Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 17:36:34 -0700 (PDT)
From: Amy W. Osborne
Subject: au pair
We had an au pair from Cultural Care au Pair. Avoid like the plague. This girl was apparently moved from house to house because she was awful.
Let’s see. She smoked, drove our car 1000 miles with a 10 month old infant and 4 year old in it in less than 5 full days time; spent $35 to 40 per day for “gas” and would not provide receipts or tell us where she took our boys; stayed out till “bar time” every night – even though she had to start working at 7 (yes by the time you put in going to sleep and taking a shower that’s 4 hours of sleep per night to work with an infant and a preschooler).
She told us she was taking our car to Idaho (didn’t ask, but told us she was going! Also told us we were not allowed in “her” car – mind you, it was ours and on our insurance. Then when we said no to the Idaho trip, she got PO’d and QUIT).
This was all in our “rule book” that she agreed to abide by before she came. The agency basically said they could not make her live by the rules! On top of that, they moved her in like one day’s notice, to a fourth family in Chapel Hill, they did not have a replacement for us (ever) and kept our $800 balance.
The Chapel Hill family kicked her to the curb after three weeks, she was placed with a fifth family in Florida! So, if you figure she stayed with each family 3 weeks or so and the agency kept at least $800 each they had incentive to keep placing her.
The nerve, they have recently been soliciting us to give them MORE money to get another au pair!
From what we’ve heard that’s the way all the agencies are. AVOID.
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