PETALING JAYA: Desperate families looking for long term stay-in maids have turned to cleaning agencies while waiting for negotiations with Indonesia to be sorted out.

       Housewife Norfatima Ibrahim, 32, has been looking for a maid for a few months as her current weekly helper is going back to her home in Indonesia soon.

       Norfatima does not just need a maid to cook and clean like many other families but needs a caregiver for her sick mother back in Kuantan.

       “It’s way cheaper if I deal directly with the maid. However, looking for a maid to work in a not-so urban area is far more difficult than in the Klang Valley,” she said yesterday.

       Indonesia has halted the supply of maids until a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the recruitment and placement of Indonesian domestic workers (PDI) is signed. Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan has said the Cabinet decided on Feb 11 that the MOU should be signed as soon as possible.

       Norfatima tried asking for a maid on every Facebook group she could find but received no reply.

       As such, she had no choice but to resort to cleaning agencies.

       “I tried to find a maid online, but was told I had to pay a deposit and the charges would be higher during peak hours,” she said.

       Siti Azizah Mahmud, a 37-year-old management consulting manager, is facing the same problem.

       However, in her case, she had been looking for a maid for about four years.

       “It’s hard to find helpers because while you can train them to do work the way you want, there are often cases of helpers running away.

       “Once, a helper in distress used me as a temporary shelter and ran away not too long after.

       “As for agencies, there are also a lot of integrity issues, a lack of quality maids and more,” said Azizah.

       In the end, she had no choice but to seek help from pay-per-service helpers currently because not only was it low maintenance, it was also a low-risk solution.

       Chloe Tan, 41, who works in the bank, is in desperate need of a domestic helper as both she and her husband now have to go to the office and there is no one to care for their young children at home.

       “Since our Indonesian domestic helper quit in the middle of 2020, I have yet to find a replacement. My agent told us that it is hard to get a maid due to the policies as well as the travel restrictions even if we were willing to fork out more money.

       “It was still manageable in the beginning as I could work from home during the movement control order.

       “However, as life has become ‘normal’ again, I am required to be in the office from time to time.

       “I need someone to cook, oversee the children aged three and seven, and do the housework,” she said.