Hiring a teen to help out

[Gardenarian]

Dh & DD are taking a trip just before Xmas, and I'm really looking forward to the time to get the house organized and prettied up for the holidays. I am thinking about hiring a teenager (17, daughter of a friend) to help out. Her main tasks would be sorting out the playroom, cleaning specific areas (for example, scrubbing the tub, cleaning the fridge) and helping me with lifting and moving (I have cleared out some books and am going to do a little rearranging.)

Have any of you done this before? Any advice? How much did you pay? I was thinking $10 per hour.

(yeah, my own dd is pretty good about trying to put things away day-to-day, but the playroom has got out of control and I don't relish doing it myself.)

Thanks!

[bae]

I pay high school kids $15/hour here for labor sorts of things. Usually the high school football team is a good source of motivated kids who want to earn some extra cash. For reference, teenaged babysitters make $10-$12 in the area, and an adult garden laborer $20-$25/hour.

[razz]

How do you handle the liability risk which is a real concern for me these days?

[bae]

How do you handle the liability risk which is a real concern for me these days?

I hire smart kids, supervise them, and have my wife the attorney make sure we have whomploads of insurance coverage for that sort of thing.

[Mrs-M]

Just wondering how you made out with your plan, Gardenarian? How about an update when you can.

[Stella]

I have a couple of teens who help me out with stuff in the summer when DH works crazy hours. They are early teens and I pay them $5 an hour.

I've also paid older teens by the job. We had a hole to dig for our egress window and we asked our neighbor and his two friends if they'd do it for $40 total to the three of them. They had that thing dug out in 15 minutes. Teenage boys have energy to burn. They had a pizza party that night and we got what we wanted for a reasonable fee.