How to help elderly tenants get odd jobs done

For elderly people, finding someone to do odd jobs around the home isn’t just a question of cost or convenience – it’s also about trust. “Elderly tenants want to use a trustworthy person who has links to a reputable organisation,” says Jo Savage, housing director of Howard Cottage Society.

So the north Hertfordshire-based association joined a local scheme where tenants who are over 60, or disabled, can call a dedicated worker to help with tasks the landlord is not obliged to carry out. These might include installing an electrical socket, laying kitchen flooring, putting up curtain poles, changing washers on taps or putting up a fence.

To set up a similar scheme, first make sure there’s a demand. Almost four-fifths of Howard Cottage’s tenants are elderly or disabled and they were very much in favour of the landlord joining a repairs service – in this case set up by local home improvement agency Anchor Staying Put and aimed at elderly owner-occupiers.

“Especially our older tenants said they’d like somebody to do odd jobs for a small fee,” says Savage.

Joining an existing scheme is a good idea, she adds, because the experts are already in place and the paperwork can be dealt with centrally. Check with home improvement agencies – not-for-profit bodies that help vulnerable people stay in their homes – to see if they run anything similar in your area.

When recruiting your labourer, the right personality is more important than a string of qualifications. Roger Fisher, who coordinates Anchor Staying Put’s schemes in three areas of Hertfordshire, says: “We shouldn’t be doing jobs that a qualified gas technician or electrician would do, so we weren’t looking for technical qualifications. We wanted somebody who could demonstrate some experience, not just say, ‘I’ve done these DIY jobs in my own home’.”

Jim Bowskill, north Hertfordshire’s handyman, had worked as a builder and plumber. Fisher says he was also chosen because he was friendly and seemed likely to get on well with tenants.

For tenants’ peace of mind, you should get police checks done on the worker

For tenants’ peace of mind, you should get police checks done on prospective repair workers by the Criminal Records Bureau. This costs about £75 and takes a month.

Decide how you will fund the scheme: the north Hertfordshire service costs about £28,500 a year to run, which covers: a salary of about £18,000; equipment; protective clothing; a contribution towards the call centre at Anchor Staying Put; insurance and the rental of a van. This was funded by contributions from the different partners, including north Hertfordshire council adult care services, Howard Cottage and the local primary care trust, plus a £12,000 grant from Supporting People.

Keep any charge at a reasonable level for pensioners: the north Hertfordshire scheme asks them to pay for any materials and requests a donation of £10 an hour. As this is voluntary, there is no need to charge VAT on it. The payment contributes just a fraction of the running costs but Savage says people are happy to pay it – and sometimes more. Any surplus is put into a pot to help those unable to afford it.

As well as DIY, Bowskill will also put up flat-pack furniture, help to remove bulky rubbish or put up sheds. But you have to make a judgment on how essential these tasks are. “People pay for materials, so this is more about how long jobs would take rather than the cost of materials,” Savage says. As a rough measure, most jobs take no more than about half a day, she adds.

Savage says opening the scheme up to all elderly tenants has been worthwhile: “Some schemes say you can’t take part if your relatives live nearby, regardless of whether they have eight children at home and a full-time job. Those schemes are more hassle to administrate, because it’s hard to check where people’s families are. And they’re unequal – why should somebody not have access to a service just because they’ve got relatives nearby?”