The “Eastern European” carwash

Could you send Gary round to us nightowl neither of us like washing the car either and that seems fantastic value.
I never understand how the inside of our car gets so messy,
We don’t live on a farm, don’t smoke, and yet it needs ( valeting is too good a word) mucking out regularly.

That’s reassuring NfkDumpling. I suppose that’s the answer if you want to use these places, speak to the staff and see what you find out. If they appear nervous/ get shouted at by their boss/ avoid communication then I think it’s a warning sign. I’ll carry on using Gary my mobile valeter who has run his business for 20 years and charges £20 inside and out. I can’t justify the cost more than once every couple of months but I just hate washing my car.

I think Baggs that if you live in an area where these operations are common you have seen them spring up and then evolve and it begins to raise alarm bells. Then if you read the background to these businesses and the research that is going on you realise that at present (it hasn’t always been so) they are run mainly using people from Eastern Europe (car washes) and Vietnam (nail bars).

So whilst it may be casual labelling it is based on known facts. I don’t really care which countries they are trafficked from I just want trafficking to stop, slavery to be abolished (finally) and workers in this country to be treated with respect and accorded the rights that have been so hard won over the last century.

I haven’t used one for a while as our latest car has a finish which the book says in large letters DO NOT USE A PRESSURE WASHER. But, I did get chatting to one of the lads at our local car wash who wanted to chat to use his English. He was there for the summer to earn money to see him through training to be a vet in Romania, another apparently was getting money to buy land. They weren’t stopping for more than a year and the hard work and discomfort was obviously worth their while. I think now with the dropping pound it might not be as profitable.

Mind you, when I was working in Thailand I soon learned to distinguish Thai (some of which I even understood) from Chinese and both those from Malay(sian). Maybe I just haven't had enough practice listening to eastern European languages.

Hmm. I don't think I could tell anything from a few half-heard words. And, forgive me for being impertinent, but I don't think most people can. I was just puzzled by how many people on this thread seemed to just know when someone was an East European. I think there might be a certain amount of careless labelling going on. (Not by you, maw; I believe you are a linguist?).

Of course, it could be that I'm just useless at understanding spoken language. It takes me all my time to understand some speech that is English! ?

MawBroon
Romanian sounds like Italian, it comes from Latin, I think.
It's a nice language to listen to, unlike the others which are hard sounding especially Russian.
Lemon
Very good, and sooooo accurate might not go down as funny, though, with some.

They say things like “My name is Drakoola ( Dracula) may I vosh ( wash) your car pliz ( please) and I veel ( will) not bite you if you geeve ( give) me a tenoh ( tenner )
Joke btw.

No offence taken petra

Usually by the language Baggs
I can recognise Czech and Russian, but even those with which I am not familiar have a Slavonic intonation suggesting Romanian, perhaps, Slovenian maybe Albanian.

How does one recognise an eastern European?

If they are here legally, then they may continue to live here.

We usually give them a tip! What shall we do when they all go home?!!

No offence meant, jalima but do you look like their target market
Also, you don't get if you don't ask

Thanks for the heads-up petra. How do you let them know you want more than a valet? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink or something more sophisticated? Please pm me your method.... I'm dying to know.

well, they've never offered me any!

They are also a respectable front for the distribution of 'recreational' substances

I meant to add, they don’t roam about between cars or accost you, in fact you have to seek them out by parking next to the car washing site.

Well, they are mostly immigrants Maw and often illegal too.The local Tesco allowed them to operate until one day they were rounded up and taken away.Then Tesco set up a dedicated cleaning site for car washing at one side of the store.Presumably they are all legal immigrants now.I think a car wash is about a tenner.They do a good job.

There seem to be a proliferation of them here; three almost within spitting distance of each other - you wonder how they make anything given the competition. Two of them are in the car parks of supermarkets and the cleaners at one of them will accost you almost before you have time to put the handbrake on, which I don’t care for. I would have thought that if they are on supermarket premises then their operation must be legal although I accept that doesn’t mean that the workers are not exploited.

We had a group of car washers in our Sainsburys car park but they disappeared suddenly a year or two ago, literally overnight.
DH would not allow them to clean our car as they used only a very small bucket and didn't change the water, no hoses for rinsing off dust and grime. Dust and road salt being rubbed around paintwork can be very abrasive.

I never thought that our local car washers/valeters could be controlled by a gang master. They have operated in the same place for years now, charging £5 for cleaning the outside and £15 for a full valet. There are many others operating fairly locally too, all perfectly openly in public view and not hidden away.

There are also other car cleaners operating in the car parks of some supermarkets, mainly Sainsbury's when I think about it; I just presumed that they were enterprising young people, some of them women.
Perhaps something to ponder.

Here in the Black Country we have any number of car washes run by Eastern European people. The one I go to promotes itself as Two Brothers and does appear to be run if not owned by two brothers, or at least two men who are the same chaps whenever you go. They don't seem to have a gangmaster around. If there is one, he/she keeps their distance.

Other car washes I've been to, likewise have friendly Eastern European men whose presence is not threatening nor is it overshadowed by an 'eminence grise' who takes the cash.

I did go to a nail bar ages ago where I did feel very uncomfortable that the (Vietnamese?) girls were clearly answerable to the bloke at the till. It soon closed down, thankfully.

Generally speaking, I'm happy to give people my custom if it helps them get a foothold in society. Though having read this thread, I'll be looking out for any suspicious signs in future.

My husband uses a carwash run by Eastern Europeans to have his car cleaned both inside and out. As MawBroon has stated though it's a very labour intesive procedure and one does wonder how much these men are being paid. We were out in my car the other day, a white Fiat 500 doing a shop in our local Marks and Spencer foodhall, there, as in Sainsbury's car park, they have Africans but they don't have the equipment that the car washes have, just a bucket. My husband treated my filthy car to a wash, I'm never bothered about the fact that it looks a bit dirty. The man who washed it left it gleaming. He charged £6 as opposed to the £15 or so for the more thorough clean the Eastern Europeans provide. I do ponder as to how free these people are and whether they are being exploited. Did we always have car washes of this nature , I can't remember. I read recently that there are far more slaves now, given the trafficking and movement of people from abroad, than there ever was before slavery was abolished. If we patronise these businesses then are we fueling that. Maybe we should wash our own cars

There is no car cleaning outfit of the kind described in my area. There was one young man doing hand-washes and valets in his (or his parents'?) drive for a while in the next village. A basic wash was £5. His work was popular enough that he made enough money to buy a tent thing that he could work under in the drive. Then he moved to actual premises next door to a local coach company. Everyone is really pleased that his business seems to have taken off.