Reply to How many hours per week of childcare and light housework is fair in exchange for room&board?

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[quote=Anonymous]We have a student living in our home right now. She has her own room in the basement, a private bathroom (although our family uses it while hanging out in the basement, not for showers though). She is welcome to eat with us or cook for herself and help herself to anything in our pantry/fridge. In the basement there is also a mini fridge, kitchen sink, microwave, washer and dryer for her personal use if she wants some privacy or have her own stuff and not have to come upstairs for everything. No stove though.

There is no TV in her bedroom, but there is one in the family room in the basement. She has access to cable, internet, amazon streaming and netflix.

We do not provide car or telephone (we did loaned an old laptop). My husband gives her a ride to the metro station every morning during the week (when she is here) and on his telework day, he actually goes out just to give her a ride. When she comes back, she has to get a bus from metro and then walk home (about 20 min walk). We live in the suburbs. We let her borrow one of our cars when we don't need and she needs to run errands (groceries, bank, DMV - this kind of stuff. Not to go to work or school).

When she first arrived she was studying at night time and I told her I didn't really need a nanny (I am a SAHM) but I would like her to stay with my toddler if I had a doctor appointment, or wanted to do groceries and this kind of stuff. I didn't use her much at all during that time, maybe 2, 3 hours per week.

Then she changed her school hours to morning and at first it was great for me since I asked her to drive my ES child to her after school activity and I stayed home with my toddler 3x/week. It amounted to 6 hours total per week of childcare.

Soon after she found a part time job after school and now leaves the house at 8am and gets here at 10pm. On Fridays she goes straight to her boyfriend's house after work and only returns on Monday night after her job.

I don't begrudge her finding a paying job and I understand she needs the money and is pretty busy. However, she is not my relative or friend and she is living here for free. While I do understand her life is pretty busy, I think I need to sit down and talk to her and have my expectations spelled out.

She clearly cannot provide any childcare for us during the week given her hours, but I would like her to at least help a bit around the house - unload/load the dishwasher, clean my children (2) bedrooms and bathroom once a week and do their laundry once week. Plus take the trash out when/if she sees it full. I do this job and I know it would take her about 3 hours per week.

Also, it would be really nice if she could make herself available for strict childcare for another 2-3 hours on weekends.

I don't think this arrangement is going to work out but while she is here, I want her to chip in. I guess I am just annoyed that things got to the point where we had to talk to her to not leave dirt plates/pots/cups on the sink for me to clean (!!!).

In any event, how many hours of work is fair in exchange for room&board?[/quote]

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