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I'm a caregiver for an autistic girl. Her parents pay for the house, but I have to work every night of the week. Her parents take her during the day on weekends, but I still have to be here every night to feed her, wash her, put her to bed (which is so difficult sometimes as she hits me she punches me) and they never schedule me a day off. Is that legal? They only want to pay me from 4 to 11. However, I have to listen to her on camera all night to make sure she stays in bed, so technically I'm on duty, but they only want to pay me for a little bit of the time. I have to be here for 18 hrs a day and they want to pay me for seven. I only get $12 an hour. I've been a caregiver before and have worked for many companies and hospitals, but this one I did privately.

This is called slavery. Go to your local Labor board and see what the laws are for live-ins. They work like everyone else. 40 hours a week. They get time off and someone needs to be hired during your downtime. Or family cares for her. Seems to be this person needs to be placed in a home for autistic people. If you do not have experience caring for someone like this, this would be my reason to quit. I so hope you have someplace to go.
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PeggySue2020 Aug 29, 2024
I took the op to mean that the op herself has autism.
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I'm curious are you in United States?

No judgement here , if you are in United States, are you legal?

I'm asking because I don't feel like anyone from US wouldn't do this in the first place.

If you were desperate for a roof , there are shelters, and they don't use force labor there.
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MargaretMcKen Aug 29, 2024
I questioned whether this was a scam, but they deleted that part of my post. OP also deleted the part of her question that set out her substantial previous caring experience.
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So you have to be there 18 hrs per day every day of the week. That's 126 hours you're on the clock for these people.

You only get paid for 7 hours a day. You're giving them 77 hours of your time unpaid. You're not being paid $12 an hour. You're being paid $4.66 an hour.
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You’ve been a caregiver before, so you must know that this is very very wrong. Why did you get into it? If you are stuck because you have nowhere else to live, start looking for somewhere right now. Once you have an option to move, you can look for another job. ‘Live in’ has many many problems.
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They’re taking advantage of you. You need a caregiver contract that specifically states your hours, rate of pay and days off. If you’re expected to monitor her all night, you need to be paid for that. Frankly if it were me, I’d find other employment. These people will never treat you fairly.
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