Question About Masks

Should a housecleaning lady be required to wear a mask? When she came back in May she wore the mask. In June she didn't. (It's just once a month). When I mentioned it she said her customers are fine without the mask. Am I being too fussy?

No. Not too fussy at all. She should wear a mask.

Absolutely.  Coming into your house at all she should be wearing one, but mentioning that she doesn’t wear it at other homes makes her even higher risk to catch and then spread it.

I agree with the others.  This is not the time to let down our guard, especially with the spikes of infection we are seeing in other parts of the country because too many people have started acting as if the infection is gone. Its not!  This is your home.  If you feel more comfortable with visitors wearing a mask you should absolutely require that she continue to wear one.

From the point of view of home health care assistants, over here (where it’s a national calamity that we have 24 new hospitalised cases, 20 in the one city), your cleaner should be gloved and masked, and wearing a disposable apron/coverall. Safer for her, and safer for you. 
working in a mask can be uncomfortable, so our agencies suggest staff take short breaks outside where they can remove their masks for a couple of minutes while perhaps drinking a glass of water. That would bump an hour’s shift to maybe 90 mins.

The bonus in wearing proper PPE while completing her shift is that she’ll be able to guarantee everything is sanitised as well as cleaned. That’s better for her referrals, isn’t it?  

(I know you know most of this; it just helps to have the comparison from elsewhere ‘doing it professionally’)

I still don't get the point of gloves. Who do they protect and how?

Especially when cleaning and sanitising, gloves protect the wearer  from getting ‘nasties’ & dirt in folds, cuts, tears etc and from transferring their own body oils and any sweat, germs etc with the dirt picked up while working.it’s easier and more efficient to wear gloves that can handle tough work, even messy work, then be thrown out than wash and sanitise your hands every time you change tools and tasks.

Why do doctors, nurses, dentists etc wear gloves?

ETA: I always wear gloves for dusting, polishing; cleaning the bathroom, fresh gloves for cleaning the loo, fresh gloves for cleaning the kitchen; disposable food grade gloves when handling meat, fish etc. At the moment the thought of someone else handling my bed linen or clothes barehanded just feels creepy. When I had my cataract surgery last week, the nurses helping me with my gown and then later to get dressed both wore gloves when handling my clothes. (That was just a day hospital)

They say masks don't protect you from inhaling germs, only exhaling....your house, your rules.  do you have the house air conditioned?  if its hot, and a person is doing manual labor, they could pass out from over heating.  The mask traps hot air that you breathe back in.

a mask does not prevent 100% exposure, just reduces it, so there is no guarantee it is 100% sanitized.  If I was physically able to clean my self, I wouldn't have a house keeper coming in.

Gloves also protect your hands from hand sanitizer.  I have some skin peeling off, if you wear gloves, you can sanitize the gloves periodically and just wash your hands once when you are done.