cost of cleaning

[meemee]

hi mamas i need your help.

suddenly i find i am 'parenting' my roommates 16 and almost 18 year old. a huge jump from my 7 year old. and yet not.

roommate is struggling with his sons and his sons ARE listening to me.

right now his almost 18 year old is cleaning the refrigerator to make some money.

later on there will be a garage to clean out. a LOT of work.

i have no clue how much he should be paid. their dad just left saying i should decide how much he should be paid. i have NO CLUE.

how do you decide?

the son is broke. his brand new gf has a bday on friday. i am sure he would like to do something nice for her. and so needs the money.

his dad is thrilled!!!! his son has been in a lot of trouble. including a ticket for shoplifting.

he is thrilled that instead of asking him for money or borrowing, his son asked him if there were any chores he could do.

so i need to figure out the amount of pay. google wasnt helpful.

right now for the refrigerator.

later for garage or any other chores. how do i decide on the amount of money.

i was thinking $20 for the refrigerator. it will take him an hour. he IS doing a good job. deep cleaning. i was going by what a cleaning lady would charge at least in our area ($20 for an hour). minimum wage would be $8 or even $10. but that seems unfair.

any words of advice i would really appreciate.

[Drummer's Wife]

No advice, but I might be more inclined to clean out our fridge (instead of making DH do it), if I earned $20

Who is paying the teens? You or their dad?

[ErinYay]

You could tell me where you live, so I could come over and clean your frige for $20! That's A LOT! (We pay $25 a week to have our lawn mowed and trimmed, which takes our guy an hour in horrible humid heat!)

What I might do is post on your local Craigslist looking for help to clean the garage and ask for rates. Obviously, email those who respond back that you found a helper, but that would give you an idea of the local going rate, then cut 10-30% off that. So, if a handyman would charge you $100 to clean the garage and haul everything away, pay the kid $75ish.

[Ruthla]

Some of these cleaning jobs are "more intense" and a minimum wage for them isn't quite fair- besides, it sounds like you have the money to give (is this accurate?), and this is a "non demeaning" way to help him out financially. I think $20 for the fridge sounds fair.

How intense is the garage cleaning going to be? You might pay him less per hour if it's a longer/less intense job, or you might want to pay him $20 an hour for any "deep cleaning" job, but then less money for "maintenance" jobs once the big cleanings are done.

[meemee]

thanks ruthla thats exactly what i was looking for. and the principal of it.

thanks erinyay yeah i like the way you think about it too. however if he is delivering like a professional he should get professional pay. that is fair.

i live in a high cost of area living city. a cleaning lady would charge anything from 20 to 30 at the minimum.

Drummer - exactly!!! money talks. his dad is paying.

thanks mamas.

after reading your comments i went and spoke to him and told him he is doing a good job, a cleaning lady would charge at least $20. he IS putting in the time and effort and cleaning out a fridge that has not been cleaned in ????? so he should get $20 and did he think it was fair. and he said yes. so after he is done he gets $20.

his dad is not super rich but being a college proff. he does have some expendable dough.

[ErinYay]

Man, you seem so cool! That's a really awesome way of looking at it- professional work gets you professional pay. Maybe if he's a hard worker with some form of transportation, HE could put an ad on CL for providing odd-job services!

[LynnS6]

What about $8-$10 an hour? don't tell him ahead of time that's the rate, but judge how long you think it should take and pay him. (If you say $10 an hour up front, that garage is going to take 20 hours to clean!)

Personally, I'd pay $10 for the fridge and about $50 for the garage if it's really a lot of work.

Can you send him over to my house next?

[whatsnextmom]

20 bucks for the fridge is a lot no matter where you live.

Personally, I wouldn't go over minimum wage. He's 18 and he is not educated and does not have the special work experience and training a cleaning service would have (which is what you are paying 20 dollars an hour for... they know what they are doing and work faster.) You make working at home too lucritive he's not going to take to kindly to the "real" jobs available to him this stage in his life.

[meemee]

see the fridge took over two hours. almost 3 hours. its a big fridge. it probably hasnt been clean for 3 years at the earliest. no rotting food, but it was nasty. we researched online how to clean fridges.

so this wasnt 'just' cleaning. it was deep cleaning that took a lot of time, where he wasnt wasting time. he was at it constantly except for a couple of short phone calls.

he was given $20 and i still felt bad thinking its too little. however it was between his dad and him. i just made the suggestion.

oh and just so you know, i overheard his dad tell him that he will pay $5 for 15 mins. for anything he does. there is not a lot to do. but its between them. out of my hands.

and no he is a hard working boy. he has a personal sense of order and a certain way a job has to be done to be well done. everything is not about money. he did stuff just coz he wanted to clean - not because he will get paid. he was thrilled to help with dinner last night that turned out really good.