K
kittery
Guest
Hello~
My husband and I are struggling over how best to handle a situation that recently occurred after hiring our 21 year old nephew to help us complete a huge to-do list in order to prepare our rental between renters. Tasks that we wanted help with included yard work, exterior painting, appliance updating, hanging new blinds, etc. We had also slated a new roof to be done by a contractor well-known to us, but to be done in a month or so.
First day our nephew shows up to “work”, he has his girlfriend with him. He tells my husband “it’s kinda’s unprofessional, but I just like having her with me.” OK, fine. Right away, nephew sets sight on getting the roof job for himself, although- we’re not aware of exactly what experience he has and this would require us to buy all of the roofing tools necessary to do the job and then he would keep the tools (roofing gun and pry bars, etc) as part of his payment. My husband tells him that we just want a roofer who can show up and do it in a day or two and that he wouldn’t have the time to help nephew do the roof. .
So, eventually my husband asks him to take the truck and go get a load of dirt to fill in unlevel areas of the back yard. They come back, after much longer than you would expect it to take and he begins shoveling dirt. His girlfriend was with him and would occasionally help him wheelbarrow a load over, or rake dirt out here and there. Meanwhile, Nephew is insistent on convincing my husband that he should hire him to do the roof because he worked for a roofing company last summer… it starts to feel very distracting from the tasks at hand because he’s standing around talking while he’s “on the clock”.
He works for a few hours that first day and ends up taking our car home for the night so that they don’t have to borrow his girlfriend’s dad’s truck the next day.
More of the same the next day- her hanging around him and occasionally getting him a tool or a drink, etc. He tells my husband that he had his girlfriend “clean out your car for you” last night. Ok. ??? My husband sent him to the store to get brackets to hang a few window AC units… Nephew says he wants to know if we have the money to buy the roofing tools while he is out. I tell him I’m not sure what we’re doing about that, and if we go that route I’d like to wait until after pay day. A couple of hours goes by and he starts calling my hubby asking questions about the roof and what kind of shingles we want to go with, yada yada yada. Hubby asks him to just get what we asked for and come back- we had lots to do and the tenants were going to start moving in the next day. THREE HOURS later, he comes back with the AC brackets and some roofing removal blades and plastic sheeting or something. TRYING TO GET HIS FOOT IN THE ROOF DOOR
The next day he returns with girlfriend and tells me she’s bored and if there’s anything she could do to help, just let him know. He says she already cleaned hubby’s car out, she can help clean our house or whatever. I felt uncomfortable, not really wanting to ask a stranger to clean anything for me but I tell him that if she’s really bored she can clean out my van. He said, “Ok, I’ll have her do that. She needs money for school so that will be good.” ??? I figure, whatever- I’ll give her $20 or something to clean my van. Fine.
Today, hubby stopped by Nephew’s place after work to go over his time sheet and settle up with him. Nephew informs hubby that they are expecting his girlfriend to get paid the same number of hours as him! We don’t even feel like he honestly earned the $10/hr wage we agreed to for him since he never really stuck to what we wanted him to do. He worked 4 days and was constantly disappearing- my friend who was helping as well (for free) on the 4th day kept catching him and girlfriend making out in the garage, the bedroom, etc. He spent a lot of time bending hubby’s ear trying to get that roofing job which was totally irritating and distracting.
Can anyone help with how to best handle this? Do we pay the girlfriend a token amount? What do we say to Nephew?
My husband and I are struggling over how best to handle a situation that recently occurred after hiring our 21 year old nephew to help us complete a huge to-do list in order to prepare our rental between renters. Tasks that we wanted help with included yard work, exterior painting, appliance updating, hanging new blinds, etc. We had also slated a new roof to be done by a contractor well-known to us, but to be done in a month or so.
First day our nephew shows up to “work”, he has his girlfriend with him. He tells my husband “it’s kinda’s unprofessional, but I just like having her with me.” OK, fine. Right away, nephew sets sight on getting the roof job for himself, although- we’re not aware of exactly what experience he has and this would require us to buy all of the roofing tools necessary to do the job and then he would keep the tools (roofing gun and pry bars, etc) as part of his payment. My husband tells him that we just want a roofer who can show up and do it in a day or two and that he wouldn’t have the time to help nephew do the roof. .
So, eventually my husband asks him to take the truck and go get a load of dirt to fill in unlevel areas of the back yard. They come back, after much longer than you would expect it to take and he begins shoveling dirt. His girlfriend was with him and would occasionally help him wheelbarrow a load over, or rake dirt out here and there. Meanwhile, Nephew is insistent on convincing my husband that he should hire him to do the roof because he worked for a roofing company last summer… it starts to feel very distracting from the tasks at hand because he’s standing around talking while he’s “on the clock”.
He works for a few hours that first day and ends up taking our car home for the night so that they don’t have to borrow his girlfriend’s dad’s truck the next day.More of the same the next day- her hanging around him and occasionally getting him a tool or a drink, etc. He tells my husband that he had his girlfriend “clean out your car for you” last night. Ok. ??? My husband sent him to the store to get brackets to hang a few window AC units… Nephew says he wants to know if we have the money to buy the roofing tools while he is out. I tell him I’m not sure what we’re doing about that, and if we go that route I’d like to wait until after pay day. A couple of hours goes by and he starts calling my hubby asking questions about the roof and what kind of shingles we want to go with, yada yada yada. Hubby asks him to just get what we asked for and come back- we had lots to do and the tenants were going to start moving in the next day. THREE HOURS later, he comes back with the AC brackets and some roofing removal blades and plastic sheeting or something. TRYING TO GET HIS FOOT IN THE ROOF DOOR
The next day he returns with girlfriend and tells me she’s bored and if there’s anything she could do to help, just let him know. He says she already cleaned hubby’s car out, she can help clean our house or whatever. I felt uncomfortable, not really wanting to ask a stranger to clean anything for me but I tell him that if she’s really bored she can clean out my van. He said, “Ok, I’ll have her do that. She needs money for school so that will be good.” ??? I figure, whatever- I’ll give her $20 or something to clean my van. Fine.
Today, hubby stopped by Nephew’s place after work to go over his time sheet and settle up with him. Nephew informs hubby that they are expecting his girlfriend to get paid the same number of hours as him! We don’t even feel like he honestly earned the $10/hr wage we agreed to for him since he never really stuck to what we wanted him to do. He worked 4 days and was constantly disappearing- my friend who was helping as well (for free) on the 4th day kept catching him and girlfriend making out in the garage, the bedroom, etc. He spent a lot of time bending hubby’s ear trying to get that roofing job which was totally irritating and distracting.
Can anyone help with how to best handle this? Do we pay the girlfriend a token amount? What do we say to Nephew?
