I agree with some peoples responses and comments, but I have to disagree with you and Gypsy.

Yes we would do the extreme as to lock our house maid in the house when we are out and about, but we will not accept her leaving the house -- days off, and you and others may call it. It isn't Modern Slavery, so don't go all mushy on my now.

You, PM, personally know me and my family. Surely you cannot judge how we treat our house maids, but it could be clear and you would notice our behavior towards them.

We had a maid that got pregnant.
We had a maid that owned 3 mobile phones.
We had a maid that smoked.
We had a maid that used to sneak out and sneak men in.
We had a maid that ran away when I caught her in bed with the cook.
We had a maid that stole from us.
We had a maid that talked back to my mother.
We had a maid that walked away while you spoke to her.
We had a maid that burned all our clothes when asked to iron.
We had a maid that called her hometown everyday and killed the phone bill, excuse being, I miss home -- we found out that she was calling her friends, too.

We've seen them all and experienced a lot.

I had a nanny from Seychelles that was with my family for over 36 years in total. She got $1000 a month and traveled the world with us. She still abused the trust.

I can go on and on and on about my experiences with the looooooooong list of maids and nannies that we had in our house. But there would be no point in doing so. Each person is different to the other.

PM, we are in Education City, very respected and expensive Universities, and still we have girls that steal from other students. We get free materials from the book store and free a lot of things, but still, they take other peoples things. Its natural to have people like that. What do you think a low paid maid would do?

I hope after all the bla bla bla that I said above it makes a little sense. I'm like Sugar Qtr, I'm married without a house maid. I need one to clean, wash and iron when I am not home, which is over 8 hrs a day), but I don't want one. I can afford 10, good pay too, but I don't want to be responsible for anyone that I don't know.

I think I just did an ashwin, sorry, but I had to comment.