Maid and domestic help services in Basavanagudi, Bangalore

Some can, and the match must be made on this first. Madi households expect the cook to bathe before cooking, wear a fresh set of clothes kept at the house and keep pooja preparation separate from the rest of the kitchen. No onion and garlic cooking is simpler, and most Kannada cooks around Gandhi Bazaar and Shankarapuram already know it. Say exactly which rules apply and ask whether she has worked in a similar house, because the habit cannot be taught in a week.

Most helpers who have worked in Basavanagudi houses do. Red oxide floors are mopped with plain water and never acid cleaners, brass and copper vessels are scrubbed with tamarind or pitambari rather than steel wool, and batter is ground at home in a wet grinder. A helper used only to flats with vitrified tiles and steel will damage the floor in the first month. Ask about previous houses, and supervise the first week so the cleaning materials and sequence are set correctly.

Kadalekai Parishe, the groundnut fair around the Bull Temple in late November or early December, closes Bull Temple Road to traffic for two or three days, so helpers arrive late or walk a longer way round. During the Ramanavami music season in April and May, and around Ganesha Chaturthi and Deepavali, households cook more and helpers want the main day off. Agree the festival days and extra hours before the season.

Yes. Rooms and small flats around National College, BMS College, Vijaya College and VV Puram often share one cook between two or three rooms on alternate days, for a simple lunch and dinner. The limits are a fixed time the cook can keep across all the rooms, a kitchen with basic vessels and gas, and payment on a fixed monthly date. Landlords in rebuilt family buildings sometimes restrict outside staff, so check with the owner before fixing a start.

Keep one local person who can meet the helper on the first day and be called if she does not turn up. Pay by a fixed monthly transfer rather than cash so attendance and payment are both visible to you. Write the daily routine and medicine timings on a sheet kept in the kitchen, and ask the agency to call you rather than your parents if the helper wants to leave, so a replacement starts before the gap.

One cook for three separate kitchens on three floors is a full-time job with stairs, and few helpers accept it as a part-time slot. Rebuilt buildings in NR Colony and Hanumanthanagar often try this and lose the helper within a month. Either consolidate cooking in the ground floor kitchen and have the helper carry meals up, or hire one full-time cook for the shared kitchen and part-time maids for the floors. Say how many kitchens and floors there are at the start.

Between 6am and 6.30am in most Basavanagudi households. Where the family eats after the daily pooja, which finishes around 7.30am, the cook has to have breakfast and the lunch tiffin ready by then. Helpers living in Gavipuram, Hanumanthanagar and Kempegowda Nagar can keep that time. A cook who also does a second house on DVG Road or in Thyagarajanagar usually leaves by 8.30am, so utensil washing goes to the part-time maid who comes later.