Driving plus housekeeping services?

[Anonymous]

Sorry for what might be a dumb question, but I've searched this forum and the nanny forums and did not locate a good answer for this. And DH and I grew up very middle-class, and our friends are not wealthy, and thus we have no experience with this kind of thing or friends who have such experience.

We'd like someone to pick up our preschooler from an afternoon activity (same location), between 4 pm and 5 pm every day. Preferably, this person would also do some housekeeping -- probably 1 to 2 hours of housekeeping every day, thus cleaning the whole house over the course of the 5-day week. They could do that immediately before pickup, before and after pickup, concentrated in a few days or split across days, etc. -- we are flexible but assume a regular schedule would be best. I work from home so the precise hours are less important as long as the pickup happens anytime between 4 and 5, too.

Is this realistic? How much should we expect to pay per hour, assuming either 10 hours or 15 hours a week? Where would we find such a person?

[Anonymous]

Part time care and drivers are incredibly hard to find and you get low quality flaky applicants.

[Anonymous]

We found someone to drive our preschooler for $20/hr and watched him for a few hours a week. She tidied up his areas, but I think it would have been hard to find someone who really cleaned as well. I think you may need to find two different people.

[Anonymous]

Adding on to my 21:33 comment, we had a lot of people apply through care dot com.

[Anonymous]

You’ll be better off hiring two separate people for this. I doubt you’d easily find someone you trust to drive your kid and who’d be interested in 10 hours of cleaning work. If you do go for one person, there will likely be high turnover.

Think about it. Who is sitting around now who would like to clean your house and be available to drive your kid right around the time that most people are looking to get back home to their own families? But not looking for full-time work? A college student maybe but their schedules change and they are often flaky during finals, spring break, etc.

[Anonymous]

I think just getting pickup help will be hard enough. You might have to split the week between two students or have a helper some days and a carpool others. It's not efficient for most people to have a job that's only an hour or two on five different days--and the cleaning makes this a less desirable job for most people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Part time care and drivers are incredibly hard to find and you get low quality flaky applicants.

+1

[Anonymous]

Everyone who is good what they are doing wants to do it full time.

[Anonymous]

This is an incredibly unappealing job all around.

[Anonymous]

Nobody decent wants to do this job. Nobody who is qualified to drive and watch your child and is reliable is going to want to drive the child around for just a few hours a week during rush hour and prime time with their own family...and those people really don’t want to clean your house.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm not expecting this person to watch my child -- purely driving.

My understanding is that the problem with hiring a driver is that they want more hours. And driving a kid back from an activity effectively gives them just the single hour. So I would assume that this needs to be combined with something else that grants more hours.

How do people solve the driving problem, in that case?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the feedback. I'm not expecting this person to watch my child -- purely driving.

My understanding is that the problem with hiring a driver is that they want more hours. And driving a kid back from an activity effectively gives them just the single hour. So I would assume that this needs to be combined with something else that grants more hours.

How do people solve the driving problem, in that case?

If a kid that age is in the car, that person is watching your kid.

Most parents deal with the driving issue by carpooling, choosing different activities, or changing work hours.

[Anonymous]

I think it will also be hard to find someone who wants to clean your house while you’re working from home

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the feedback. I'm not expecting this person to watch my child -- purely driving.

My understanding is that the problem with hiring a driver is that they want more hours. And driving a kid back from an activity effectively gives them just the single hour. So I would assume that this needs to be combined with something else that grants more hours.

How do people solve the driving problem, in that case?

Lol They don’t want to clean your house. They’ll take a job that includes babysitting in addition to the pick up. BTW, this driver IS watching your kid during pick up and while driving. Your solution is to pay driver more for pick up more than would be dictated by a typical hourly rate.

[Anonymous]

If you’re saying you are wealthy, then you should hire a full-time housekeeper. Her duties would be cleaning, pick up kid, and maybe add in grocery shopping, other errands, and cooking. That’s what someone who is actually wealthy would do.