We became home-owners about a year and half ago, and as fellow home-owners know, it’s a lot different than renting. For one thing, we now have a yard to maintain and being 2 very busy people who know absolutely nothing about landscaping, we’ve found this aspect of home ownership quite challenging. As many of you know, my husband is a very hard worker, and when he is off work, we are usually out and about with the kids – no Saturdays working on the yard for us! So I usually venture outside while I’m playing with the kids in the summer and make a haphazard attempt at pulling weeds and trying to make the yard presentable. The good news is we have yet to receive a complaint notice on a stick from the city, like I sometimes see in other less fortunate yards. The bad news is that if we were to ever get one of those notices, I fear now would be the time since I have been immobile with my pregnancy so far this summer.
So my awesome husband tried to make arrangements with a local fellow to have the weeds done for me on my birthday, but the guy showed up and was gone by the time we returned from lunch, etc. less than 3 hours later. He did get some of the weeds, but not all that many, and lo and behold, the other day we received a bill from him – for $140!!! Even if he had been here 3 hours, that would be over $46 / hour and he didn’t even do nearly everything he was supposed to do! Needless to say, I’m going to dispute the bill, but first I’m going to have a baby and get out of the hospital, so he’s going to have to wait. In the meantime, we’ve enlisted a friend who is a landscaper to help, and he’s going to visit and work hourly on Thursdays… not the immediate weed relief I was hoping for, but I’m sure he will do a much better job for a much more reasonable rate. He already visited after weed guy #1 and confirmed that there are still LOTS of weeds in our yard. I just don’t know what weed guy #1 was thinking… it’s tough times in the economy and he seemed nice enough, but he must be crazy if he thinks we’re going to pay him that much for what little weed relief he gave us… My town is going to be offering college classes soon so maybe I should just take a horticulture class and do the landscaping myself from now on…
Good wishes to you – We are so excited and happy!
Mother/daughter
$46/hr for 3 hours of shoddy work… sounds like a dispute to me. But, yes get more important things taken care of first.
Indeed. Get that fourth child’s birthday out of the way and rest up before you do anything. If that charge is to stick, he needs to come back and finish the job.