Now I know that not everyone living in Germany has a big, old farm like we do. But if you own a home here, there is likely going to be a time when you could use some extra help around the house. You may have enough work to keep someone busy for weeks cleaning things up, you might need someone to take care of your garden or yard when the grass is actually green and growing, or you might just have a bug one-time project that you need help for.
We would personally prefer to have someone to clean the house on a weekly basis (you know, do the stuff like washing windows and scrubbing hard-water buildup off the shower glass which few people actually enjoy) and would certainly enjoy someone coming at least once a month to sweep the courtyard and help us trim back certain plants. That would free up a lot of time for us to finish bigger projects and plenty of time for me to work while still being able to play with Mackenzie. Not to mention we’d be even happier since our house would be looking so lovely. But even when cheap labor is available, it’s just not always in the budget.
So if you do need to find some help and have the money, regardless of where you live, there are a few general places you can always look for help in your area. Yes, some of these even apply if you’re living in the US or other places — or at least they used to work when we lived there!
- Do you have a local farmers market or grocery story nearby that has a bulletin board space? What about your local post office; is there a place there where people hang up fliers? We constantly see ads up from cleaning services, garden helpers and others offering to do just about anything you need. You’ll probably also find a lot of pets and baby/kids stuff up for sale too!
- Do you get any local free newspapers? We get three every week plus another small local magazine every couple of weeks and there are always tons of people and small business in the classifieds looking for new jobs to take on. I’ve seen everything from building contractors to gardening help to painters in there.
- Have trees you need cut down? Here in Germany you can contact your local fire department. Many times they will come out, cut down the trees, chip up the small stuff (giving you mulch) and remove the large pieces (or leave it for you if you want to turn it into firewood) all for a minimal donation, some sausages on the grill and a few cases of drinks. You’ll save a bundle versus what you’d pay to have a commercial tree cutting service do the work.
- Is there a free local telephone book? Have you tried DasOertliche, the online phone book? They’ve got a good yellow pages section for companies. Just type in the sort of business you are looking for and your areas or postal code and up it comes (hopefully). Need help figuring out what something is called? Leo.org is never more than a few clicks away!
A few words of caution
Yes, many of the individuals you will come across who just put up a flier will not have companies and they will expect you to pay cash. They’re working for “black money” (Schwarzgeld) and they won’t be paying taxes. So if you want to be strictly on the up and up, you’ll want to find someone with a real company who actually issues written bills. And naturally, you are also going to be paying more since you’ve got to contend with 19% tax on top of the labor charges.
We’ve used everything from master painters to independent contractors to guys who do random odd jobs. Some of them are great all the time, some are great only part of the time, and sometimes you just get what you pay for. We’ve thankfully never had any workers that just took our money and ran…but we have had to seriously lean on most of them to get the job done the way we wanted it. So you’re going to need to be able to communicate with each other well. And in our experience, almost everyone who is working for payment under the table is from somewhere like Croatia. They’re often very hard workers and will cut you a great deal, but sometimes they also cut corners and totally flake out on you for a few weeks. So be warned.
Does that mean that trained professional German workers are far superior and worth the heavily inflated rates that they charge? Again, only judging from our experience, no. But we’ve only dealt with one master painter and that was just a botched job all around.
On the other hand, one of our next door neighbors is German and a basic contractor who seems to do just about everything when it comes to work. He’s not only great and gets the job done quickly, but he’s also very inexpensive.
How do you go about finding workers? Have you ever used any online services? We’ve done that with our babysitter so far and it was fabulous, but never found the need to try it with workers thus far.
Stopping by from the 2011 Dream Team…I love your blog…Enjoy your tuesday!
Thanks for stopping in, Becky! Looking forward to seeing more of you around the dream team!
I’m firmly in the camp of legal household help. Liability is a big concern IMO. They say that most accidents happen in the home. Imagine the scenario where your cleaning lady slips and hurts herself while working for you under the table. Or the unlikely event that something gets stolen – you gonna go to the police with that if your employee is working illegally? Most companies also have liability insurance in case something gets broken. I think you can also add your household help to your house insurance for a small amount.
You can also hire someone on a “Minijob” basis. No VAT then but usually you pay a Pauschale on top of the salary, I think it’s 20% at the moment.
Another great thing about going legal is you can deduct 20% of the bill from what you owe in income tax, which almost exactly evens out the 19% VAT or 20% income tax Pauschale. So the “VAT makes it more expensive” argument is pretty spurious.
For what it’s worth, I’m completely in the minority amongst my friends and colleagues with this opinion. Don’t know a single person who is above-board with their hired help. It’s just not worth the stress for me.
Those are great points. Is something should happen, and it easily can, you don’t want to be held liable.
A couple years ago, when we had contractors working on our house, one of the guys stepped off the scaffolding wrong and broke his foot. You just never know what will happen. The main contractor we’d hired had a German company so everything was covered but it could have turned out a lot worse.
We’re personally hoping to find a German woman or company for our housecleaning later this year…not only because of the legal side of things, but also just because the language barrier is so much higher.
Hey Tiffanny – sounds like you dodged a bullet with the contractors, whew. You mean the language barrier is higher with e.g. people from Croatia, in other words it’s easier to communicate with people from Germany? I can definitely see that.
I didn’t want to name names on your site but if you email me I can tell you the name of the company we use. They are a sort of franchise with offices throughout Germany, and I assume there’s one near you. I like that they have a range of employees to pick from (i.e. can provide a replacement if someone gets sick or goes on vacation), they’ve run background checks on them, and employees are insured in all respects, they get vacation, are covered by accident insurance, etc.
They are nominally more expensive but you don’t have to deal with the Minijobzentrale, you don’t have to tell your house insurance, the company management take care of vacation/sickness/etc for you, etc. That’s worth a lot to me. They also offer “handyman” services, animal sitting, etc. which might be interesting for you.
Otherwise I would advertise in the local paper, use online Kleinanzeigen and put up a notice at a local bulletin board. And then be prepared for a lot of work vetting candidates.
Hi from Stuttgart,
Yes, what the others say about legal help is true – but it is *much* more expensive.
Our wonderful Putzfrau is Croatian (lol) but her German isn’t bad, and her cleaning is truly wonderful. I found her through word-of-mouth – when I took our duvets to the Launderette (they are too big to go in our washing machine) I asked the owner if she knew any one.
Her only real drawback is talking (we call her ‘Motormouth’ between ourselves) but that’s a small price to pay for such a willing, friendly hard worker.
While I was searching for someone, I found that quite a few of our neighbours were “in a queue” for the services of some very esteemed cleaners. It turned out that the cleaners were actually the ones who chose who they would work for!
Also, mothers often ‘hand over’ their cleaners to their sons/daughters – so I think it’s well worth talking to your neighbours.
Good luck with your search.
Tiffany, did you ever find a good housekeeper? Do you have the info from Michele J on a company?
No, we never did manage to get a housekeeper. We decided it would be better to first focus on reducing the amount of “stuff” we have before we try to get someone else to clean it all the time. 🙂