Fair Payment for Some Yard Work

I babysat one time in my life.

I'd replace soz's septic tank and milk her pet pit viper before doing that again.

Maybe I'd leave the tree, E.G. enjoys that kind of thing and if everything around it is taken care of, he (E.G.) can go ahead and chop or saw it down pretty easily. Good point about liability, I wouldn't want the kid to do anything dangerous.

I'd make sure he knows what poison ivy looks like and also have Tecnu and such on hand.

Mostly it'd just be grunt work, hard but not super-hard.

$10/ hr seems about right to me for babysitting, I agree with Chai, mostly. (I did it a lot when I was a teenager but doing the yard is less work and less exhausting.) (Keep in mind that I've done the yard for the past five years so I do have a basis of comparison.) (I wouldn't milk anyone's pet pit viper tho.)

$10/hour would be the norm here for yard work. But you suggest that it is only 3 or so hours. If he turns out to be a slow worker, spending too much time on his cell phone, it might cost you $40 or $50. So what? Job done and he is gone.
If he turns out to be a great worker, give him a hefty tip, hang onto his phone number and refer him to friends.
(At one time, a few years ago, I was recognized as the largest employer of Goths in Cville. They worked really hard, but did tend to sigh a lot).

If the work is dangerous use professionals.

If the work is slightly dangerous pay more for it than you'd pay a teen to make sandwiches , watch tv with your kid, and text on their cells..

$10 for the man
$8 for the teen
PER HOUR

(you have determined that this is a 3 hour job, with 2 workers, so that's $54) from what you have decribed, that's fair.

PS - After the cleanup - put down Preen now and again in the spring. That may help with some weeds. Got to get that poison ivy out. Get special stuff for that and let them apply is to the main mother vine.

Yep, the poison ivy is an ongoing project. There was an enormous (like 80-foot high and 4-inch diameter) mother poison ivy vine when we moved in. It took a few years but I vanquished it (not easy).

Small poison ivy plants keep popping up though, mostly because there is a lot of it in the area and birds eat the berries and then fly into our yard. As far as I know, I got all of the new little ones in the last round this summer, but there is some possibility that I missed one or that more grew since then.

We offered the guy (11th grader) $15/ hour. He was fine with that! He's starting today, will let you know how it goes. (Unseasonably nice weather [60's] just in time for him to do it. Hopefully it won't rain though.)

Not to be too nit-picky, but I think posion ivy propagates through creeping vines or roots - NOT berries!

You need Round-up or something similar and spray the leaves (light infestation); however, it's been my experience that real problem infestations may mean digging up the roots (spreading wider than you might think) and efficient eradication entails some REAL grunt work.

http://landscaping.about.com/cs/weedsdiseases/a/poison_ivy_3.htm

" ... consider various methods to get rid of poison ivy itself, where it grows in your yard. The first question to ask is how to how to get rid of poison ivy safely.

Indeed, a word caution is in order, before discussing any actions to be taken to get rid of poison ivy on the landscape. When approaching poison ivy to engage it in battle, try to have as little of your skin exposed as possible, since it is through physical contact with poison ivy (all parts of it, including the roots) that the rash is contracted. At the very least, this means wearing gloves, long-sleeved shirt and full-length pants. Secondly, understand that any of the methods discussed below to get rid of poison ivy may have to be implemented more than once to achieve complete success.

One organic method used to get rid of poison ivy is to pull it out by the roots. The roots must be disposed of; do not burn! Inhaling fumes from burning poison ivy causes far greater health problems than just the rash caused by skin contact. Another natural method is to get rid of poison ivy by smothering it. Smothering entails cutting it back close to the ground, then placing newspapers, cardboard, old carpeting, tarps, mulch or some other covering on top of it. However, be aware that, even after you kill poison ivy plants, they remain toxic. So be careful in disposing of the roots of the dead vines after pulling back the smothering agent (even if you've waited for years).

Herbicides can also be used to get rid of poison ivy. Roundup spray is a popular glyphosate-based herbicide used to get rid of poison ivy. Another widely-available herbicide is Ortho Brush-B-Gon, which is triclopyr-based. These products will kill a great variety of woody plants, making them effective not only in getting rid of poison ivy, but also another nuisance vine: oriental bittersweet. But they will kill many other plants, too, so don't use them near specimens you wish to keep. If you choose to apply these herbicides by spraying, here's what to do:


•You'll need a tank sprayer; mix the product with water, according to directions.
•Apply when the poison ivy is fully leafed out.
•Pick a day with little or no wind for spraying. Also, check your forecast: don't spray if rain is predicted at any time within the next 24 hours.
•For poison ivy plant growing on the ground or on a wall, heavily spray the leaves and vines. Older poison ivy has large hairy vines -- another dead giveaway for identifying them.
•For poison ivy climbing up a tree, you may wish to "paint" the herbicide on, so as to preclude damaging the tree with a stray mist from your sprayer."

(Emphasis mine.)

http://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/weedguide/singlerecord.asp?id=420

I've done the grunt work. Gawd, have I. (Again, it took a few years.)

Edit: Note, I'm not saying it's only via birds + animals. Just, that even after I got rid of every trace of the poison ivy that had spread via roots etc. (and that was a really enormous amount of work), more little ones (easy to pull up by the root) showed up. I researched and found out that the seeds are also dispersed, especially by birds, and there is no defense there. You just need to keep pulling them up when you see them. All of my neighbors have the same problem.

Thanks for the correction and sorry for any confusion (on my part). My poison ivy infestation was due to PI growing/climbing on the fence separating the space between my neighbor's yard and mine. Birds always roosted on that same wooden fence fence. So that method of propagation makes sense.

Spread
"The spread and propagation of poison ivy are as follows; a seed germinates, the plant then spreads by patching, sending out runners for six to ten inches to start a new plant. The plant is looking for something to climb, like a tree or fence post. When it finds a tree the vine will grow up to several inches in diameter and climb to its’ top. Propagation occurs on the larger vines which produce the poison ivy berries. Birds, after eating the berries, deposits the seed in our yards and woodlands and the ivy starts looking for another tree. If you find a vine, look for the characteristic patching so it can be eliminated. The berries on larger vines are readily identifiable, as they resemble mistletoe berry clusters but they are ivory colored.

Herbicides
Eradication of poison ivy is usually done with a systemic herbicide 2,4-D, glyphosate, or triclopyr. The ivy takes up the herbicide through its leaves and kills the entire plant. Because the ivy is normally in shaded areas, it has a slow growth rate and thus a slow uptake of the herbicide. Always spray with low winds. Read and follow label directions. If you should get the herbicide in your eyes, stop and flush immediately. I prefer the concentrates but these herbicides also come as premix. If you do mix, and are mixing one or more gallons, the ratio ranges from 2/3 to 6 ounces per gallon. I often do small test areas using an inexpensive quart sprayer; however, now the ratios get small using teaspoons and tablespoons. Spooning herbicides is difficult and given that one fluid ounce equals approximately 29.6 cubic centimeters, I convert oz/gal to cc/qt. To convert multiply oz by 29.6 and then divide by 4. Then write the cc/qt on herbicide container. Then label the quart sprayer as a killer so you do not reuse it for something inappropriate. Syringes without a needle can be purchased at a pharmacy but they normally only carry up to 10 cc size. Your veterinarian will normally carry a 20 cc syringe which works well. The treatment of herbicides to kill the poison ivy is not a one shot affair, it may take several applications over years to eradicate and then a watchful eye to keep it gone. "

One piece of good news maybe is that someone bought a property nearby that had a fairly large area that was completely wild (lots of honeysuckle and completely overrun with poison ivy) and cleared it out. So all of that poison ivy is gone. That might have helped.

Yes, it certainly will help. We used to call Poison Ivy the 'Town Flower' for my town.

There are also garden torches you can use.

That stuff is SO hard to get rid of!!

Yep! I have a couple of threads on the saga around here somewhere (one about the original problem, then another more general one that had updates).

It was epic for sure. It really seems to be pretty much under control, though, knock on wood. The kid came over yesterday and got a LOT done in about 2.5 hours, not finished yet but significant progress (he's coming back today). He didn't see any poison ivy at all. (I did an advance search too, didn't see any.)

What pay rate did you settle on?

$15/ hour. At one point I brought him out some water and he commented that it's REALLY hard work (not obnoxiously, just after we had talked about some other stuff). I said I know, I've done it... and that I'd asked around and people had recommended the 8-10 dollar range, but since I've done it and know how hard it is I thought I'd bump it up to $15. He seemed to think that was fair.

Oh and minimum wage in Ohio is $7.30/ hour.

If you mean, incenerate the stuff, don't stand downwind. I've heard the fumes are pretty nasty.

true, the sap can be vaporized and still affect skin and lungs, this happened to my grandfather many years ago

And there are more unusual ways to get it, like breathing smoke from firewood burning with poison ivy on it. Which can also put people into the hospital.

How long does the oil last?

The oil from poison ivy is extremely stable and will stay potent - essentially forever. You can get a rash from clothing or tools that have the oil from last summer, or even from many years back.

So if you don't remove the oil by washing, using alcohol to dissolve it, or by just hosing off with a hard spray from a hose - assume it will stay forever.


http://www.poison-ivy.org/html/faq.htm