Weed removal (and other home projects)

[Electriclime]

Originally Posted by 757dad

Before I did anything I would check with the landlord and see what he can do with it. That seems like something that they should take care of, being a health hazard and all.

This. Wouldn't hurt to see if he'll at least chip in towards the cost of weed killer/labor/etc. for the poison ivy problem. For other projects you'll be able to get a pretty good idea of people's skills when you go to Lowes/HomeDepot/local hardware. I worked at HD for a while when working on my Masters and there were guys who were pros and there were guys who couldn't be bothered to learn anything.

Good luck!

[BenSr]

Originally Posted by Mark B.

I have been asked before "How did you learn how to do or fix that?" And my answer is always "I bought a house." What the heck, learn on somebody else's house, right? Any chance you can barter any of you labor against rent? My brother got credit for mowing the lawn at his old place. I am sure your landlord would consider it. Good luck.

The way I see it, we're already bartering our labor against some of the rent, albeit unofficially. My landlady is in my church choir. They've rented out the house before, and usually asked $1800 (doing $1600 for us). Given the fact that buying is down and renting is up, and that the house is 6 bedrooms, 2.5 bath, plenty of closet space, huge basement sitting on almost a half acre, I'd say it's fair that they expect us to handle some of the maintenance. When I first looked at the house, my wife and I agreed they could easily get $2000 if they wanted.

Beyond the deal we're getting, they said we could help ourselves to anything left behind. We've already essentially inherited a couple mattresses, 2 tv's, a waffle iron, a lawnmower, 2 vacuums, plenty of dressers, a table saw, and we haven't finished going through everything in the garage yet.

What I'm hoping for is, since they're older, we can save up and maybe work towards a rent to buy or owner financed deal eventually. But for the moment, we've got a 2 year lease on a nice house.

[Riggs]

Originally Posted by Mark B.

I have been asked before "How did you learn how to do or fix that?" And my answer is always "I bought a house."

Yep. Good answer, have to remember that one. I did a little work in construction, but mostly learn stuff as I go. A table saw is one of the first big tools I got after getting a house, really useful. It'd be good to read up about them a little, also really useful to get injured. I've done the shoot the board out toward you thing before, not good. And leave it unplugged with little ones. Once one of ours was underneath mine. It was unplugged, but scared the &%*! out of me, blade's right there.

Yeah, ask in DIY here. There's other DIY forums on specific things too. You could go watch construction with your younger ones. Keeps them entertained and you might learn something.

[Bjorn74]

Volunteering with Habitat for humanity is a good way to learn construction/repair stuff, too. A couple times, I've shown up late to a cliquish group and been excluded from anything but carrying.