Chris Baker Stole From the Maid

The Maid's Curse - Don't let this happen to you & Be nice to Your Maid

2009-07-28T09:19:00.000-07:00

Shopaholic pensioner found dead under heaps of clothes, inquest told

Police took five searches to find Joan Cunnane, 77, who died of natural causes at her home near Stockport.

The body of a shopaholic pensioner was discovered buried beneath a mountain of clothes after she collapsed and died at her bungalow, an inquest heard today.

Joan Cunnane, a 77-year-old who was unmarried and had no relatives, lived in a bungalow in Heaton Mersey, near Stockport, so stuffed with items that it took police five searches to find her body in a bedroom. There was a 2ft-space in the bungalow in which she could navigate around her possessions.

Her closest friend, Roy Moran, told an inquest at Stockport: "She lived alone. Her home was her sanctuary, always immaculate and in the last few years she wouldn't let anyone into the property. I think she realized it was getting out of control and she needed an input but she was very stubborn about it and wouldn't make a decision."

She told him it gave her pleasure to buy things and she really liked the antiques Roadshow and buying attractive things "such as vases".

She once told him she owned 300 scarves. Her car was also laden with items and a neighbor once helped her empty it so it could go for an MOT, a process that took four hours.

Cunnane was a retired BT operator who had worked for the company for 40 years. She attended church weekly and had no known relatives.

Moran, 77, from Cheadle Hulme, told the court that he last saw her on Christmas Day when they lunched together before returning to his home.

She insisted on driving home at 11pm in poor weather despite feeling unwell. Moran called at her bungalow twice in the following days and, concerned at the lack of response, visited her again for a third time on 29 December. He even turned up at Wythenshawe hospital on 4 January, when she had an appointment. By that time, she was already dead.

Concerned neighbors also contacted Greater Manchester police on 6 January, but an initial search of the &160,000 bungalow was unsuccessful due to "the large amount of personal property and papers within", Detective inspector Kevin Dolan said in a statement read to the court.

Police returned to the bungalow the following day with a truck and a skip to clear out the bungalow and conduct another search.

The body was eventually discovered in a bedroom "under a substantial pile of clothing and other items".

Pathologist Philip Lumb said Cunnane died as a result of bronchial pneumonia, and she also had cancer.

South Manchester coroner John Pollard recorded a verdict of death by natural causes. "What seems to have happened is that Miss Cunnane was obviously ill with a chest infection which developed into bronchial pneumonia. Her condition became worse, I suspect she has probably collapsed and various items have fallen on her. There's no evidence to suggest those items contributed to her death."

Moran, speaking outside court, said his friend began obsessively shopping about 16 years ago after youths threw stones at her windows and broke her garden furniture.

He said: "I think she started going out in the morning and coming back late at night and that gradually built up into an obsession with buying things. It was unbelievable, things were stacked up to the ceiling and there were rows of things neatly stacked."

Always

2009-05-11T10:29:00.000-07:00

This is an actual letter from an Austin, Texas woman sent to the American company Proctor and Gamble regarding their feminine products. She really gets rolling after the first paragraph. It's PC magazine's 2007 editors'choice for best webmail-award-winning letter.

Dear Mr. Thatcher,

I have been a loyal user of your "Always" maxi pads for over 20 years and I appreciate many of their features. Why, without the LeakGuard Core or Dri-Weave absorbency, I'd probably never go horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I'd certainly steer clear of running up and down the beach in tight, white shorts. But my favorite feature has to be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on being the only company smart enough to realize how crucial it it that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can't tell you how safe and secure I feel each month knowing there's a little F-16 in my pants.

Have you ever had a menstrual period, Mr. Thatcher? I'm guessing you haven't. Well, my time of the month is starting right now. As I type, I can already feel hormonal forces violently surging through my body. Just a few minutes from now, my body will adjust and I'll be transformed into what my husband likes to call "an inbred hillbilly with knife skills." Isn't the human body amazing?

As Brand Manager in the Feminine-Hygiene Division, you've no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customer's monthly visits from "Aunt Flo". Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying jags, and out-of-control behavior. You surely realize it's a tough time for most women.

The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that America is just crawling with homidical maniacs in Capri pants... Which brings me to the reason for my letter. Last month, while in the throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi-pad, and there, printed on the adhesive backing, were these words: "Have a Happy Period."

Are you f----- kidding me? What I mean is, does any part of your tiny middle-manager brain really think happiness - actual smiling, laughing happiness, is possible during a menstrual period? Did anything mentioned above sound the least bit pleasurable? Well, did it, James? FYI, unless you're some kind of sick S&M freak, there will never be anything "happy" about a day in which you have to jack yourself up on Motrin and Kahlua and lock yourself in your house just so you don't march down to the local Walgreen's armed with a hunting rifle and a sketchy plan to end your life in a blaze of glory.

For the love of God, pull your head out, man! If you have to slap a moronic message on a maxi pad, wouldn't it make more sense to say something that's actually pertinent, like "Put down the Hammer" or "Vehicular Manslaughter is Wrong"?

Sir, please inform your Accounting Department that, effective immediately, there will be an $8.00 drop in monthly profits, for I have chosen to take my maxi-pad business elsewhere. And though I will certainly miss your Flex-Wings, I will not for one minute miss your brand of condescending bullshit. And that's a promise I'll will keep.

Always...

Best,
Wendi Aarons
Austin, TX

What Suffers Is My Beauty

2009-05-01T09:21:00.000-07:00

In a rare moment of open despair, and after a particularly gruesome string of dirty houses, one of my co-workers sent me this e'mail. This amazing woman, of vast inner and outer strength, wakes up every day to her current reality: Her children, and the need they have for warmth, love, shelter, and food. A woman of her calibre should be running the accounting department of a very large corporation, work but three days a week and own three houses on various separate continents. What went wrong? accepting motherhood at an age when most girls are trying to finish high school? tsss, tsss, what a silly mistake (*cynicism intended) and yes, you should meet be her beautiful, responsible, self assured children.

Here, in her words, is how she's doing of late:

...Hello [A.],

I have just finished the M house, and by-passed your house out of sheer exhaustion, so don't worry about Marley, what's one more buck anyway?

I did want to let you know that I was seconds away from having a stage three atomic meltdown today by the time I entered the P.'s and saw what it held in store for us... Thank god for H., she is my savior.

Heres the thing, after the J. house yesterday and the P. house today I have come to the conclusion that a few of our clients are taking advantage, or so it would seem from my point of view. The more we do, the more effort we make, the worse the inhabitants of these houses treat their own homes. So we are expected to go harder, faster, better every time to get quite a bit more work done, and some of it not nearly as well as I would like to. And the reward for this sweat inducing pace is less money (that's not really my point here, but id does come into play).

I really like my job, and for the most part there isn't very many moments of me having to grit my teeth and and want to scream, but after my two day bout with moldy dishes, I was ready to tantrum like a hungry 3 year old.

So my question is, where do we draw the line, or is there no line? I know that the very nature of our job is to do whatever it takes, and do it we.., but if these people don't care about their homes, how do we?

And what suffers is my beauty...

(had to lighten it up a little)

Much love, A.

"What suffers is my beauty", a direct quote from one of our esteemed clients, a tall blond woman who is weary of housework and needs our help to cope with the dishes. We do thank Heaven daily for such necessary patrons.

Chris Baker Mug Shot

2009-04-29T11:45:00.000-07:00

We've tried our best to communicate with Chris Baker: Six months worth of Hard'mail, e'mails and phone calls all added to an amplified silence, the deaf ear Ms Baker is applying to deal with what is most likely an ever growing list of debt collectors.

Creating this blog did rattle Ms Baker out of that Bin Laden cave, and in a first time effort to explain her AWOL position, Ms Baker did send us a link to her web page titled "Escape from Hell". Follow the link we did, and a story we did find, on how she left one abusive mate only to find herself in another one's arms.

In an ackward list of grievances against the former boyfriend posted on the internet, Ms Baker cites the inability to wear a bikini that would reveal "too much", a range of modesty the so-called abusive mate dictated in an obvious attempt to curtail Ms Baker's ability to sun bathe as much as she'd like in the public eye.

It is not our place to comment on spousal abuse, but to use said "poor'me" card to escape financial responsability (*who hires a maid when they can't feed their kids or pay their rent?) does highlight the childish nature of a Girl-Child who has yet to grasp the esotheric truth that every action will trigger an equal and opposite reaction. Hence the Karmic value of doing unto others all the Good we would wish upon ourselves.

It is almost comical at this point, that Ms Baker has nothing left to her name but an expensive camera and zoom lens set she is auctionning off on eBay for hundreds of dollars. When we offered Ms Barker a bartering settlement, our hard labor versus her used photographic equipment, Ms Baker replied: "I'd rather feed my kids", which, for some odd reason, resonated with Marie Antoinette's famous big brush off of the under-class labor issues and low pay grievances, the famous line: "Let them eat cake!".

We have, Antoinette, we have, but we, and our kids, are still hungry. May we now have your head?

People created laws

2009-04-24T09:37:00.000-07:00

Ms Maira Kalman, an author and illustrator who publishes a weekly blog for the New York Times entitled "The Pursuit of Happiness" took us through the Supreme Court this morning. Her body of work, everything from "Max makes a Million" to last year's "The Principles of Uncertainty"seems to hinge on issues of social justice and are always presented in a manner seemingly designed to bypass intellectual disputes with a straight in arrow to the core of emotional intelligence. It just about renders the need for debate void, as if to say: here, there is no need for war, here, taste this apple instead, or pomegranate, as the case may be, and repeat after me: life is good, life is good, life is good.

Chris Baker Stole from The Maid

2009-04-23T09:20:00.000-07:00

Well, we were unable to collect our wages from a runaway client, and the amount owed on this debt was too small for even Small Claims Court, so we thought we'd seek justice on the net with a blog dedicated to all those small acts of random violence people perform on each other simply because they can get away with it. We'll at least be able to vent, right?

Ms Baker, the now Poster Girl for such painful hits, hired us on October 31 2008 to clean her house, scrub her toilets and wash her floors. We can't clean everything with a magical Ginny Wink, but try we will, and in the end, when we're given a budget to observe, we abide by it.

We think it is self evident that when a sweet maid gets on her knees to clean a stranger's house with care and diligence, it's mostly because she needs the money to to support her family and/or pay her rent. Ms Baker, herself appearing to be single, lonely, and forgotten, struck back at the world when she ignored our invoice. 'Turns out she stiffed the landlord too - seeing that 3 months later, when trying to get a face to face chat with the woman, we found an eviction notice posted on the front door, which had been curling in the winter weather since early December.

Lining ourselves up behind a frustrated landlord does make our burden appear smaller by comparison. One can only assume that Ms Baker used the Washington State Tenancy laws to her full advantage before relinquishing the house and property she occupied, and on our end of things, considering we've been in business for six years and no one has ever not paid us before, we feel lucky and grateful that the vast majority of our patrons are of a different breed altogether.