When we know an Au Pair is doing something that contradicts our house rules, but we aren’t able to present positive proof of this, what can we do?
We don’t want to be accusatory.
But then again, we’re sure we’re right. We don’t need to see him or her rinsing out the bong in the laundry room sink to know.
Dear Au Pair Mom —
I can’t believe I’m in a bind again. We recently rematched and our new AP has been here for a little over 2 weeks. She’s adjusting and of course it’s too soon to know how things will work out.
But here’s the problem: we smelled marijuana in our hallway 2x already. Marijuana use is not legal in our state.
The first time my husband and I thought we were crazy. He went around the house and found no evidence of the smell coming from anywhere else around our home. Now that it’s happened again, it’s kinda obvious. We have never smelled marijuana in our home before and the smell is strongest in the hallway right by her room.
We wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt but we aren’t stupid. I have no idea how to bring this up since my only proof is my nose. Any suggestions for how to even start addressing this issue? I’m not even sure I’m thinking of all the angles here. Am I overreacting?
To be clear, she’s underage and we live in a state that is pretty strict (possession is still illegal). We have a clear section in our handbook about alcohol, cigarettes and drugs (it basically says none allowed), and the fact that it’s inside our house is just beyond me! I can’t control or even know about what APs do outside of my home in their free time. But this is a bit different.
If we rematch we would give up on the AP program for now. Maybe try again in the future but 2 in a row is just too much.
Thanks for the help!
See also: Keeping Up With Changing Times… or not? When pot becomes ‘legal’ in your state, but not in the whole US of A
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Smell is enough proof. I caught my “nonsmoker” Au pairs by smelling smoke in my car the morning after they used it.
Too bad this is not on the market yet…
http://www.freshairsensor.com/
Any chance it could be sage or incense? One of my spiritual friends burns a “smudge” stick or sage to cleanse the energy in her new spaces. I thought it smelled like pot. Good luck trying to figure it out!
Could you tell her you won’t allow it in your house and see if she stops before rematching? I know that it’s illegal, and I’m not saying give your ap licence to break any law she chooses, but to a lot of people my age (including me) in a lot of countries (including those of all my AP friends) pot is not a big deal, and the laws against it are generally not particularly frequently enacted (if you’re white…).
Anyway, my point is, it is illegal and so you’re perfectly entitled to have this be your ultimate NOPE line if you choose to. But if the AP does her job well, I don’t see that it has to be. Just tell her to stop, and impress upon her the seriousness of the problem from your perspective. She probably has no idea that you’d be all that concerned about it. If you make it clear to her I suspect she’d at least take it out of the house…
Even if it isn’t illegal, they have the right to not allow it. I live in a state where it is legal, but many employers, including mine have.a policy of firing employees for use or even possession. I don’t want to deal with any kind of inquiry. Plus, we may have strong feelings about it being in our home for all kinds of reasons.
I don’t think that APP was trying to say a HM doesn’t have the right but rather that doing it doesn’t have to be a deal breaker right away. Instead the HM could TELL her AP that it’s a no go for her and therefore give her a chance to follow those rules.
Sure of course – I sort of meant, like “because it’s illegal there’s no need for us even to reaffirm that it’s reasonable to have as a hard line you won’t cross”. Not that “it’s illegal and therefore is one of the only things you can outright forbid”. Obviously each family (and AP) will have their own deal breakers.
I think if it’s something the family has not much thought about in the past, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a deal breaker though. It’s illegal, yes, but a lot of au pairs will come from cultures where it’s more or less accepted – where people turn a blind eye. In this case, it might be fair to say “we absolutely will not accept this in our house, I don’t ever want it here again, please” before jumping straight to “you take drugs and therefore have terrible judgement, and must never darken our doorstep again!”.
I am curious which cultures you are referring to where it is ‘more accepted’. Many parts of this country are incredibly lenient with pot use. Many of my friends smoke weed, some on a daily basis. I don’t think it’s a question of acceptance/exposure, but a question of respect of the host parents home.
I didn’t say “more accepted” – I don’t know how accepted it is in different parts of the US, but it’s legal in some of them, unlike here. I said “more or less accepted”. It is here, for example – in the UK, I’ve never known anyone to be arrested for possession of weed or even intent to deal. Ever. Because it’s not legal, there are no clauses in contracts that ban it – and I don’t know any companies that have routine drug testing. You’d be sacked if you showed up to work under the influence, but…
In the same way that I was encouraged to drink alcohol at family gatherings from the age of about fourteen, people (in my country and generation) think of it as one of those things that’s “technically illegal, I guess…” but not actually a big deal. We had parties with alcohol and flirted our way into clubs at about sixteen, and if you were caught the bouncer wouldn’t let you in, but there were no charges or consequences for trying it on – it was widely accepted that everyone did it.
I’m coming from this perspective: you are entitled, as host parents, to ban anything from your home, and mean it. However, just because you would consider it disrespectful to smoke pot while living with a family, does not mean that the au pair in question is trying to be disrespectful – especially if coming from somewhere where no one would bat an eyelid. This does not need to matter to your response. But it does matter if you are assigning motive to the au pair – calling her disrespectful or saying she’s likely to drive drunk because of this. This does not hold true, coming from a culture, like mine, where driving drunk is vilified and socially condemned to an extreme degree – but pot is just “meh, it’s your thing or it’s not”.
Where I disagree APParis, is the idea that this might be acceptable behavior for some people. I also come from another country that is incredibly lax on pot and alcohol use, but I would never think of smoking weed in what basically is a stranger’s home (she has only been there for two weeks!!), regardless of whether or not they told me their pot usage rules.
I’d compare this to AP bringing a man home overnight. Whether or not the host parents shared specific rules or not, it is incredibly disrespectful, and if AP honestly thinks it’s no big deal, she should have asked before doing it.
Eh. Weed is not a hill I’m gonna die on here. I don’t even like the stuff… And personally I tend to err on the side of being overly polite rather than possibly being rude. I just think “disrespectful” is an extremely strong term – particularly when it’s meant to be also the AP’s home… Then again, I get irritated when I have my bedroom window open and the smell of it comes in from next door’s garden – it’s kind of a gross smell. I’m not even sure what I’m arguing…
Maybe that the AP should stop immediately, and probably shouldn’t have done it in the first place, but that it wasn’t necessarily intended to be a slap in the face. Probably just that.
I think, if not else, smoking anything in an enclosed space is disrespectful to the house owner.
Per AP Paris’ comment: yes, my home is the AP home, just as it is my kids’ – when they (my children or the AP) pony up for a mortgage, insurance, and maintenance, they can set their own rules, but for now it’s my roof, my rules. (I happened to purchase my own first home when I was younger than our current AP, so that’s not unreasonable). I’ve stayed with a dozen host families ad always been happy to follow their routines and rules as part of the cultural learning experience. Making an AP feel “at home” isn’t carte Blanche to violate your family norms.
I live in a very conservative state. Possession here does mean jail (for better or worse). In fact, being in a car when another person is in possession means you get arrested too since the cops will claim they can’t rule out who it belongs to and let the courts sort it out. A little excessive, I know. But it’s a fact. When you go to a different country/state you need to follow the laws of that place. You can’t claim to be from Colorado and thus be allowed to smoke pot in a state where it’s illegal. In our family, we simply choose to not take these risks and thus have a clear zero tolerance rule. And she’s clear about the rules.
If she knows the rules, she knows the rules. That’s the crux of it for me. I do think it needs to be explicitly stated (the family rules, not just the law) – but once it has been, she should follow those rules.
I’m all about clear/direct communication. If you’re noticing weird smells around your house talk to your au pair about it – simply let her know what you’ve noticed and then remind her that you will not tolerate any drug use/smoking in your home. You could also let her know that if things don’t improve (if you continue smelling any cigarettes or weed in your home) then you’ll have to go into rematch. Like Aupair Paris said, a lot of young people don’t think smoking weed/pot is a big deal, but it’s within your right to let her know that you don’t want that in your home. It’s not outrageous to let her know that she can’t do that in the home you’re raising your children in.
Can I ask a simple question of the OP – why didn’t you knock on her door (when you smelt the smell) and said to her that you got a funny smell coming from her room and you were wondering what it was??
If it was pot – then it’s up to you to decide what you want to do.
If it was not (incense anyone/benefit of the doubt/devil’s advocate) then at least you’ve impressed on her the rules of the house.
Either way you were/are well within your rights to knock on her door and demand to know what is causing the smell (especially if something is being burnt (back to incense!).
If it is pot – then if you wanted to keep her you could warn/threaten her but I would advise against it – what if (she’s already shown poor judgement – so this is not a stretch) she drove under the influence..
Basically no matter what the result – a very very serious chat is mandatory..
We are entering her room the next time it happens. And I agree! It’s the poor judgement that worries me the most. I don’t care if younger generations have a different attitude about pot. An attitude is irrelevant when it is illegal and against the family rules.
I can understand that smoking pot might not seem like a big deal for some people, but doing it in your host parents house, where children live, in a state where it is illegal, shows extremely poor judgement. I agree that you need to confront this one and make sure your rules are well understood. But if she indeed smoked pot twice in your house, I would already have a pretty negative impression of this person.
Could it be that she smoked outside your house but carried the smell in her clothes, personal belongs and hair? I think that smoking pot inside a bedroom would leave such a strong scent that you would have no doubts about it and besides it sounds crazy that someone, even an young inexperienced Au Pair would have the guts to do so.
It does sound crazy! Especially with the rules being so clear. That is partly why we are sort of in disbelief mode and holding on to alternative explanations (it’s the neighbor, etc). But the smell comes in at a distinct time. Every time she had been home all day, goes into her room, and 5 minutes later we can smell it and trace it back to the smell coming into our child’s bedroom window and other parts of the house having just a hint of the smell. As I type these repossess I feel like we are acting like investigators and that’s crazy. Not exactly what I was hoping I would do in the evenings. :/ It only happened 3 times though, and we have not smelled it when windows are closed. I did go into her room the next day and couldn’t smell anything.
Wow so sorry you are in this weird situation! I have another point that could be in the aupairs favor: if she has only been with you for two weeks then did she come from out of state or was she already in your state? I only ask because I’m wondering where she sourced pot from in two weeks time without really knowing anyone? And if she really went to such lengths and trouble to obtain it then I think she may have a bigger problem than just smoking it every once and awhile!
So here is the kicker: she is actually out of country! We were in rematch and couldn’t find a good fit so we went out of country and waited the 6 weeks! So when I say this happened at week 2, I don’t just mean our house. I had that same thought: where did she get it in 2 weeks?? Did she bring it with her from her country? I’m not sure. And it’s not like she was in rematch and had to make a rushed decision. We were interviewing in country and out of country simultaneously so we spoke to hear for nearly 3 weeks before we matched, and every week until arrival.
My guess is that a few texts/FB messages or the like with APs in your vicinity would have provided the road map for how and where to get the pot. (I do not think it would be hard at all to sort this out w/in 2 weeks in country.)
However, I, personally, find that concerning even aside from the pot use itself (which I don’t care about for society at large, but don’t allow at all, by anyone, in my house). If what I speculate is true, then this may represent a level of risk taking by the AP that I would find concerning. If she reached out to local contacts (APs, friends, relatives etc.) to suss out where/how to get it, presumably someone she connected with mentioned to her that it is illegal (you say it is in your state) and/or advised how to not get caught. And then what? She went ahead to get it? That might reflect a level or risk taking or lack of concern for following the law that would concern me.
Of course, the foregoing is entirely speculation. :) But, it is all the more reason to dicsuss the issue with her fact to face — if she is buying pot at the mall from a guy she texts upon arrival, it is at least possible she will get arrested or summons or infraction ticket (depending on the level of criminalization in your state).
I have now made it to nearly 40 without ever smoking pot (I still want to… one day, when it’s made legal) but still remember a class trip to Belgium in 9th grade where they smoked pot in one of the rooms. The smell was abysmal. Of course they had the window closed (for better secondary smoking) but you could strongly smell it in the whole hallway, the room next door (which actually was the teacher’s room but he didn’t care) and in their clothes.
When I went to Norway to aupair I sublet my room for the half year I had planned to be gone. We did ask the girl we gave the room to if she smoked cigarets or pot. She said no. We told her the apartment was non-smoking as was my room, including the balcony because we didn’t want the smell in the curtains. I am sensitive and I actually hate stale smoke. I wasn’t even gone for a week when I received an email from one of the girls I shared the apartment with that “she” was smoking on my balcony and it wasn’t cigarets and she kept the balcony door open. I was so pissed.
While pot use and possesion are handled quite lax here it is still illegal and we did ask her directly. Had she said she used, we might not have picked her but at least we would have asked her to smoke downstairs. It’s lack of respect, lying and the disregard for other people that do it for me. And in a foreign country, in a state where legislation sounds amazingly strict… it’s just stupid. You get caught with it, you go to jail, you go home. Why even risk it?
Thanks everyone for the responses so far. Just to clarify a few things: in my state the laws are actually pretty well enforced. I did tell her about it because here if you are riding in a car with someone in possession, both are arrested. No questions asked. So I told her not to allow her friends to have it on them if they are in our car.
I also explained the rules on drinking here in the US since she is not 21. It’s clearly spelled out in our handbook as well. She gets the rule. T
he weird part is that she is a rule follower for the most part, so this seems out of character, hence our confusion and decision to be sure before confronting her.
And the smell: it is pot. Not incense. We smelled it 3 separate occasions, and each time it was within 10 mins of her going into her room for the night, and each night was when windows were open in the house. When the temps started cooling off, we began opening our windows in the evenings and that is when we smelled it. We have not gotten any smell when windows are closed so it’s been kinda of hit or miss in trying to figure this out.
Our working theory is that she is blowing out the window but when the windows in the house are open, it comes back in. We should have knocked and entered the room when it happened. But because we thought it could be coming from a neighbor, we wanted to be sure first.
We are still not 100% sure to make accusations. We have it in our handbook that this is reason for rematch in our family, and so I want to be sure. Plus, an LCC friend said that if she is caught smoking pot in the family’s home (and it’s against the rules/illegal) she will be sent home. So we don’t want to accuse her and end her year unless we are sure. We had decided we would enter her room the next time it happened.
The biggest problem is that the smell is coming in through my child’s window! Yes, into her bedroom!! So if she is opening her window to it blowing it out the window, that is double irresponsible because her window is right next to our child’s. I don’t want to ask her or confront her because if she denies it, it will be a he said/ she said kinda situation, and I don’t want there to be any questions when going into a rematch situation.
Just one more thing to check – my husband was absolutely convinced that our former au pair was smoking pot. A big deal for us because of our employers, never mind the minor fact that it’s illegal in our state. We had about a week left in our year and the kids were out of town with my parents for the rest of the au pair year, so we were just going to see how it played out (not a recommended strategy in any other situation). He even wrote to the LCC to ask policies on pot use.
I smelled something, but couldn’t identify the smell.
Then he washed his hands in her bathroom (where he was convinced the smell was coming from – it wasn’t enough that she would be smoking there, more that she changed her clothes after smoking elsewhere). Turns out a certain Bath and Body Works product smelled to him like pot. Something about mandarins or clementines maybe? I’m not sure how this would fit in with the smell in your child’s room, unless it’s “transfer” because she washes her hands before coming in?
So just a suggestion to check out her bath products before going further. If you don’t find anything, then implement the plan you describe above.
At my parents house our girl next door and her boyfriend and her mom smoked pot at night. Now As mentioned before in another post I am from the Netherlands where we all know it is allowed to some degree. However in summertime I have my window open and they smoke pot in their garden and the smell comes into my room and somehow also goes into the hallway. Just make sure it really is from her and not from a next door neighbour or something which also explains the smell going into your room and the kids room when windows are open!!!
I don’t think it is *crazy* that an AP would do this in a HP home, IF it had not been explicitly discussed in advance (and more than just in handbook – I think a face to face discussion as part of first days in the home is in order for deal breaker items).
Morés and laws around pot are changing radically, and in a very short period of time. Many HP over 40, particularly 45-50+, grew up in the “just say no” generation, when drug laws re weed were draconically enforced. We might think it sounds crazy that one would do that; many folks 16-30, think — what’s the big deal? it is like having a beer.
I am not defending it – just pointing out a different perspective as a HP of 4 teens and two pre-teens — that one really cannot superimpose our mindset on that of a different generation, and thus it is incumbent upon us to be pedantically explicit about our rules re such things.
Also, with the advent of e-cigs and vapers, as well as edibles, most folks don’t “Smoke” pot so much any more. So the smell may not be that overwhelming and distinct (like HP age folks may remember from college dorms!), and rather only merely a “whiff” of suspicion.
While the fact that it is illegal (or not) likely informs HP views re AP use of pot to some extent, I think that is largely irrelevant. Smoking tobacco is legal in every state, yet the vast vast majority of HP on this site, and I would say generally, do not permit smoking Marlboros or e-cigs in their home, and would consider that a similarly grievous, and possible rematch offense.
Also, re incense – we have a rule that NOTHING may be burned or on fire – no incense, no candles, no cigarettes, not even space heaters. Blanket safety rule; I don’t want to wake up to my house burning down because someone forgot about a burning candle, or the incense fell off the dresser onto the bed.
I think the most effective conversation is to sit down with AP and calmly say you smelled what seemed like pot, and therefore it prompted you to have an explicit discussion with AP about how this (and XYZ other deal breakers) are not allowed in your home. You certainly can explain your views on why this is your position, but I don’t think you have to go too far to justify yourself, nor, conversely do you need to judge the AP in this conversation. Most importantly you need to convey that this is black-and-white not ok in your home, and what the consequences will be if it happens.
Incense = devil’s advocate! or a window to a conversation “hey, we think you were burning incense (wink wink nudge nugde) the other day .. did you know it smelt like pot….. oh you were burning incense.. well the smell was all over the house so don’t do that again.. or it wasn’t incense and it wasn’t you…. well something that smelt a lot like pot spread all over the house” …. (i.e. warning given) this allows for a way to move forward (if desired)..
I totally agree that a conversation is very much needed and in my home it would be a very very harsh conversation about exactly how low my tolerance level would be to any illegal activities on my property (i.e. bags packed and you can wait in the driveway for the LLC to collect you – tolerance level) and perhaps this might bring a bit of reality to the situation.
I think it’s best when host parents are honest about what they’re not happy with. I really don’t see the point of beating around the bush and it’s weird that some host parents can’t just come forward and say what they’ve observed or not happy with. You have someone living in your home with your children, any au pair who thinks differently of you because you noticed the smell of weed/cigarettes/or any other strange smell around the house you’re sharing with your children and asked her about it is an au pair you don’t want in your home anyway. I get that the OP doesn’t want to come across as though she’s accusing the au pair of something, but the au pair is an adult and should understand that you’re asking because you’re concerned about not only you but your children (maybe you’re also concerned about what it would mean for her future if she was caught with weed on her).
I live in a state where cannabis use is legal both medicinally and recreationally. However, this legality has it’s own set of rules, including the fact that one must be over 21 to purchase and consume, that you may not consume anywhere but in the privacy of your own home (not in public, in your car, in a club or even in a hotel room). In addition, the vast majority of jobs here have contractual prohibition preventing many workers from taking advantage of our new-found freedom. Doctors, police, bus drivers, school teachers, military, government, factory workers, etc – can and will lose their jobs if found to be partaking. And finally, if you are pulled over for any traffic violation or auto infraction, you can be tested and if found positive lose your license. Interestingly, for regular consumers, THC can be found in the urine up to 30 days after last use as it is fat soluble and very slowly excreted.
So, even with our APs who were “of age” we have an absolute zero tolerance policy for cannabis. If they got pulled over for a broken tail light and somehow triggered a drug test that came back positive and lost their license, their career as an AP in our house would come to a screeching halt. I think if no other argument hits home, hopefully this one would.
Justr wondering: does that mean if you smoke pot having any of those jobs say on the weekend -so in no connection to your job- you can get fired for it?
Yes. Many of the jobs listed above require sporadic drug testing and even in states where cannabis use is legal, a positive drug test will result in immediate termination.
Marijuana is still illegal nationally, which makes the whole situation unclear. For people with federal licenses (like having a DEA number and being allowed to prescribe drugs) – violating federal law can be a problem. This is bureaucratic and not well sorted out yet.
Yes and as I stated above, THC can stay in the body for 30 days and we don’t really have any good data to correlate THC levels with level of impairment (unlike alcohol where we know a certain blood level ensures that you’re drunk). (I was a forensic toxicologist in my previous life)
So if I am your surgeon (or the AP driving your small children around, or the cop holding the gun, or the lawyer arguing to keep you out of jail, or the technician making your fire extinguisher) would you want me to have lit up over the weekend not knowing what the residual effect is while I’m doing your surgery? Nah, me either.
And FWIW, I’m totally pro-pot, just not at all for anyone doing something mission critical.
I live in a state where weed is still illegal. On top of that, we clearly state in our HB and multiple discussions that no smoking or drugs of any kind in our home. So if an AP matched with us and then proceeded to procure an illegal substance for use in my house then we are clearly not a good good match. For me, its pretty binary. Any AP that thinks its okay to smoke weed in my house us looking at rematch immediately. I dont see how I can even discuss this because it speaks to lack of judgement on their part.
I am a fan of due process. Yes you’ve given her notice in your handbook, but I have found that, in rematch, Au pairs are sometimes “motivated” to accept an arrangement more quickly and may not read every sentence in the handbook. If you feel like singling out the pot issue is too direct (which I do not think it is based on your details), you might highlight several things and just “clarify” that there is zero tolerance on these items. I agree it is poor judgment by the au pair, and I agree that I would be speed dialing my counselor right and lining up a backup plan now, but if she is otherwise doing well and has shown good judgment with the kids, then it is within your discretion how much more to invest in this relationship. I do think it is fair to sit down and raise the issue and hear her reply. I also would have no apprehension about knocking and requiring her to open the door if you smell it again – it is your house and the expectation of privacy for an au pair does not override illegal activity in the room. I don’t think it is accusatory to mention that you have a keen nose and were not born yesterday. Depending on her response during the conversation, then you can gauge how to proceed. If you smell it again, you have to be ready to act. Good luck and I hope it doesn’t nix the whole ap program for you.,
It’s illegal and against your stated rules. Regardless of our opinions on underage drinking/pot, we didn’t serve alcohol to our 20-yr old AP. it’s entirely fair to knock and send her packing the next time you smell it.
However, since she’s just been there 2 weeks, if she otherwise seems promising, I’d call a meeting to review the handbook and go over what’s been good, needs improvement, and henceforh immediate grounds for rematch. It’s reasonable to miss things or to truly understand the gray areas vs black and white in the early weeks. Document the meeting with the LCC.
I might be the odd one out here, but I wouldn’t necessarily say automatic rematch. Are you happy with her otherwise? If she’s just mediocre, then I would probably rematch. If she’s awesome otherwise, I’d probably confront her about the pot, and tell her there will be no more warnings.
It’s so much work starting with a new AP, and there is so much risk involved with each match. If you have a good one that you and your children love, and you trust her otherwise, I would try to work it out…maybe because I’m super lazy! But also, I have a superstar right now, and I’d be heartbroken if she broke a major rule – I think I’d try to salvage the year.
OP, any update?
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