She Was A Little Too Attached To Her Son
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“I babysat a few times for a friend of my lawyer. She was an insanely wealthy widow who lost her husband in a freak helicopter accident. She would sleep with her then 10-year-old son, both naked, in the same bed and then would walk around the house the next morning in the buff.
I understand them needing time to grieve and even occasionally sharing a bed. However, the whole naked thing threw me off and I only did it a few weekends. The kid was great and loved me but was a little too touchy and cuddly. No way I was going to be around him naked.”
So Rich She Didn’t Need To Do Laundry
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“I helped my mother in law who worked as a maid in a very large mansion in North Carolina. Beautiful house, amazing architecture. They traveled the world all the time. The kitchen had old, old appliances from the ’70s, the wife’s bathroom had a broken toilet seat that was duct taped together. The wife did not re-wear her underwear. We were not to go in the basement. I peaked down there, there were clothes three foot deep in the basement where she took off her clothes and just threw them down there. Thousands of pairs of underwear. Very weird people.”
The Flashy And The Stupid
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“I worked as a live-in nanny for a young couple and their two kids. The father was 28 and owned his own record label for Mexican artists and easily made $3-$4mil per year. The mother was 26 and was famous on Instagram for flaunting their lavish lifestyle. They lived in a huge house in the middle of the desert, probably 30 minutes outside of the city. They designed the house themselves and it was honestly ridiculous. Each bedroom was so big, it echoed. The bedrooms had their own private walk-in closet and ensuite bathroom as well as access to a wrap-around balcony that overlooked the courtyard. It was shaped like a hacienda. It had glass elevators, an indoor koi pond in the entryway, and in the courtyard, they literally had a stage for the live music to perform when they had parties and a covered sitting area big enough to accommodate 30 tables. Their kitchen had a walk-in refrigerator and enough ovens/stoves to run a restaurant. On the roof, they had a helipad and the guy owned like four helicopters. He had a Maserati, two Ferraris (one for his wife and one for him), and a rose-gold Range Rover.
They had parties every weekend. And not just cute cozy dinner parties – I’m talking 200-300 person, get-so-wasted-you-can-barely-stand parties. Live ‘banda’ (Mexican music genre) that’s so loud you can’t hear yourself think. Men in little groups taking strange pills, women all screaming, laughing and gossiping at the table as they bounced babies on their knees, etc. There was one party where the father decided to challenge three of his guests to a race behind his house in the desert with his Ferrari and it flipped, but he was fine and was just upset his car was damaged. There was another where people started jumping from the second story balcony into the pool/fountain in the middle of the courtyard and a guy broke his foot. I always had to attend these parties to watch the kids, get them juice when they said they were thirsty, supervise when they played with other kids, tuck them into bed when it got late and the adults were getting too wild for the kids to see. Every single weekend, the mother and father would fight and get into screaming matches. Usually, the mother was mad because he was making stupid decisions while under the influence (usually correct) and he would insist he was fine and she needed to stop trying to control him. She would go to bed mad, he’d stay up until 6 am and finally crash and the next day they’d be fine like nothing happened.
The mother was a very beautiful, mostly sweet though kind of an air-headed who had met the father in high school. She loved to talk about how she went through highs and lows with him, even when they lived with his parents. She had an affinity for drama and if there was a problem, she was all up in it. She pretended to hate the constant parties but also seemed to love the drama that came with them. She was absurdly glamorous and a had a private makeup artist who did her makeup every day for Instagram. She took him with her on vacations and everything. She had a ridiculous amount of clothes and shoes and would spend easily over $5k, like, every two weeks on shopping. She was super attached to her mom who visited every day as well as her six sisters. In fact, the both of them were attached to their families; the father also had his brother, sister, mother and all of his cousins he grew up with at the house daily, they practically lived there. The mother, overall, was a very ditzy but well-meaning person. The father? Not so much. Apparently, he was a jerk before the money, but after it only got worse. He loves partying, loves showing off materialistic things, doing dangerous things (i.e. the drag racing), and had no real regard for the well-being of his wife or kids because he assumed they’d be fine with his antics as long as he threw money at them.
The guy wasted an excess amount of money fully staffing his house so he wouldn’t have to do anything himself. He claimed it was because he was very busy with work, running his label. In reality, he’d relax for two weeks straight, fly out to Mexico for two days, then repeat. Not a very demanding schedule. His staff included two cooks, three housekeepers, an assistant for the mother and an assistant for him, a nanny (that was me), a planner (the lady that makes their parties happen and plans their vacations and other stuff), and four security guards to watch his house. Seriously, he was super paranoid somebody was going to attack his house. He had a full-on security system with intricate locks to every door leading to the outside and security cameras and beefy, burly armed guards walking back and forth around his property.
I worked for them for around 2 1/2 years. It was an easy enough job taking care of the kids as they were both under the age of 6 and were actually pretty well-behaved despite the environment they were growing up in (easy for a child to get spoiled and bratty), just a little girl and boy. Watching all the antics unfold was pretty entertaining, it was like having a front row seat to a real-life soap opera. But in the end, it turned out the security guards were for good reason because the house ended up getting raided by the police twice on suspicion he was a dealer, though they never found any evidence, and some men tried breaking into the house and sent death threats. I really don’t think he himself was a dealer, he made so much money from his legal business that he didn’t need to and he was probably too much of a wuss to do that anyway, but he definitely causally hung out with them and I’m positive they were guests at his parties, and mixing with that just brings problems. I quit after the death threats fiasco because I feared for my own safety. I feel bad for the kids.”
They Had A Hard Time Letting Things Go
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- “The wife was driving through the home improvement part of the city and saw a sale on bathtubs. So she popped in and bought three. As she was leaving, she saw another tub she liked and simply had to get that one too. She wasn’t renovating a house at the time.
- They refuse to throw away food. Used by and best before dates are completely ignored, to the point where I found a tin of seafood marinara which was 15 years out of date.
- They have a holiday home in the South Pacific and have a housekeeper clean it three times a week, yet they only visit 3-4 times a year. When they’re not visiting, no one lives there.
- When the family goes out for dinner, the father will happily pay for the expensive meals but not the drinks. The kids (who are all teens or older) have to pay him back for the drinks and he will send reminder messages about the amount. Yet when any of the kids offer to pay for the meal, he won’t accept.
- The wife is a hoarder and will often take way more samples than any normal person. She always makes sure to take all the shampoo/soap etc from hotel rooms and if she passes the housekeeping trolley, will grab as many as she can from there, too. Yet she never uses them. They have a whole bathroom cupboard dedicated to samples.”
He Had Strange Plans For All That Evian
“I worked for a beverage distribution place in a very ritzy resort area for a while. This guy’s assistant shows up and says he needs a pallet of Evian for his boss’ house. No problem. We load it on the truck and drive it up to his house.
After unloading, we ask him where he wants it and he leads us into the garage and asks if we can help unload it. So we start downstacking and carry cases of this stuff into what I thought would be the kitchen or pantry. Nope. Straight through the house to the back deck.
He was filling his hot tub with Evian.”
All Kinds Of Sketchy Stuff
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“I was about 16 and babysitting for an obviously well off family. Father was a lawyer, not sure what the mother did. She was lanky and maybe 6 inches taller than him. He was short and fat and just a grumpy dude. Their two sons were wretched, spoiled brats. They paid well so I continued to babysit for them on and off for maybe 6 months.
While I was snooping around this guy’s office, I found a very intriguing treasure box about waist high on one of his several bookshelves. It wasn’t locked and the contents are making me laugh as I type this:
About a half ounce of pot, a whole bunch of adult toys, several different types of pills scattered around the box, and a couple dozen polaroids from what looked like a weird 50 Shades of Grey party in the ’80s, including the couple doing weird fetish stuff.
It was hard to look them in the eyes after they got back that night because I couldn’t get the image of this lawyer with a ball gag in his mouth getting paddled by his wife out of my head. Weird couple.”
Why Rich People Let Some Rooms Sit Empty
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“I delivered furniture to a very rich person’s mega-house once only to discover, as we were going from room to room, a few rooms were completely bare and empty. I didn’t really register it at first because I figured we would be putting furniture in there with the load we were delivering but that didn’t happen. I mentioned to a co-worker how the one room was bigger than my living room and completely bare and he said, ‘Maybe they’re getting stuff for those rooms during another round?’ The guy heard and said, ‘Nah, that room is staying empty, I have no use for it. Same with the others, too.’
I couldn’t really wrap my head around a lot of things after that. First off, to be rich enough to afford a house like that, then on top of that, to purposefully have parts of your house go completely unused because you don’t care about them. Like, why even buy a house that big then? Why overdo it and leave some of it unused? Why not just buy what you need and use it all? Rich people are weird.”
They Were Filthy Rich, Emphasis On The Filthy
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“I was a babysitter for rich people once.
Their silverware was constantly filthy and caked in what resembled peanut butter and regret.
Their children were pleasant but refused to brush their teeth more often than their hygiene-impaired parents until I told them gross stories about gingivitis.
The mom had a small Buddhist altar in the living room but was also extremely vocal about her Christianity.
I would definitely repeat the experience. It was mostly getting paid to help with homework and watch Voltron in pillow forts.”
The “Help” Wasn’t Allowed To Drink Their Fancy Coffee
“My dad is an electrician and has worked in some very rich houses. He did a job in one where the couple only drank very posh fresh coffee. Fair enough, who wouldn’t? But they had a cleaner who was permitted one cup of coffee each day, but not their coffee. She had her own separate coffee, but it wasn’t even a decent brand. If a person comes to my flat, whether they are a friend or the plumber, they are a guest and they will drink whatever tea or coffee I drink because I see them as equals. My dad has told me that some of the stingiest people he knows are also the wealthiest.”
A Moldy Oldie
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“Once when I was a nanny, I was housesitting while the family was out of the country. The refrigerator in my apartment broke, so I packed up some perishables and brought them to the family’s house to store them until the landlord could fix it. When I brought my groceries back to my place, I realized I had accidentally grabbed something that wasn’t mine from the cheese drawer.
It was a gallon Ziploc bag. Inside that was a smaller Ziploc bag. Inside that was a bundle of wax paper. Inside that was a bundle of plastic wrap. Inside that was another bundle of plastic wrap. Inside that was a bundle of tinfoil. Seven layers deep, I found an old lump of fruitcake.”
Cannons Were His Passion
“During college, I was a tutor to several kids in a really fancy neighborhood. There were a lot of Bentleys and Ferraris, marble pillars on the garages, botoxed trophy wives, etc. The kids were spoiled rotten, but most were nice.
One of the kids collected miniature cannons. He had all of them in his room and proudly showed them to me. I’m talking everything from like 10 cm to 1 meter long, easily 50+ of them. Some of them could actually be fired. At our last appointment, he had a little demonstration in the garden. He was 12-13 years old. His mom told me to teach him German, but I also taught him physics/ballistics on the side.”
Wasted Caffeine
“I was a nanny for a rich family in Vegas. The amount of food they wasted was crazy. One instance I can remember is the woman buying Monster Energy drinks for her nephew who only visited her house maybe twice a year. The garage was stocked with cases of the stuff for the kid. When it went bad, they threw it out and bought more. Oh, there was also the time they had me run around and buy 25 dollar gift certificates for their annual company Christmas party from 25 different places… in Las Vegas… two days before Christmas. That was fun.”
He Blamed Her For The Sorry State Of His Cacti
“When you have the opportunity to be in people’s homes, behind the scenes or before they have been cleaned, you learn things about them.
If you have a housekeeper, he or she will see all your stuff. They will pretend they don’t, or that seeing it or dealing with it is totally ‘usual.’
Sometimes.
Sometimes people are messed up and you get to see what their friends and family don’t see.
One couple had a spa bath that had actual physical and visible mushrooms growing from the grouting. About 15 cms tall. Fascinating!
I have worked around paraphernalia, weapons, adult toys, unflushed toilets and exotic pets that were just ‘hanging out.’
I’ve cleaned up around leopard skins, coral, taxidermy eagles, sharks jaws, tortoise and turtle shells, and a stuffed bear which is totally freaking weird as I live in New Zealand where there are no bears.
One paranoid couple who had taken out the innards from their many smoke alarms and installed hidden cameras in them throughout the house.
The one thing that irks me, to this day, is being yelled at by a crazy high guy in his undies about his cacti. They sat in full sun. Their house is beach front. He was mad that the cheap cacti in plastic pots were not thriving and was convinced it was because I wasn’t watering them enough. Their pot dirt was always sodden. Heh. Can’t win ’em all!”
These Fancy Folk Lived In Total Filth
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“I’m a former au-pair that worked in Europe for a family of 5 with the kids that were aged 9-13. I was mostly there to help them drive to activities/appointments/school, help them with their studies, cook dinner, etc.
The mess that that family created was insane. In addition to having me as an au pair, they also had a cleaning lady come in for several hours every weekday. I thought it was overkill having a cleaning lady that often but going into the main house on weekends showed me why they needed so much help.
In the kitchen, there would be garbage on the floor (fruit peels, eggshells, wrappers, etc.), the sink would be overflowing with dishes, dining room and coffee tables covered with used dishes and food containers, and then the bathroom… On more than one occasion, I would see menstrual blood wiped on the walls. I can only imagine how bad the bedrooms were. Mind you, this was what I’d encounter on a Saturday, less than 24 hours after the cleaning lady had been there. By Sunday, the main house was a disaster area, I felt so bad for the cleaning lady on Mondays and would help her when my schedule allowed for it.
If you had met them out in public or came over on a day when the cleaning lady had just finished, you would’ve never known. I was lucky enough to live in a studio apartment in the backyard so I could limit the amount of time I spent in the main house outside of work hours.
It’s worth noting that both parents were medical professionals and very intelligent but didn’t seem to care much about cleanliness at home at the time. After their kids started leaving for university, the parents got better about cleaning up after themselves (at least it seems that way based on my visits back over the years). And besides all this messiness, they were a wonderful family to work for.
Still, they are the second messiest people I’ve ever encountered in my life so far.”
A Couple Of Caffeine Fiends
“I’m a former nanny for a very wealthy Silicon Valley family. The mom had recently married her new husband when I was hired. The husband was an older, wealthy lawyer and wife was in tech consulting. They were always really kind to me and the kids were good despite having insane privilege. Honestly, the only weird thing was that the parents were addicted to Five Hour Energy and Coke Zero (I assume because they were total workaholics and needed the caffeine). I’d get texts at random hours just begging me to bring over Coke Zero and Five Hour Energy. I’d purchase cases at a time and it would all be gone by the end of the week. The kids didn’t touch the stuff, they made sure of it, so I know it was pretty much all the mom and stepdad.”
These Poor Kids…
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“The most bizarre was this newly rich young family in Vienna, Austria. The bedtime routine for the kids (aged 3 and 7) included basically a spa treatment for both. I haven’t seen that amount of products in a child’s bathroom (they each had their own) in my life. The poor 7-year-old girl had next to no hair on her head but I was required to slather her in the most expensive adult shampoo, conditioner, hair mask, hair oil, and some other things I didn’t recognize – every night.
They only had one tiny box of toys and time spent playing was set up for 30 minutes after they brushed their teeth. Dinner was normally a bland fish fillet and a ton of salad. Not a grain of sugar anywhere in the house. Hot cocoa was made with skim milk and pure high-quality cocoa – no sweetness to it whatsoever, it tasted awful.
They had time to explain EVERYTHING to me the first time I was there and I received an inch thick file with lists and procedures to follow. What they didn’t mention was that the older girl was still wearing diapers at night. It made for a very awkward conversation with the child and I only hope I was sensitive enough to not cause her any future trauma.
Very, VERY weird.”