Death of the Handyman/person
We are trying to get some work done inside the house while we wait out the Winter to relist it for sale. There are loads of house cleaners and people who do outside work like gardens and gutter cleaning. But can you find someone who still combines the skills of a jack of all trades indoors?
The answer dear reader is no. Its difficult to even find individual trades like a plumber or electrician who don't seem to do anything but commercial work nowadays.
The neighbourhood handyman has become extinct from what I can tell. I do get it; you need a reliable, decent size salary coming in each month so odd jobs here and there don't cut it any more. And if you are working full time and are handy, your probably so tired from the 9-6 or whatever it is, that you aren't interested in work on the side.
This is a real dilemma for those of us who are not DIY inclined. We can do some things, but jobs that require a decent degree of carpentry are out of our orbit. Ditto plumbing and electrical. And wouldn't you know it, that's what I need. A carpenter. We are trying to tart up the kitchen rather than having to find thousands to have a new one fitted. We don't want to live here any more but have no chance of getting a decent price for the house, especially in the current economic climate, unless we can spruce up what needs it and the old kitchen definitely does.
I've combed sites like NextDoor and Facebook to no avail. The neighbours either don't know anyone or are handy themselves and keeping the knowledge quiet.
What's a gal to do?
Yes, it's tough to find people for odd job kind of things. Have you ever heard of TaskRabbit? It started in the States but now operates in Canada, Britain, Europe and elsewhere. It sort of operates like Uber in that individual people (independent contractors) willing to do handyman and other kinds of small tasks use the site to get connected with potential customers. The site gets fees/a cut of whatever is charged. Financially, the customer deals with the site (not the independent contractor) with their credit card details and all payments go through the site. You might want to read its Wikipedia page here:
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taskrabbit
and there is a link at the bottom for its website.
I first used TaskRabbit this summer to get some furniture assembled. I had two good experiences and one bad experience where a tasker tried to rip me off (agreed to come but made a series of bullshit excuses that he couldn't "find" my address, so that he could cancel and yet still claim the one hour payment for cancellation. I immediately complained loudly and vociferously to TaskRabbit and they cancelled his cancellation fee).
The kinds of repairs you need sound a bit more extensive than typical TaskRabbit things though, so you might still have to look elsewhere. I wouldn't have electrical work done by just any joe, that's for sure.
Not heard of TaskRabbit, but will give it a try. I really just need someone to rehang some of the cabinet doors. They are on a mechanism I've never seen before and I don't think are available as a replacement part. At this point we are wondering if a simple hinge will work to replace the broken ones. In which case, we could it ourselves I think.
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