As an update, I hired a new lawn mowing company. They cut, edge, and trim for half the price that Charles expected. Charles arrived on payday and asked for the upcoming months pay. When babygirl told him he was no longer needed he stated, “It would have been F***ing nice to tell me before now.” Just to add, he did not have any lawn mowing equipment with him. So, unless he was Pan, he wanted a check and no work.
BLUF
Cuts only when we call him
Raised rates when we pay him
Request advance when we employ him
Only mows when he is called and then asks if we really think the grass needs to be cut
Spouts profanity when we can’t abide by the above.
So, I hired a lawn cutting company. They all had the same T-Shirts,they had a buisiness card, and the owner cuts grass. but can only communicate in ASL. I may be able to brush up on mine.
My mum and dad always haev. We are middle class. In fact the guy who cut the lawns is one of my dad’s best mates - he makes a killing and his area/neighbourhood is definitely upper-middle class.
We had a few false starts with lawn crews too (but no fraud, thank goodness), but finally found one that works well. They mow, edge, prune, remove leaves, etc. every two weeks. The only thing they charged extra for was stump removal, which was beyond reasonable.
For the record, we are middle class and I’m not sure anyone on our street does their own lawn.
I’m a young professional who doesn’t make a ton of money and is cutting back on stuff, but I still pay Jerome to do my yard, because it leaves me time and energy to do the flower gardening I enjoy. Also, Jerome is dependable as the tides, inexpensive (considering the wonderful work he does) and extraordinarily good looking. When he mows shirtless the traffic slows down. I’ve referred tons of friends and family to him and he does a great job for everybody.
(Oh, yes, he’s black. Would you like me to objectify him further by taking a picture of him without his shirt, digging some stumps out for me?)
I can’t imagine hiring someone to mow our lawn. It’s like shovelling the driveway in inter or taking out the garbage: part and parcel of being a home owner and/or living in a house. I can understand someone who is elderly or in poor health needing some help, but while I’m capable I’ll do it (granted, I’ll do it begrudgingly). We both work full time and have extra curricular activities up the wazoo, but you make time for your responsibilities.
We have a push-mower, so we can mow late in the evning without ticking off the neighbours.
Yep, we’re responsible for making sure the lawn is kept nicely, in accordance with our homeowners’ association’s policies. And we’ve delegated our responsibility to people who can do it better and faster than we can, and who require gainful employment just like everyone else.
I guess I could also try to bake all my own bread, and weave fabrics and make all my clothes, but I purchase those goods and services as well. Anyone feel like getting ridiculously self-righteous over those things too?
I’m not trying to be self-righteous. It’s just that I’ve always thought of mowing the lawn to be in the same general household chore category as vacuuming and washing the dishes. I’m just surprised that so many people spend money to have someone else do it (unless they have a big honkin’ lawn that would take hours and hours.)
I must be pretty naive too. Growing up, no one in our neighborhood paid a service to mow their lawns. My current neighbors seem to do all their own general lawn maintenance and gardening too. I didn’t mean to imply any judgement call or anything. I just always thought mowing the lawn and raking leaves were just regular homeowner chores and not really worth paying for.
ETA: Weaving fabric to tailor your own clothing requires special skills. That’s why most people pay for those services. Pushing a mower through the grass doesn’t require any specialized abilities.
Apparently it requires skills beyond what my husband has. He can’t edge properly to save his life, and he managed to take out one of our hedges by accidentally mowing right into it while cutting the grass. Yes, he was sober. He grew up mowing several acres on his parents’ property on a tractor, but he can’t manage the precision stuff required to make it look good. He did do a lovely job laying sod in the yard though.
You may need to expand the size of your sample. I spent some time doing work for John Deere in Toronto, and met a ton of people who hire folks to mow their lawn. Your claim that the practice is “unheard of” up there doesn’t hold much water with me.
But wouldn’t it be cheaper to buy a “How to Make You Lawn Look Ass-Kickin’ Good!” book so you and your hubby could do it properly? I’m not trying to be a jerk. It’s just that the OP was talking $100-$140 a month. At that rate, if I paid only four month’s worth of lawn mowing, that would be a significant chunk of my air fare to France. Or it would cover the cost of renting a cottage by the lake for a week. I could think of many cooler, fun things to do with $100 a month.
My fiancée and I tackle our lawn for free. She’s actually better with the push mower than me, but I’m more artistic and will draw smiley faces in the grass (I’ve been forbidden to mow naughty bits into the canvas that is the back yard despite the privacy fence).
Labrador Deceiver maybe it’s a very neighborhood-dependent culture or something. I’ve grown up back and forth between Michigan and Ontario, usually living in middle class suburbia, and hiring someone to mow you lawn, in my experience, was something I only knew of being done by people with more estate-like properties. Until this thread, I would have said the same thing as Leaffan. Growing up, I have never ever known of anyone who hired someone to mow their lawns.
Maybe that’s radically changed in the last 15 to 20 years, but it’s definitely not something I ever saw growing up.
That makes more sense. That at least is closer to the cost of “date night”.
I was aware that the lawn and garden industry was getting really huge, but I guess during the long span between “student” and “homeowner”, I rented apartments so much that I missed actually witnessing the trend of leaving the mowing to someone else. Now that I’m in a house, we shovel snow in the winter and mow in the summer.
We like the few hours in the fresh air working out with the push mowers. Granted it can be a beast if we don’t get around to it for awhile. (Do NOT wait to long if you have a push mower, it gets really tough and makes me yearn for a gas or electric powered machine.)
