals.”
Kristal will appear as a guest on Part 2 of Insight’s special on mothers who leave, tonight at 8:30pm on SBS.
It took 24 hours for her page to reactivated, she told Daily Mail, and she had to appeal to Instagram twice before it got back up and running.
She told Daily Mail that she instead received a generic message from Instagram saying her page wasn’t compliant with their community guidelines – which they stipulate as no nudity being allowed, expect for “photos of mastectomy scarring and women actively breastfeeding”.
“It seemed to start this uprising of women who felt that way,” she said.
Elle has been a photographer for two years now and believes that “Showing people the truth about birth I think is something that could help the world.”
“It’s honestly electric in a birthing room, it’s beautiful,” she said.
“There’s so much support, power and love you can just feel it.
.jpg?resize=380%2C285)
.png?resize=380%2C285)
.jpg?resize=380%2C285)
.jpg?resize=380%2C285)
.png?resize=380%2C285)
.jpg?resize=380%2C285)
.png?resize=380%2C285)
