Maid who sleeps in bomb shelter says if door is closed, she has no ventilation, if door is open, she has no privacy – how?

SINGAPORE — A foreign domestic worker asked to sleep in the bomb shelter of her employer’s condominium wrote that she was “totally upset” by this.

In an anonymous post to Facebook group FDW in Singapore (working conditions forum), the maid wrote that they had just moved into the condominium that her employers rented. She said that she was given the bomb shelter as her own room, with a curtain installed over the door.

The maid added that because of a lack of ventilation in the bomb shelter, she needed to leave the door open all the time.

“My door only cover up with curtain, I feel like I got no privacy”, she wrote.

Other domestic helpers who commented on the post wrote that she was very entitled and should be thankful that she got her own space in the house.

Here’s what they said:

Maid cries because she didn’t have any privacy, rest day, and enough sleep, says she had to ‘surrender all personal belongings except watch’

Last month, a foreign domestic worker, lacking sleep after caring for her employer’s newborn twins, took to social media asking other helpers for advice.

The maid who cared for the babies had asked her friend to write to Facebook group FDW in Singapore (working conditions forum) for help. In her post, the helper said that before she started working with the family, her employer was already pregnant with twins.

After her employer gave birth to twins, the family hired an additional caregiver for two months specifically for the twins and to teach the helper how to handle them. The maid did not have any children herself and was inexperienced, but she attended a caregiving course so that she was equipped to take care of newborns.

In the post, she added that after the caregiver’s departure, the maid was the sole caregiver of the twins. She complained that she did not have enough sleep, as her employer’s friends would often visit the babies in the middle of the night. The twins would be disturbed and end up crying, leaving the helper carrying them until they fell asleep again.

“she think she can’t handle if the situation continue like that,she keep asking what to do or is it okay to ask an increase to her salary since she took care of 2 baby’s and sooner or later she will be a certified caregiver,running away is not an option since we come for work and she studied caregiving to took care of baby’s and elderly”, the helper’s friend wrote, asking others for advice on what she should do.

Maid has to care for twin babies through the night, employers’ friends visit at odd hours and she has to carry the crying babies until they fall asleep