Cleaners in Tehran Pay a Heavy Price in the Pandemic

The accounts that follow are those of real-life men and women who make a living as domestic and commercial cleaners in Tehran, and who have now lost their jobs in the coronavirus pandemic.

For many cleaners now out of work in the stricken capital, it’s not just the financial strain they have to contend with but the discourteous and discriminatory treatment they receive from ex-clients. Some are now considering moving back to their cities of birth, while others’ family lives are in tatters.

 

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"Before coronavirus, I used to clean people's houses and thank God they were satisfied with my work. The situation wasn’t too bad. Of the 30 to 31 days of the month, I was at work for around 25, and I earned 120,000 tomans [$4.00] a day. It was heavy-going, but I wasn’t unhappy. My wife and I, and our five children, live in two rooms; as long as we can make rent and our bellies aren’t empty, we have to thank God.”

So says Agha Reza, an Afghan migrant who until recently was working as a cleaner in Tehran. In almost every sentence he utters, he emphasizes his gratitude to God for having a healthy wife and children. But the family’s time in the Iranian capital has not been without hardship – far from it.

 "Since the outbreak,” Agha Reza adds, “people no longer hire workers to clean. Some people seem to think that because we are Afghans, we’re less hygienic and more likely to get infected."

Agha Reza has several cloth masks of his own and washes them as soon as he enters the house, then irons it after it has dried. “We wash our hands so much,” he says, “the skin on my hands is dry as the desert. But they still think we don't care. I tell all my clients that I’m being very careful and observing all the rules, but I cannot say to them, please, for God's sake, just let me come back to work.”

Before the pandemic and up until Iranian New Year, Agha Reza says, families fought over him for weekly cleaning appointments. “All of them said that Agha Reza was clean, and they were sure he knew what to do. But now none of them will contact me.”

Bereft of other options, Agha Reza has now traveled to the north of Iran for a temporary construction job. “I endured two months with no income, but I could see it couldn’t go on like that. My only choice was to leave. I’ve been working on a building site in the north for about six months now, and I have three days off a month to return to Tehran to be with my family...”

 

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Omid, a native of the city of Kenarak in Sistan and Baluchestan province, works as a building concierge in the north of Tehran. He lives in the caretaker room of an 18-unit apartment building along with his wife and two children. His wife, who was previously called every day by the building’s occupants to carry out menial tasks in their homes, has similarly been cast aside by her clients since the coronavirus outbreak.

"People think,” he says, “that because we are workers and of a lower class, we must pay less attention to our personal hygiene, and perhaps we don’t wear a mask or wash our hands.” He smiles bitterly. “Perhaps they think that because we’re weaker, viruses get inside our bodies more easily."

Before Covid-19 paralysed the capital, Omid’s wife earned a modest living by helping those living in the apartments. “My wife helped the wives with the housework,” he says, “with cooking, cleaning, and babysitting, and she had an income the same as me, and together we were able to support our children through school. My salary is 2.2 million tomans [$73] a month, which we spent on food. Even though we live in a small place, we thought everything was fine before this. But since the outbreak, the neighbors have treated us as if we were the cause."

Sometimes, he adds, their aversion is barely disguised. "One of the neighbors entered the parking lot in his car yesterday. Because he had bought a lot of fruit, I wanted to help him as far as I could. When I went to pick up one of the plastic bags, he shouted ‘Don't touch, don't touch, Omid! Did I ask you for help?'.

“He didn’t go near the plastic bag I’d touched after that. He said, ‘This is for you’. For several hours afterwards I was confused, and then, to be honest, I wanted to take my wife and children and go back home to our city. At the very least, we’d no longer have to endure such humiliation there."

But he says, a little sadly, “My wife does not agree. Whatever I say, she tells me, 'We’re done now, think about our two children. They can progress here, they’ve already learned new languages. What future is there for our children in Kenarak?’”

There is a cruel irony to Omid’s experience, as some of the well-heeled occupants of the building are actually less conscientious about hygiene measures than he or his family."My family and I never go out without a mask and gloves,” he says. “I have often seen neighbors outside wearing neither a mask nor gloves. They have parties, and they invite guests. The same people, however, move away from us when we approach, and won’t give us work anymore.”

 

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Some of the clients, for their part, are apologetic and feel sad for the employees they have let go. Farzaneh, who lives in Tehran province, had a regular cleaner called Maryam Khanum who would visit her home once a fortnight to clean. But since March, she hasn’t felt able to offer her work.

"Maryam Khanum's house is in Shahr-e Rey city,” she explains, “and she takes the Metro to come to our house. The metro is a source of infection and I because I am diabetic, I have to be very careful. That's why I reduced my contact with others, and whatever else I did, I didn’t feel able to have Maryam here. I was afraid I would get infected. But I do feel for her.”

On several occasions, she says, she has called her former cleaner with offers of support. “The woman is so restrained. She won’t accept help and says that she’ll only take money for work she has done. But sometimes, I send money to her account anyway, and tell her to work for me after the coronavirus pandemic is over."

Plenty of other domestic and office cleaners, however, have not received a single rial from their former clients since the outbreak. Agha Reza told IranWire he received some advance money from a customer in the first month, but the uncertainty forced them to stop.

Sarah, a single parent with a young son, works for a service company cleaning both homes and commercial buildings. After a few years in the job, she says, her schedule was packed almost every day of the week, and most of her company’s clients had one-year contracts. Even after the coronavirus outbreak, she said, she worked through Norooz (Iranian New Year), and was happy there: “Even though I earned less than when I worked independently, it was a relief to receive my money on the same day every month and not worry about rent or daily expenses.

“But after the New Year holidays, of the six places I was going to clean once a week, three paid early release fees to the company to terminate their contracts. Then another ended its contract in September.

“In these conditions, they are worried about the health of their employees and their family members. They prefer not to use my services because I’m in contact with lots of different people over the week.”

Now, Sarah says, she barely sleeps at night. “My income has decreased by almost one third and it no longer covers my rent. My son is getting bigger by the day and his overheads are increasing. In the last six months, I’ve lost out on 10 million tomans [$334]. I honestly don’t know what to do; it all feels like a nightmare that won’t end.”