Linda Finkel’s Lincoln Park condo needed a chandelier replaced, touch-up paint, new door hinges, child-proof cabinet locks, the storm windows washed and installed, and a new bathtub drain. But as a busy executive, wife and mother, home maintenance tasks rarely got crossed off the “to do” list.
So she called Richard Misch of In A Pinch Inc., one of a growing number of home-helper services in the Chicago area.
“Frankly, between running a business and being a mom, I was drowning in uncompleted tasks and household projects,” says Finkel. “. . . For me, it’s all about time. These services gave me my weekends back.
“I can spend the time with my family rather than spending it running around doing errands and projects. Plus, there’s less guilt about all the things that previously weren’t getting done.”
More and more time-crunched homeowners are echoing Finkel’s plea for relief from maintenance chores. And, the marketplace has answered their call through a variety of service businesses loosely called home helpers.
These helpers call themselves everything from “personal assistants,” to “concierge services,” to “personal organizers.”
For a fee anywhere between $25 and $65 an hour, they can hang pictures, get appliances repaired, clean out the garage–or find someone who can.
In an age of dual-income families, business travel and frequent moves, homeowners seem to be relying more frequently on these services. But just how many people work at such services doesn’t appear clearly in government statistics, says Ronald Guzicki, economist with the Chicago office of the U.S. Department of Labor.
Locally, the Chicago Chapter of the National Association of Personal Organizers has seen its membership grow to about 23 from four a decade ago, says the group’s treasurer, Mary Piccoli, owner of Great Assistants in Elmwood Park. Nationally the group now numbers about 893, up from five in 1985.
The Concierge Network of Chicago, which encompasses both corporate and personal concierges, has grown 20 percent in the last year, to 42 members from 30.
While hard statistics for such a fragmented and emerging industry may be hard to track, the need to which these service businesses are responding is clear.
The number of hours being worked by the typical American keeps going up, largely because the economy continues to expand, says Guzicki, and that may be contributing to the growth of service categories related to home help.
“We know the typical worker is putting in more than 40 hours (a week) and that the statistic is rising,” particularly for women, he said.
“Employed women worked an average of nearly 20 percent more in 1993 than in 1976, adding 233 hours to their average work year, while men added 100 hours to theirs,” Guzicki said.
“We see a lot of two-income families,” says Bonnie Oleson of Concierges Plus Inc., a Northbrook-based agency that serves corporate and individual customers. “They’re working long hours, they’re short on time, but they have extra disposable income. They’re willing to pay someone to do the nagging details around the house.
“There’s also a sense of loss of community and of the passing on of skills and knowledge. In the ’50s, how many lawn-care services did you see?”
Older generations knew their service people personally. Today, some homeowners barely know their neighbors, let alone who to call for handyman chores.
“Fifty percent of our requests are home maintenance-related,” Oleson says. “Painters, roofers, lawn-care, siding, cleaning and replacement of gutters, masonry, brick work, sand-blasting. We do the vendor research, check referrals, make three to four proposals, and the clients choose.”
“It saves me time and it’s a stress reliever.” says Lisa Emerson of Northbrook, a client of Concierges Plus. “I have two children under the age of 3, and I work full-time.
“My day is so hectic, I don’t even have time to make calls for painters and electricians at work,” Emerson says, referring to what she has used the company for: to get a painter, an electrician, a cleaning service and someone to do her hardwood floors.
Misch of In A Pinch, in Chicago, who has handled everything from waiting for the cable guy to rushing to the harbor to remove a client’s boat by the city’s move-out deadline, finds increased travel and frequent moves are adding to the time stress his clients feel.
“The world has become a more mobile place,” he says. “People travel more and move more often. They have too much going on in their lives, are overburdened, and happy to get rid of some of it.”
Not everyone sees this trend toward off-loading home maintenance chores as positive.
Deena Weinstein, professor of sociology at DePaul University, says that, as a society, “we are passing off maintenance tasks to experts. It makes us feel pampered.” But she feels this also reflects “a lack of confidence in our abilities to be a jack-of-all-trades.
“We believe experts should be doing things for us. Our parents did their own work. They were proud to do it. But now we’re proud to pay people to do it for us.”
Benjamin Sells, a writer and psychotherapist, concurs, saying that, on average, “every five years, we all move. If you can’t maintain a home, you don’t have one.”
He cautions against relying too heavily on outsiders for home services.
“If you don’t touch your own home,” he warns, “how will you feel connected to it? If you don’t interact with it, you won’t feel grounded.”
Yet Oleson points out that “a home is considered an investment. If you don’t keep it up, it doesn’t grow in value. It’s about preventive rather than crisis management.
“The bottom line is that people have a home because they enjoy it, but because they’re busy, they have to pick and choose the tasks they want to be involved in. Like, `I enjoy wall-papering but hate mowing the lawn.’ So you hire someone to do the mowing.”
Home helper businesses say they often save their clients money by side-stepping major contractors on minor repairs and avoiding weekend plumber rates by detouring a problem temporarily until regular business hours, or by simply knowing who to call. For homeowners new to a neighborhood, helpers can make referrals, since most services have large databases of service providers.
“It takes a while to find vendors yourself and develop relationships, and then if you don’t like them, you have to start over,” says homeowner Rob Smith of Lake View. “It’s good to have another source. When professionals have demanding hours, work comes first. But you have domestic stuff to do, and you can’t be in two places at the same time.”
But someone who may be entering your home when you’re not there requires your trust. Those inside and outside the home-helper industry urge prospective clients to check out the business thoroughly.
Make sure those involved are bonded. Check how long they’ve been in business. Ask for personal references–and check them out. Ask about and seek proof of coverage by worker’s compensation and other insurance. The same advice applies to subcontractors–those people hired or recommended by the helper service.
“If they show a piece of paper that shows they are insured by `XYZ Insurance,’ then you should call `XYZ Insurance’ and make sure they are,” says Steve Bernas, director of operations for the Chicago and Northern Illinois Better Business Bureau. “Check with your own insurance company to make sure whose insurance covers the situation where they get hurt in your house.
“If they’re not a company, if it’s just an individual going door-to-door, those people do not usually work out. And let’s face it, there are bad apples in every industry. Since this is a new frontier, scam artists will take advantage of it,” Bernas warns.
“Never pay cash,” says Bernas. “Always write a check and make it out to the company’s name. Basically, treat them the same way you would any type of business.”
To inquire about a helper service, you may call the BBB at 312-832-0500. Have the name and phone number of the helper service in hand, Bernas says.
When interviewing a helper service, “ask for referrals first of all, and go on your intuition,” says Paulette Ensign, immediate past president of the organizers national association. “Ask them what their plan for you is. It’s best to have things in writing. Define what the end is, how does the project end and under what circumstances, so payment is clear. Treat the interaction the same way you would for any other service provider.”
When you’re ready to hire a helper service, you may realize, though, that you don’t necessarily need someone to actually do the job for you. Rather, you might just need a reminder of when it needs to be done–someone like a personal organizer.
Home helpers who focus on the organizing aspect of homeowners’ lives feature less pressing, although equally valuable, maintenance-related services.
Patricia Braun, of Braun Strategic Resources in Chicago’s Lake View neighborhood, helps her clients figure out, “when something was last serviced, and are the warranties all in the same place?”
Braun also organizes seasonal chores, like screen and storm window rotation.
“We’ll number the screens, so next year you’ll know where they go,” she says. “I also manage the process of who do you call and when, for other home maintenance-oriented tasks.”
First-time homeowners tend to utilize these services frequently.
Braun says, “As a renter, there was always someone to call. First-time homeowners are looking for tips like `make sure you have enough WD-40,’ and `build up a stock of tools.’ “
Another organizer, Piccoli of Great Assistants, says, “If people can delegate at the office, why not at home?”
She reiterates the sentiments of the most successful of her counterparts in her willingness to take on any task.
“Unless I’ve gotten physically hurt doing it before,” says Piccoli, dressed in an immaculate red business suit, “I don’t say no. I’ll wait for the stove guy, hang outdoor Christmas lights, organize garage and estate sales.
“I don’t limit myself. Anything that’s legal and reasonable and they’re willing to pay me to do, I’ve done it.”
And the legal and reasonable tasks are often beyond either the client or the helper’s imagination.
“I got a call at 6:30 a.m. saying, `There’s a terrible smell in my house. I’m getting on a plane, please handle it,’ ” says Pam Mellor of Concierges Plus. “She couldn’t pinpoint it.
“We got the exterminator who said it was a (dead) possum or raccoon.”
