Where does your helper sleep?

J

jenayds

Registered User
We are new to HK and are considering getting a helper but have many questions.

For a start, we live in a three bedroom flat and have two small children (toddler and baby; not old enough for bunks yet). There is a storage area behind the kitchen which presumably is meant for helpers, but it is small and strangely shaped and a bed would not fit in there. Also, we need the storage space for things like the vacuum cleaner, bikes, brooms etc etc.

Is it OK to ask a helper to share a room with a child? It seems rude for them to not have their own space where they can go to get away from everyone.

I know it's illegal to have a helper live out. Is this actually enforced? It seems that many people do it?

We are trying to work out the best thing to do for our family but don't want to break the law (although I think it is a completely ridiculous law when HK flats are so tiny).
 
yes, helpers are allowed to sleep with children under a certain age and many do.

there is a brochure from the gov't all about hiring a helper, you might want to head to immig tower to pick one up. (it might be on the internet, i'm not sure.)

yes, live out is illegal. yes, many do it. yes it is a ridiculous law.
i, personally, don't want to get caught, so my helper has always lived in.
 
Is live out necessarily illegal? Seems that it depends on the individual helper's circumstances. Same for the part timers.
But it is a ridiculous law.
 
if they are here on a foreign domestic helper visa, it is illegal. if you can find someone who is a PR or a dependent then it isn't a problem for live out. what the problem then becomes is cost. it ends up costing a lot more for someone who is a PR.

same holds true for part-time. if you find someone on a dependent visa or a PR, then it is completely ok. if they are on a dependent visa, even with employer's permission, it is completely illegal.

and it sucks!
 
It didn't use to be illegal, when we first arrived in HK 15 yrs ago live out helpers were perfectly legal. But over the years as the govt. has cut the minimum salary, they have also made it illegal for helpers to live out.

Cara is right about the cost though....it is obviously more expensive for employer and helper if helper lives out.

We are facing a similar dilemma....we have a 3 bed room apartment. At the moment the helper has her own room, as does our son however with a new baby due in august at some point we are going to be short a bedroom.

I am not comfortable with my helper sleeping with my children.....she is great with them, and we trust her completely....but I personally don't want my children sleeping with the helper, or in the same room as. Because if they wake up in the night etc. so she is the one there for them, when I want it to be me or my husband.

I would rather our children shared rooms than that.
 
I think many families let helper and baby stay in the same room (consider how small the apartments are in HK, and many families don't even have a storate room). If you don't want to do that, then you need to clear out the storage room.

that was my situation, i cleared out the storage room. the things in the storage room, small ones, i tried to squeeze out cabinets space, large ones i keep in the corner of the living room.... and regarding the helper's bed, i cutomer made one in local furniture store, those kind of bunker/iron ones. it's a very small bed, but i think the helper appreciates some personal space and privacy. I didn't put anything of mine in the storage anymore, because i think she already has a very small space.
 
if you're lucky enough to have a small garden or rooftop or patio, may people build a little cabin for their helpers out there. you can go into any shop that sells storage cabins meant for the garden area and have one custom made. ours is sturdy, weather proof with good insulation, and even with an air con installed though she never uses it because she prefers the warm weather. it's about 70-80sq ft, so it's pretty tiny but she really likes it because it gives her privacy (esp as it's separate from the main house) and i do believe that's very important to anybody. you can have the cabin be built as fancily as you like. ours is pretty basic but comfy and cost about 15-20K i think.

our apartment is also 3BR with no storage or extra "helper's room" so we had to do this, but i think everyone is happy with how it's worked out.
 
just keep in mind though that it is an illegal structure and the gov't MAY come along and demand that you remove it.

a friend of mine rented a beautiful ground floor flat in CWB that had a lovely sun-room built out from the patio doors...after 3 months in the flat they got a notice from the gov't demanding removal within a certain period of time. they were devastated and moved out shortly thereafter as the sunroom was the whole reason they moved into the flat!

now, there is not much manpower devoted to illegal structures in hk, especially in the NT so the chances of getting caught are pretty small. but there is still a chance.

(ps> we have a rooftop, do you think that the garden shed would be ok in a typhoon? i'm interested in getting one, either for the roof or the garden, but i'm afraid what would happen if there was a typhoon.)
 
carang - ours is not illegal because technically speaking it is "collapsable". so long as the structure is "collapsable" (can be taken down if we were to move) and not "permanent", it's all right with the gov't. we were warned of this and made sure that ours would be classified as legal. these cabins are sold very commonly in any garden center or patio furniture shop, and they generally only sell legal structures (unless you go to a dodgy one which we didn't).

your friend's sun room probably could not be classified as "collapsable". i think buildling a separate standalone structure is easier (to be classified as legal) than building an annex to an exisiting permanent structure.

re your question... it really depends on the shed you buy. i'm sure you can get one that is sturdy and strong enough to resist a typhoon, though it also depends on how high up your patio is. ours is in our garden fully exposed to the elements but on the first floor, and my helper said her windows hardly rattled during past typhoons. so it really on the sturdiness of the cabin you buy and the floor you're up on! good luck :-)
 
our structure is legal because it is considered "collapsable"... we had it checked out, because we had been warned about setting up illegal structures. so long as the cabin is "collapsable" (can be taken apart or taken down if you were to move) and not "permanent", you're fine. ours is definitely ok, because we actually had someone (a friend of a friend from Manpower) check it out for us. also, the garden shops commonly sell these structures and unless you go to a dodgy one, they'll be honest with you about what is considered "collapsable" and what is "permanent." generally they don't sell permanent structures.

re your question, i'd say it depends on how high up you are and the type of cabin you buy. they vary from flimsy (would flip in a second in a storm) and very very solid and sturdy, and i'm sure one of those could withstand a typhoon. best to ask the folks in the shop as i'm sure this is a common question they get.
 
sorry i double replied there because i thought my first reply didn't go through!!! ignore one of them. it's not like i have THAT much free time at work :-)
 
i know a friend, their helper lives with their parents , not too far away and would help out during the day and then at night would go back to their parents. I am sure this is illegal...
 
It's very interesting reading everyone's replies, thanks.

My latest thought was that I could curtain off half of the baby's room so the helper still had a private space but we could still use a bit of it for the baby/change table etc. At the moment we have moved his cot into our room anyway, and I don't know when we'll move it back in.

If we do that the space isn't that much bigger than the storage area, but she'd have the benefit of airconditioning and a TV/DVD for herself. Then when the children are old enough to go into bunks (if we get special bunks then that could be in about a year) she could have a room to herself. Any comments?

Also, where could I get wooden bunks made in HK? I am thinking of something like this: http://www.bunkloft.com/Junior Frontier Bunk Bed Slide.html
 
You can get wooden bunk beds from Ikea. Have also seen the slide bed in the Shatin branch.
 
I'm pretty sure you can get custom made beds at Jade Rattan in WanChai.

I think it is far preferable that you learn to live with not having the ideal storage amount and let her have the storage space for herself. Everyone needs privacy in their life and deserves the chance to unwind in peace, let alone to turn the light off when they want :)

Lots of helpers do live out but it's a risk for all concerned. I'm not sure how strict the gov is on enforcing though. It seems to be another one of those things that are legislated against but not really enforced, like the selling of fake bags, clothes, watches etc all over HK. Had to laugh the other day when i saw that someone had been busted in Kowloon for selling a fake watch. Yeah, like that doesn't happen every second of every day here.

Good luck and get used to living with as little as possible!
 
In my old small flat, it was a 3 bedroom which we lived in before we even had kids. One was the master bedroom, one was made into a home office and the other was a spare guest room. I got pregnant and the spare room became my LO's room. Then we hired a helper and there was a small room inside the kitchen with its own bathroom that was meant to be a helper's room but it was really small. All our rooms were small. My LO's room could only fit in a crib and closet and changing table and nothing else. The home office could only have a desk and bookshelf and a small cupboard and nothing else. So the helper had to stay in the room in the kitchen but she said she'd rather stay there than to share a room since she'd rather be in a small space with her own bathroom than to have to come out to use the guest bathroom while we were watching TV in the living room etc. She liked how she can sleep anytime she wanted in her own room, read or listen to music. I also prefer that because LO slept at 8 pm and we had the monitor in our room and prefer that we go get LO in the morning rather than have the helper get LO.

I have interviewed many helpers and quite a few have told us that they'd really rather have their own personal space no matter how small than to share rooms with kids.
 
thanks clowe!
I'm glad to hear it! we have a village house, so the room would either be on the roof (3rd floor) or garden...
i'll have to think about it.
thanks for the info!
 
It is not illegal to have a live out help IF it has been OKed by the Immigration Department. The problem comes that they changed their policy (not the law) on 1st April 2003. So if you are hiring a help after this date it is much harder to prove that you need one to live out - harder but not impossible.

I managed it but we are a household of six (four adults and two children aged 14 and 7) already living in a three bedroom flat with no separate helper quarters. I’ve heard of lots of people who have been refused a live-out helper but when you actually looked at their living conditions the reason they couldn’t accommodate the helper was because they choose to change bedrooms into other living spaces, like studies etc. I don’t think the Immigration Department approves of this. (Although I think it is a reasonable thing to do with a spare bedroom - but is it spare if the helper needs it?)
 
Hmmm, our storage area doesn't have a bathroom, so she'd have to share the kids bathroom anyway.

Still thinking...
 
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