It’s hardly Upstairs Downstairs or Downton Abbey. But Sarah Vine, the journalist and wife of education sectretary Michael Gove, confessed yesterday in a column that she lives "in terror of upsetting my cleaner". So fearful is she of her disapproval that the "angst-ridden" Vine is planning to clean her own oven before the cleaner returns from her "six-week holiday at home in Portugal".
Worrying about the staff is almost certainly on the increase. Half of all British homes now employ some form of domestic worker – from the growing army of child minders and nannies to house sitters and dog walkers – according to a 2007 report by the job site Gumtree. And, thanks to this and the fact that there are more, and smaller, households, says Rosie Cox, author of The Servant Problem, there are now more domestic workers in our homes than during Victorian times.
Yet that doesn’t mean it’s something we are all comfortable with. Cleaner Magda Wojcik, from Bloomsbury Cleaning Services, agrees that "some people do feel nervous, because it’s such a personal service. Some people clean up too much. It makes me feel guilty because there’s nothing to do. Why waste products cleaning the same toilet again if you have already done it?" Not everyone is so careful, however – the worst thing she has had to tidy away? A pile of sex toys.