Questions we are asked

Yes. Most of the households we act for live in Seattle, on the Eastside, on Mercer and Bainbridge Islands and on the San Juans. We also place in Zürich and Geneva, and occasionally in a household’s second home elsewhere, if the household is one we already act for.

No. We do not name the households we act for, to anyone, and we will not name you either. We hope you would not want us to.

Most permanent searches take about eight weeks from the first conversation to the first day. House managers and estate security take longer. Temporary staff can often be placed within the week.

For a permanent placement, 22 percent of the first year’s gross salary, or 25 percent for house managers, estate managers and estate security, with a minimum of $8,500. The fee falls due only when the member of staff starts. Our fees page has the details.

Every permanent placement carries a ninety-day guarantee: we will replace the member of staff without a further fee, or refund part of the fee if we cannot.

You do. The staff we place permanently are employed by the household. We prepare the agreements, and we can run payroll for you if you would like us to.

Because a child who is six when a nanny joins a household is twenty-six when the agreement ends. Caroline Rendle has written about it at more length in the journal.

Many households do, and the Residence Code provides for it, on condition that the house manager keeps the telephones securely and gives each member of staff’s family a number at which they can always be reached.

Never. Not for registration, not for training, not for placement, not for anything. If anyone asks you for money in our name, it is not us; please read our notice on recruitment fraud.

Usually at least three years in private service or in a fine hotel, restaurant or club, and references we can speak to. Nannies need four years of professional childcare and a current certificate in pediatric first aid and CPR.

It means you live where you work, in your own quarters, with hours of work and hours of rest written into your agreement. It does not mean you are on duty all night. Calls outside your hours should be rare, and they are recorded and paid.

In some households, during your hours of work, yes. We will tell you before you meet a household whether it asks for this.

Only if you already have, or can obtain, the right to work there. For citizens of the European Union that is usually straightforward. For others it is often not. See working in Switzerland.

Call the office during office hours and we will issue a new one. If you live in, your house manager holds a sealed copy of your first passphrase. Outside office hours the duty line, (206) 014-6182, can help with anything urgent, but cannot reset passphrases.

It is named after the house in Devon where our founder, Dorothy Thayer, was in service from 1935 until it was sold in 1956. The name means a valley of larches.

Dorothy Thayer’s family. Her granddaughter, Caroline Rendle, is managing director, and her daughter, Joan Rendle, is chair. The agency has been independent for all of its sixty-five years.

Placements in Switzerland are made with a licensed Swiss partner, as Swiss law requires. At home we follow the state, city and federal law that applies to employment agencies and to the employment of domestic staff, and our agreements are reviewed by our lawyers every year.

A former house manager has brought a claim against a household and against the agency concerning hours she says she spent on call. We are defending it, and we will not comment further while it is before the court. Our statement of June 2025 says what we can.

In September 2025 a nanny we had placed with a family in Medina left the house one evening and has not been found. We said what we could in a statement at the time. We have nothing to add to it, and we ask that the family’s privacy, and hers, be respected.