Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

To pay gardener £80 so that we can actually use our garden!

50 replies

fadetoblack · 04/08/2015 21:47

My DP is currently furious with me and refusing to talk. DP has an undiagnosed medical condition where he is frequently tired and unable to do physical activity. This includes looking after our 18 month DD. I do all of the tasks involved in running the house but managing time.between naps to sort out the garden is beyond me. DP has consistently promised to sort it out,but the grass is now three foot high and weeds are everywhere. I want my DD to be able to play in the garden before the weather becomes completely rotten. I have arranged for a gardener to spend five hours getting the garden back to a normal level this week, but DP is livid! Have I been unreasonable?

To pay gardener £80 so that we can actually use our garden!

OP posts:

MammaTJ · 04/08/2015 22:21

I paid £45 for a bigger job than that, the gardener took away at least (that is what I saw) 5 dumpy bags of waste from our garden and spent a few hours on it. This included quite a lot of bramble taming.

He now charges £8 every two weeks for a bit of maintenance.

I would be angry at you being ripped off, rather than you gaining control!

ItsAll · 04/08/2015 22:23

Did I miss the bit where the OP posted the dimensions and detailed description of her garden ? Why are lots of people saying that their gardener would do it for £x ?

OP, YANBU.

Itsbloodyraining · 04/08/2015 22:26

There's a picture.

bettyberry · 04/08/2015 22:27

I have a chap come cut the grass. I live alone and cannot feasibly do everything. Getting someone it to do a mammoth task you have is pretty damn sensible.

On the upside use of an outdoor space with benefit you all. Big improvement in mental health all round. Your DH will no longer have that looming over him, you wont have to look at the damn jungle out there everyday or need to hassle DH about it and when DD is being a pain in need of letting off steam you can send her out!

100butterflies · 04/08/2015 22:27

Sorry itsall,the picture and description of long grass and weeds, probably sent posters in the wrong direction.

Hellochicken · 04/08/2015 22:28

It's very reasonable to get a gardeners help and use the garden.

However, if your DP has said he will do it, he may want to but just not be able to and that must be hard to come to terms with.

starlight2007 · 04/08/2015 22:28

I don't think you are unreasonable to want the garden doing..I also can't see £80 worth of work.. My worry is you are been ripped off..What is your DH issue.. has he said?

ItsAll · 04/08/2015 22:33

Oh God , I just came back to this thread thinking I bet there's a photo. I can't see photos on the phone app! Sorry everyone, IWBU .

Charlesroi · 04/08/2015 22:35

YANBU

Your DP can't do it - if he can't look after your DD then weeding, strimming and mowing isn't going to happen - and you don't have the time to do it. It's probably very frustrating for him, but them's the breaks. He'll come round in the end.

LuluJakey1 · 04/08/2015 22:37

I don't think YABU at all. I think what you have described is easily 5 hours work and £80 quid isn't unreasonable.

We have a gardener who comes about 4 times a year and charges £17.50 an hour- takes the rubbish away to the council compost tip too. He does whatever we ask him to.

Your DC will get so much pleasure from that garden and it will make you and DH feel better to have it tidy and manageable. Just do it.

Shadow1986 · 04/08/2015 22:38

£80 for 5 hours work is a reasonable price in my opinion and I've paid the same. It was well worth it. My husband was a bit put out too but I got sick of pestering him about it.

If the gardener sorts it out, will be easier for your DH to maintain it from then on.

Charlesroi · 04/08/2015 22:38

I should also say that if you don't get it done you'll start pissing off the neighbours (weed seeds etc).

ProcrastinatorGeneral · 04/08/2015 22:45

I'd pay that. Enjoy your newfound garden :)

BorderWrangler · 04/08/2015 22:46

Oh, I so understand your frustration on both counts!

2 years of bouncing my Da about every department in the hospital, scratching for a diagnoses. Then when they found one it's "Not much we can do really. Try this for the pain, but the side effects are equally debilitating, sorry!" Fingers crossed you and your DP eventually get to the bottom of it with a decent outcome.

One of the main side effects of his meds is that they make him so ridiculously fatigued. And it genuinely is difficult to maintain patience with somebody who makes their own, and their family's, life more difficult because they're tired- because they're so tired they can't do anything to help themselves! Too tired to eat. Too tired to mow the lawn. Too tired to book or keep that important appointment. Too fucking tired to deal the reality of their illness so we'll just go with the unhelpful denial.

And all our frustration is tangled up in the worry that we feel for them, the guilt because we know we ought to be more sympathetic, and our own added frustrations that we can't fix the problem, and before you know it you've got two snappy, resentful buggers and a big argument over hiring a gardener to cut the grass- because it's so much more than that for one party, but for the other party it's nowt but basic common sense.

TripTrapTripTrapOverTheBridge · 04/08/2015 22:48

Looks a bit similar to how mine has been If it helps, that long pale grassy stuff pulls out really easy - the whole length, so if you go yank it from half way or so down, maybe with a twist around your hand, you may get the price down ;) It doesn't take long to pull it up :)

GoblinLittleOwl · 05/08/2015 13:03

You have more than enough to cope with, with a difficult (for whatever reason) husband. £80 for five hours gardening is good, and you will then have somewhere you can enjoy as well as your children.
Don't feel guilty about a practical solution that will benefit all your family.

Original poster

fadetoblack · 05/08/2015 14:01

You have pretty much summed up my life border. I do feel selfish and self centred when I get frustrated with him, but as you said feeling crappy does not give you the right to be a dick!

He is still refusing to talk to me and is just making snide comments about me to our 18 month old DD. Which thankfully she can't understand. But through his illness he has become someone I don't know.

I am just pretending that all is normal and refusing to engage with his game playing. Although inside I am raging at him and calling him a fucking arse and worse.

OP posts:

FattieDoc · 05/08/2015 14:07

£80?? That's pretty cheap. Not in London are you?

UrethraFranklin1 · 05/08/2015 15:27

I could sort that in less than 5 hrs. I suspect DH is unhappy because you should've got more quotes.

Then HE should have got some more quotes. I doubt he's so ill he can't use a phone.

He can fuck off being livid, how dare he? Being ill doesn't mean you not only do nothing for your family but give out shite when they get on with trying to have a life for themselves. Selfish prick.

ThatBloodyWoman · 05/08/2015 15:34

Just do it.
Or failing that see if someone can look after your toddler,do it yourself,and spend the £80 on some 2nd hand garden furniture or outdoor toys.

Plomino · 05/08/2015 16:02

Id get someone in too . As I do for every chore I cant do, or dont have time or inclination for . Next week I'm paying for someone to come in and sort out my fencing . I could do it , but its a royal PITA and its not as well done. So I pay someone else . Dh could do it , but he's working 6 days out of seven lately . He's surprised I haven't paid someone before . It's not a slur on his manhood fgs , it just needs doing .

Marynary · 05/08/2015 21:41

If £80 is quite a lot of money to you, you perhaps should have discussed it with your DH before hiring someone to sort out the garden. Ultimately though he needs to accept that you can't do everything so if he is not up to helping you, you will need to pay for someone else to do some jobs.

CalmYourselfTubbs · 05/08/2015 21:56

YANBU.
it'll never be done if you don't pay someone.
sorry he's sick but it doesn't give him the right to act like a nob.
and he's selfish for not sorting it out before the summer started.

MistressMia · 05/08/2015 22:21

He now charges £8 every two weeks for a bit of maintenance

I can't believe its worth anyones while to travel to a job for the princely sum of £8. That's less than min wage when you factor in the persons costs.

I would be deeply uncomfortable and embarrassed paying such a pittance to anybody.

BorderWrangler · 05/08/2015 22:26

He is still refusing to talk to me and is just making snide comments about me to our 18 month old DD. Which thankfully she can't understand. But through his illness he has become someone I don't know.

I'd call him out on the comments. It's not on to use your DD as a PA stick to beat you with, no matter how shitty he feels.

I understand where you're coming from when you say he's like a different person. My dad (just realised typing 'Da' looks like baby-talk, oops! We pronounce it 'dar/dahr' around here) became an unbearable rage monster. He's improved a lot, partly through changing his meds. But it did reach the point where pretty much the entire family had had enough of his shit and told him so. It was such a change from the lovely man he normally is Being ill doesn't make it OK to be spiteful, after all.

Anyways, mostly just posting to say I get where you're coming from, and hope things are improving a bit this evening

Flip

1 2