Or he hired us - I'm not really sure. My husband was working in the front yard, desperately trying to get some yard work done before he leaves again out of town. I have been out of work for the past two months on short term disability for a herniated disk and have been mournfully looking out at the garden and yards, searching through Craigslist, but not really getting myself to make that phone call or email to come out to the house and do all the stuff that needs to be done. There's so MUCH!!
So there my husband was, with the weedwhacker, imitating Sisyphus, when a youngish man with sunglasses was walking down the sidewalk with another youngish man and what I believe was his child. "Hey man", said the guy with the sunglasses to my husband, "you are working too hard, you should hire me to help you!' This was said with a strong accent that I couldn't quite place, so strong, my husband had to ask him again what he said, thinking he was asking for directions, I guess. He said again, "My name is Joe, and you should hire me, I'm very cheap and a very hard worker, I'll help you get everything done..!!" My husband said, "Sure!", and the guy said, "I'll be back in 15 minutes!". Sure enough, he was back in 15 minutes, and just sort of asked what we needed. Literally, I feel like over the last couple of months, my house and yard has just fallen apart. My husband had grandiose ideas of building a patio in the backyard, so we had two pallets of brick that he had been moving, brick by brick, into the backyard. It had taken him four days to move about 50 bricks into the back yard. Joe had the rest of the two pallets of bricks moved in about two hours. We bought him some beer and I gave him some fresh eggs from my friend who has chickens - we weren't sure what to give him as far as money, so we gave him 25.00 for about two and half hours worth of work.
He talked to us while he worked, and told us that he was from Palau, and that he made maybe 2.50 or 3.00 an hour there, he had two sons, and wanted to make money so they could go to school. Well, we informed him that there was plenty of stuff he could help us with around the place to earn money, and we would be happy to give him work. We aren't rich, by any means, but I HAVE to get my gardens and yard in order, and I almost feel like he was sent by a higher force to help me. I'm not a Christian, so not God, but something. I can't lift anything heavier than 5-7 pounds, and I can't bend or twist, and it's killing me, avid gardener that I am, not to be able to weed or plant or make my house look pretty. I can't afford to pay over 12.00 an hour and it's either help this guy help us or have a house that looks unkempt and untended. My husband tried to help him work, but he shooed him off and told him he was just slowing him down. (He probably was.)
I've never in my life hired anyone off the street, hired anyone I didn't know, to help me, and I still feel funny about it, the strangeness of it all, but I guess this is what people have done for years in the world. I don't know about the legality, but I think that people hire other people as day laborers a lot. Has anyone on this blog ever done this before? Is there anything I should know, tips or pointers or etc?