[Photo: Madam Arumugam (right) claims her maid used her house as a brothel. An empty condom box (left) was found under the bed in the guest room.]

By Shree Ann Mathavan

AN EMPTY condom box discarded carelessly in her guest bedroom made an employer suspect her maid was up to no good.

Madam Arumugam Susie, 62, a hospital clerk, claimed that her checks showed that her maid, 24, had been using her four-room HDB flat in Moulmein as a 'brothel' of sorts.

The New Paper on Sunday recently reported on maids in Bukit Batok who provide sexual favours for a fee.

It struck a painful chord with Madam Arumugam, the mother of a 12-year-old girl, when she discovered about three weeks ago that her maid - whom she had treated 'like my daughter'- had betrayed her trust.

Her tenant, 27, a computer systems analyst, found an empty condom box under a single bed in the guest bedroom last month.

After being alerted by the tenant, who has been living there since last November, Madam Arumugam told the maid to clean under the bed in front of her.

Under the bed was a used condom and a torn condom wrapper, which the maid tried to slip into her pocket. But her sharp-eyed employer caught her.

'When I saw the used condom, I felt like vomiting,' said Madam Arumugam, who has employed the Indian maid for four years.

When her husband, Mr SGurunathan, 61, self-employed, questioned the maid, she admitted she had bought the condoms.

The maid also allegedly admitted that about three to four men, all Indian nationals in the construction line, had visited the flat and paid her $20 to $30 for sex each time.

She was said to have met these 'clients' while shopping in Tekka Market, the couple learnt.

The trysts supposedly happened during the day while the couple and their daughter were out.

Madam Arumugam said: 'What if my daughter had come home early from school one day and found them naked? Would they have harmed her to silence her?'

When The New Paper contacted the maid in India, she denied that she had slept with anyone for money.

Speaking through a Tamil translator, she admitted to having sex with one man at her employer's home. But she declined to elaborate.

The New Paper tried contacting a construction worker who was said to have been one of her lovers, but his handphone was switched off.

Family holidays

Madam Arumugam said she treated the maid from Tamil Nadu in India very well.

Apart from a monthly salary of $340, she bought the maid a $200 gold chain and took her on family vacations to Malaysia about twice a year.

The maid was always polite and well-behaved, so she never suspected her of any wrongdoing.

Madam Arumugam said: 'I was heartbroken. I trusted her. How could she use my home to prostitute herself?'

Madam Arumugam, who repatriated the maid last month, is telling her story to warn other employers to stay vigilant.

Recalling the incident, she said she initially thought the maid's dalliances were limited to one lover.

When the couple pressed her for his identity, she refused and even broke her three handphones by flinging them to the floor and threw the SIM cards out of the window.

But she finally caved in and gave them her lover's handphone number.

They rang the construction worker, 23, who went to their flat and confessed to having sex with the maid twice for $20 each time. Then he shocked the couple by saying that the maid was also seeing other men.

Madam Arumugam said: 'I was taken aback. So I asked her, 'How many other guys are you seeing'?'

The maid allegedly admitted there were 'three to four' other men and pleaded in vain with her employers not to be sent home.

Mr Gurunathan said: 'I never want this maid back in our house again. I even wrote to the Ministry of Manpower about the incident. They should ban her from coming back.'

In hindsight, Madam Arumugam regrets giving the maid a chance when she admitted to having a boyfriend 1 1/2 years ago.

She sent her home then. But the maid's mother pleaded over the phone to take her back as the family was poor.

She agreed to do so when the maid broke up with her boyfriend.

'Now I wonder why I gave her a second chance,' she said.

This article was first published in The New Paper .