Hit And Miss - Home Services

In South Africa we have various home services that cost a fraction of the price found in other areas of the world. We have grown up with these various services like having cleaners or also known as a domestic worker , gardeners, pool cleaners and some even have drivers. These are jobs that help employ people who would not necessarily find employment. This raises the standard of living to a certain degree as it should make life less complicated.

Roughly 6 months ago I hired a garden service business to take care and look after my garden which they pop in once per week and keep everything in order. This is something most houses do and very few people actually do their own gardening here. Like everyone else I would want to enjoy the weekend without having to mow the lawn or trim some bushes.

The monthly cost is roughly R900 or $52 and I do think this is money well spent and keeps me occupied doing other things. I enjoy the garden, but I am no green finger person and would rather have someone taking care of it that knows what they are doing. many houses also have a pool cleaning company servicing their pool and that is where I draw the line. Pool maintenance is one of the easiest jobs there is and this is easy to self learn and anyone can be a master of their pool within a few months. I see no point in wasting another $50 or $60 monthly and it may actually be more now due to chemicals like chlorine and pool acid being hit by inflation.

There are rake marks on the soil so that is the proof they worked here.

Back to the garden services who I phoned and lodged a genuine complaint with last week over their standards. At the beginning of last month I noticed the team of 6 was spending on average 10 minutes working and literally was a very quick hello and goodbye. The garden is not that, big but there is also a verge and a back garden that needs attention each week. This team tended to make more noise than work with leaf blowers active in the back garden when hedges needed trimming. I had a gentle chat with the teams foreman who I found sleeping in the van and tasked him with what work that needed doing.

There was no change in the following weeks when I was in the UK and he blew his chance. Today both owners of the garden service were working with the team as I told them they either pull finger or I find someone else. These garden service businesses are ten to the dozen here and you will most likely find all offering a similar type service. Great when they start out but the standards tailing off each week until you have to guess whether they have visited you that week or not.

The palm tree needs trimming back so maybe next time if they spend 30 minutes instead of 20 minutes. Trim the fence line is the priority as otherwise the neighbors complain your bushes are interfering with their electric fence.

We have electric fences in SA so as a property owner this is the one bug bear as no bush or plant can touch the wires or it triggers the alarm. You would expect this to be the standard common sense type of thinking making sure this area close to the fence is totally clear each week. The problem is the owners have not been checking up on the team and did not know their trusted employee over seeing their standards was spending the day sleeping in the vehicle. This is why I gave then the ultimatum as it was needed to wake them up and start paying attention or start losing customers. I regard myself as rather lenient and maybe I should have given them the boot without a second chance so the ball is in their court as to how this ends up.

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