Arkay
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2019
- Messages
- 2,548
- Reaction score
- 38,976
I live in a similar type neighborhood in the northeast, just outside a major city in a different state. I have an old house and have had many handyman types over the years. Their current going rate ( if you can find one available) is $100-150/hr and you pay the full hour rate for any portion of that hr. I try to fix a lot of things myself via youtube tutorials!
Here in NYC when my air conditioner broke down during a heat wave, I had to pay the guy who delivered it $100 to install it. It took ten minutes. He knew I wouldn't say no because it was sweltering.
In my co-op, the handymen, painters, plumbers etc. are on staff and their union pays them decently with good benefits. We don't pay them for services rendered because it's part of the charges we pay monthly.
HOWEVER! We always tip them, for one thing, and when you multiply that by how many jobs they do, that's lots of money off the books.
ALSO--those of us who aren't DIYers also pay them when they're off shift for any little thing we need..the workers refer to them as side jobs...and again that's off the books. Move a couch, wash the windows, whatever it is. I'll estimate that there are 10,000 people in my complex and the next complex over. Plenty of money to be made.
They're not college graduates but they have skills that I don't. Those skills are marketable, too.
So really, IMO, it's unfair to demean these guys and wonder how they can afford to buy flowers or whatever. The problem here is not that the guy is not Harvard Law, the problem is that he slaughtered a woman.
Period.
Jmo