Beware: My Maid Lets a "Stranger" in our House

Caught in the act. That's how I would define having caught my maid's boyfriend inside her room in our home in Las Pinas City.

Last Saturday, after a happy evening of videoke with my family, I called our maid, Roselyn Talita, to arrange the groceries we bought at Robinsons in BF before heading to dinner and a videoke session. It was 12:30 midnight and Roselyn seemed to have been awakened from sleep as she groggily got our groceries. Among the groceries was a wireless doorbell set which I bought so we don't need to holler to call her into the house.

The maid's quarters is located at the back of our house connected by a small and narrow hallway from our dining room. It has its own lavatory and toilet and bath. The room can accommodate 3 maids. We rarely went to the maid's quarters for privacy reasons.

We haven't had a maid in about 5 years since we caught our previous maid talking to her alleged boyfriend at the gate of our residence. We let her go the same day. One of our rules with all our maids is that nobody should talk to a stranger outside the house while the gate was open. This is a precaution as many akyat-bahay gangs and robbers use the opportunity to get into the house freely. Thus, letting anyone into the house without our permission is a gross violation of our rules -- besides it being considered trespassing for the stranger.

Our latest maid, Roselyn, has only been with us for 6 weeks. This 19-year old came from Dumaguete and was highly recommended by her cousin who worked as maid in my mom's house. Her chores were few as we only had a small house, 2 dogs and she didn't do the laundry nor cook or iron the clothes for us. Like all our previous maids, they were provided with free board, lodging and toiletries. They had Sunday off. Roselyn, on the other hand, only took her first 2 Sundays off and since then, didn't take a day off. Strangely, she didn't want to come with us on our weekend trips or even to mass. She either stayed at home or went to mass with her cousin and another maid from my mom's house on Sunday afternoons.

This particular Saturday evening was quite different and rather revealed something else about Roselyn. With doorbell on-hand, I insisted on testing it that same hour and going to the maid's room to install it myself. All I needed to do was stick the doorbell to the wall anyway. So off I went. When I opened the door of the maid's quarters, a man in sando and shorts was sitting infront of the dresser and was smoking a cigarette! It was a cause for alarm but I immediately remained calm and composed as I said "O, andyan  ka pala," maintaining a relaxed tone. As he greeted me back with a sheepish smile, I simply turned my back on him and suavely stuck the doorbell on the wall just above the light switch. I hurriedly went back inside the house and went into the living room where both my maid and Sweetie were. I casually asked the maid, "O, Roselyn, sino ba yung lalaki sa kuwarto mo?" I purposely said that in a relaxed tone so as not to sow panic and eventually scare everybody, especially Sweetie. My maid fell silent and suddenly went straight to her room. Sweetie asked me what the heck was going on and I told her that there was indeed a man inside Roselyn's room and told her not to panic. Sweetie, this time fuming,  immediately shouted at Roselyn through our window to pack her things that instance. I instructed Sweetie to then call the Barangay office to send some tanods (security personnel). After her call, she told the kids to go to their rooms while I picked up a baton made of hard Tanguile wood. I slid it behind a throw pillow so in case my maid and the man in her room go into the living room, I would be ready for anything. In the meantime, my son Karl came out of his room with a baseball bat in hand. I told him to just sit on the sofa and conceal his weapon.

The barangay tanods came to our house about 5 minutes after the call. These were 3 burly men who had big sticks and radios in their hands. I later noticed that there were actually 4 of them, as 1 reamined in their small pick-up, probably just in case. So I led the 3 tanods to the back of the house where the maid's quarters was. After some quizzing, the man admitted that he was Roselyn's boyfriend from the province and that he was let in the house by the maid no less. I told the man, who identified himself as Vincent, that he has to come with the tanods to the barangay security office to be questioned and be put on the blotter as he was trespassing. Both him and Roselyn eventually went with the tanods to the security office but had to leave their things as Sweetie had to inspect them first.

At the security office, Sweetie followed to bring the couple's things. On interrogation, we learned that this Vincent guy was in Manila to find work and simply used our maid's quarters as a transient house. He was probably in and out of our home for some weeks already as Roselyn was already familiar with our schedules. That was why she didn't want to come with us on weekends as she'd have the house all to herself with her man. Eventually, we discovered that Roselyn hoarded some of our groceries and even used our new rice cooker for their meals. Though we suspected some money that my kids lost was due to her, we didn't bother to bring it up. We were just happy to have caught them and put it on record. We didn't file any formal charges
but saw to it that it was put on record that both were persona non-grata in our barangay and village.

We feel so blessed for 3 things about this incident:

1) That they were caught before things got worse;
2) That nothing happened to my daughters when there were many times we left them with supposedly only   our maid at home;
3) That I didn't panic when I saw the man in the room lest something violent might have been fatal.

Things could have been worse. It's a good thing we always pray for safety and protection.

This post is my way of making my readers aware of always being vigilant despite putting some trust in your maid. Times have changed. Please be careful out there.

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