People I paid to clean my flat took my posessions

SexyGreyFox said:
If he had left the flat completely tidy with no other rubbish then I see your point that alarm bells should have rung however there was no intent from the cleaner because they unboxed it, they didn't act all innocent and handed it back immediately.
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I never argued that there was any intent for theft - just that I don't think it would be unreasonable for the cleaner to have at least questioned if it was left behind by accident, given that the OP didn't make it sound as if he'd left the place littered with crap. If that is the case, whilst theft is a harsh description, it is at least somewhat dishonest to find it and not question it, instead just pocketing it and hoping no one asks after it.

I conceded right from the start that if the place was left a dump then you can't expect them to view it any differently from any other junk they found.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
Jeez, it's a minimum wage cleaner who has been ordered to clean up all the rubbish & bin it.
They find an old/new toy choo choo train in a box and take it home.
They take it out of the box because it is a choo choo train toy.
They don't act innocent when asked and return it, if they knew it was worth something they would have not opened it and it would be with a dealer when it had all calmed down.
Nothing to see here.
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you seem to be inferring that because they're on minimum wage then they're just mindless drones

they've been sent there to clean an empty house with no possessions left in it

they find something, boxed, in a drawer, in mint condition

it really isn't rocket science to suggest that that thing is something that has been forgotten rather than something discarded

the fact they took it home rather than discard it themselves involves attributing some value to it, that they took it out of the box doesn't affect that much

bottom line - they took something that didn't belong to them
 
Kenai said:
You've mentioned this 'clean up all the rubbish and bin it' a couple of times now but all i've seen from the OP is that they were hired to professionally clean an empty flat, no mention of tidying up a load of trash he left behind and subsequent rubbish disposal - have I missed this post?
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nope, he's just adding hyperbole to justify the act along with 'old toy' and 'minimum wage' cleaner
 
dowie said:
bottom line - they took something that didn't belong to them
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I've been waiting for this post, you are the very first person to mention it but this is another matter.
If I took a working TV down to the Tip and one of the workers took it, it would be theft, they aren't allowed to do it even if I give them permission.
The cleaner probably did something they shouldn't have done and that's to take something that didn't belong to them.
They should have just put the toy in the bin if the owner wasn't there to give it to them.

I can't believe you are the first one to bring it up.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
The cleaner probably did something they shouldn't have done and that's to take something that didn't belong to them.
They should have just put the toy in the bin if the owner wasn't there to give it to them.
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Do you usually think that is the right course of action to take with lost possessions?

They find something that doesn't belong to them, they know who the owner is, conclusion - put it in the bin?????

What is so wrong with simply telling the person who is paying for them to be there that he's left something in a drawer?
 
dowie said:
Do you usually think that is the right course of action to take with lost possessions?

They find something that doesn't belong to them, they know who the owner is, conclusion - put it in the bin?????

What is so wrong with simply telling the person who is paying for them to be there that he's left something in a drawer?
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Because its not worth the hassle clearly. Safer to just bin everything. The house was meant to be vacant of all personal possessions so anything left behind is rubbish.
 
If the person took the trains to their house instead of putting them in a bin then clearly they did not think it was rubbish, noted it could be valuable and had obvious intent to take it.

On the other hand, you should not have left anything in the house, as they stipulated. This was your fault and will reduce your chances of any action against them.

However, very basic common sense dictates that anyone with half a brain would have noted they were not rubbish, and kept them intact in one piece and informed you or the landlord after the cleaning. It will not be the first or last time someone left stuff in a house by mistake, and they did not behave morally in this instance.

As for the cleaning not been up to scratch, that isn't your fault and you should speak to them to rectify it, or at least leave them bad feedback on every review site you can find.

Greebo said:
Because its not worth the hassle clearly. Safer to just bin everything. The house was meant to be vacant of all personal possessions so anything left behind is rubbish.
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Yeah, so if someone accidentally left some nice jewellery in there would that be rubbish too? Regardless of if they were not supposed to leave something, it is still their property and it does not give someone the right to take it. You have to apply a little contextual common sense.
 
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Greebo said:
Because its not worth the hassle clearly. Safer to just bin everything. The house was meant to be vacant of all personal possessions so anything left behind is rubbish.
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Agree

OP was told to remove his possessions. Therefore it is safe to assume anything left over with no obvious value is unwanted. A train set i would probably put at a value of under £5/10 if it didnt have Hornby written on it but thats because i dont collect trains.

Even if it was a misjudgement by the cleaner, it was due to OP negligence and even if he did not get it back (which he did) it should be enough to just inform the company. No point in wasting police time or OP own time filling out a report for theft when there was no intent. OP should accept some blame rather than palm it off to the cleaner.

I personally would be grateful i got it back at all and would be more angry at myself for forgetting it. Yes OP should have been contacted but how many of you apart from dowie think this is really a matter for the police?

On a different note, surprised to see so many model train junkies on OCuk
 
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Kenai said:
I would expect it to be things like deep cleaning carpets, degreasing kitchens, descaling bathrooms, properly dusting and wiping down surfaces etc.

Not collecting up a load of crap left behind by the last occupant - just putting rubbish in the bin is what a 'tidy upper' would be doing. What you quote from Hax doesn't say they were there to tidy up all the rubbish he left behind, just that they claimed they thought his model was rubbish - this could be genuine or a cover for taking something rather than phoning to ask if it was rubbish or not.

I see nothing else from the OP that implies he's left behind loads of crap that need binning and this would have been just one thing of many they found - to me it reads as if he left the flat empty and this was probably the only item they found, bar maybe the odd lollypop stick behind the sofa etc.
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Imagine from the cleaners point of view. They do 2/3/4 properties a day. They are contracted in by the agency, and the tenant, the tenants father etc. They visit all sorts where some will be spotlessly empty, some random odd bits left behind, some full of junk. All should be empty. If they leave anything they get in trouble even though it was the tenant that left it there. They find a bath robe so they stop cleaning, take off their gloves, call their manager as remember it's unlikely a cleaner will hold all the customers details, they get the contact number, they then call the customer, they themselves speak little English, and they try to find out of the item is wanted. 99 percent of the time it turns out it's not wanted. So they end call, now go find more gloves and continue working. Then they find a load of alcohol in a cupboard, so now again take off gloves, wash hands, call customer who doesn't answer as customer is working so no answer, so calls again in 20 minutes etc and goes through this process. Then let say next property same again they find monopoly left behind. This time the agency arranged the clean so they call the agency. They agency say, rules are chuck anything left behind. It's the tenants job to empty the house of stuff wanted not the cleaners. Next item found, told the same thing. Next house they find dvds on the side. Now they think our company policy is chuck anything left behind, the agency policy is that too, and the tenants almost always either don't answer their phone or say chuck it for me. So the cleaner decides rather than waste time calling I'll just chuck it, but actually I want to watch that dvd so will keep it to give to my son and watch with him.

That will happen every day as a cleaner that does this sort of cleaning, year after year.
 
Greebo said:
Because its not worth the hassle clearly. Safer to just bin everything. The house was meant to be vacant of all personal possessions so anything left behind is rubbish.
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What hassle? Simply informing someone they left something behind in the draw? This logic that implies no one ever forgets something is rather bizarre, some item in mint condition in a drawer is 'rubbish'. The lack of common sense here is is just baffling. Both legally and morally it is the property of the OP and not theirs to simply take. If they were really lacking sense and genuinely thought it was rubbish then threw it out that would be an unfortunate mistake but they went to the 'hassle' of taking it home yet couldn't go through the 'hassle' of simply informing the owner they'd found the item.
 
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Avenged7Fold said:
I personally would be grateful i got it back at all and would be more angry at myself for forgetting it. Yes OP should have been contacted but how many of you apart from dowie think this is really a matter for the police?
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I think you've misunderstood the point in doing that, I'm not under the impression that they'd be highly likely to be found guilty but they did IMO steal from the OP. The point was more to report it on the website, get an incident number and add that to the other complaints against the company if/when he has to go to the small claims court.
 
dowie said:
What hassle? Simply informing someone they left something behind in the draw? This logic that implies no one ever forgets something is rather bizarre, some item in mint condition in a drawer is 'rubbish'. The lack of common sense here is is just baffling. Both legally and morally it is the property of the OP and not theirs to simply take. If they were really lacking sense and genuinely thought it was rubbish then threw it out that would be an unfortunate mistake but they went to the 'hassle' of taking it home yet couldn't go through the 'hassle' of simply informing the owner they'd found the item.
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Ditto on this. They cannot simply write "anything left in the house is automatically rubbish and/or thrown away" and then have that actually be true. A forgotten item is still a persons possession, and if a company does not have a policy in place for returning forgotten items, which WILL happen in the chaos of moving, then they are clearly a Mickey Mouse company.
 
Richdog said:
Ditto on this. They cannot simply write "anything left in the house is automatically rubbish and/or thrown away" and then have that actually be true. A forgotten item is still a persons possession, and if a company does not have a policy in place for returning forgotten items, which WILL happen in the chaos of moving, then they are clearly a Mickey Mouse company.
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Well clearly his letting agent are a micky mouse outfit then and he should be having a go at them not the cleaners he got in.
 
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