Handyman & House Maintenance in Belgium
We need a handyman to come and volunteer with us for a year. You’ll help with the place in exchange for free accommodation, and bonuses and have plenty of free time to work an extra job, study, chill or travel.
Handyman & House Maintenance in Belgium – Quick Checks
Hours & Roster: 15 hours a week
What’s included? Free accommodation & bonuses
What’s Not Included? Flights, food & meals, visa, pocket money & travel insurance
Handyman & House Maintenance in Belgium – Help Required
At home, there are always things to repair, maintain and organize. We are looking for one skilled person who can think about it, something like a housekeeper but focused on the maintenance, organization, and administration of the house. You’ll have responsibilities about the house with the use and maintenance responsibilities of the car (van). Some useful skills for us:
- You are a handyman, well organized and a good organizer, clean & tidy, with a capacity to fix problems and schedule work independently, with electric, plumbing & building basics, with carpentry basics (ability to work with wood). You are willing to use google cloud software (Gmail, drive, calendar, hangouts, and Android) and like ecology, vegetarianism, and sports & using Google (we use it for home organization).
House organization, cleaning and managing:
- Check the safety at home (smoke detectors, electric installation).
- Check if everybody at home is ok and jump in for every problem.
- Organize, order, and keep tidy where/when needed.
- Buy home-shared products (soaps, paper, mop, brush…).
- Control that everybody follows the home cleaning plan (eventually, you have to clean for the person who does not clean, then you get a bonus each time);
- Help the neighbors (left and right sides).
Post & Administration:
- Get post-mail and forward-scan it digitally via email.
- Small paper work (print, go to the post, collect a parcel).
House Maintenance:
- Preventive maintenance (maintain the house working well: Change broken light bulbs, keep doors open/close smoothly, fill the gaps if there is wind coming from a window).
- Fixing broken things (repair a broken sofa, repair dishwasher).
- Electric reparations (we have a hi-tech house, a lot of light sensors, fingerprint doors, and electric appliances). Keep all appliances with a timer (auto-off).
- Plumbing reparations (the plumbing system at home is easy to work on, made with “alpex”, you have eventually to install a sink, install some extra pipes, etc.).
- House appliances maintenance (check that the dishwasher gets cleaning cycles regularly, clean filters of the washing machine).
- Making a few extraordinary works to the house (paint, small building works).
- Installation of new house equipment (dishwasher, washing machine, cabinets, curtains, hang a painting).
- Paint on the walls (inside or outside).
- Varnish wood (wooden floors, wooden cabinets).
- Start the car once every couple of weeks and make an oil/water checks monthly.
- If you can even make small reparation to the car, then, you are our favorite for sure.
List unused stuff:
- At home we sell our inexpensive items we don’t use anymore (furniture, electronics, appliances), we have an online “shop” with our home stuff listed, you have to: Take pictures of unused stuff, List it on the site, answer to potential buyers, Ship the item or arrange an appointment (to let them collect it at home). You’ll get a bonus for this: 50% – max 10 euros per item.
Guests (we use Airbnb):
- Welcome guests.
- Prepare the room for them: clean the room, the sheets, and the towels. You will get a bonus for this task.
Of course you don’t have to do all the above tasks all the time, those are all the possible tasks in general.
Handyman & House Maintenance in Belgium – Hours & Roster
- The working schedule averages 15 hours a week: one full day (10hrs) and 1 hr a day for 5 days, you can schedule the work as you want (when possible) and you will have time for your activities (extra job, studying, chilling out, traveling).
Sleeping: Accommodation in a shared house in your attic room (not really big, on the 3rd floor). You’ll have use of a bicycle and van (it’s a kind of camper, you can even sleep inside of it, you can do some trips with it, but not use it for transportation within the city).
Linen & Laundry: Linen and towels are available. Laundry facilities are available also.
Eating: Food is not provided, but you will get a bonus any time you do extra tasks. You have the freedom to eat and cook what you want (at your own expense). We are independent about eating. If someone feels like cooking for others, they just do it. We try to eat together every Sunday – also discuss practical things regarding the house.
Transport: On confirmation and agreement of stay we can provide more detail on how best to get to us. We are located near train stations and the university.
Handyman & House Maintenance in Belgium – Amenities & Preferences
- 1 position available.
- You have a driving license (from time to time you need to use our van).
- You need to have EU citizenship or permission (visa) to be in Europe for at least one year.
- Staying period at least one year. You can come to stay for the first two weeks as a test.
- We would prefer a single volunteer, 25 – 40-year-olds.
- HI-SPEED Wireless Internet included.
- Accept male and female volunteers.
- You will be living in a shared house with 5 or 6 persons (international professionals/students male/female between 18 – 30 years old). You will be the only volunteer in the house (you are considered a housemate exactly like the others at home, the only difference is that you take care of the general maintenance of the house, and the housemates rely on you for this).
- You’ll do your cleaning task (the kitchen/dishwasher) plus you’ll check weekly that everybody is following the cleaning plan, you do the extra needed cleaning tasks (with a bonus) and keep the house tidy.
- We believe that living together is not easy, but each of us has to make an effort to make everyday life at home enjoyable for everybody. We are also sensible about ecology and we like to keep our home a place where we waste as little as possible (energy & products), we buy & sell second hand. One of your tasks will be to ensure everybody is motivated about it.
- We are all couch surfing friendly.
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