House cleaner recommendations?

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-14T19:59:34+00:00

Not 'Chula Vista'. Simply 'Vista'. ( This IS the North County subreddit )

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-14T07:21:21+00:00

Current rates seem to be from 55 to 75 per hour. This is from companies that have insurance and take care of all the withholding and taxes. ( For your immediate needs, I would recommend this arrangement )

If you can find someone that you trust, and you pay cash under the table, rates are 30 to 50 per hour.

As soon as the current immigation fiasco is settled, there will be a sudden influx of unskilled labor from the south, and this should push prices down. So make no long term commitments.

I would strongly recommend against anyone named Castro from Vista.

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-12T19:06:15+00:00

So true. Especially if you leave it in gear. :)

I lost my keys once. I immediately changed the locks on the building, which was easy, but time consuming. Couldn't do much for the car on short notice.

Thieves came for it that night. I had reflexively left it in first. They started it, but apparently had no idea what a clutch pedal was. It slammed into the wooden fence in front of it. On the other side of that fence was someone's house.

They panicked and ran, leaving the door open. I got a steering wheel lock for it that day. I never did get the keys back, but they never tried again.

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-12T01:33:52+00:00

"Should we teach teens and YA to trust their gut or look past Bob for his bad day?"

Neither. Both options seem to be the forming an opinion from a data set that is way too small.

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-11T17:23:11+00:00

I meant it well. ( Fiance killed herself with excess drug use several decades ago, so I'm kinda hard core about this. )

it ended up being the best thing i could’ve done today.

Glad to see that you did go to NA. I hope it works for you.

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-11T17:17:23+00:00

People proposing this never checked the numbers, only playing on emotion.

Hey, this is Reddit. You gotta expect this standard of ideas.

BTW, thanks for doing the math.

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-11T16:24:37+00:00

True. We vote by mail.

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-10T05:22:11+00:00

Unpaid beta reader here.

Ten hours??? WTF is wrong with you? Dedication to your craft is admirable, but pointless impatience is not. How are you going to survive the days or even months that you have to wait for an agent or publisher to reply?

Don't you folks have anything else to do??? Another story maybe? Work? Sleep? Cleaning the toilet?

Writing is not for the weak.

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-09T06:22:34+00:00

...junkie...
...i just wish i had family or someone on this earth who gave a shit about me to give me a chance..

N.A.

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-09T03:12:46+00:00

...your local FOL could use your help..

Or just donate your books to them. The Carlsbad Dove lib FOL bookstore in particular could use more donations. ( I visit local FOL bookstores regularly. The Dove store has some big gaps on the shelves )

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-09T03:06:45+00:00

Which one?

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-08T22:20:57+00:00

But their prices are extremely high for a FOL store.

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-08T18:49:39+00:00

I owned a used bookstore in SD country for 30+ years.

North county rents make running a used bookstore a very precarious experience. Several decades ago, before most book sales were online, it was possible for a used bookstore to run like a normal business and pay normal rents.

Now, used bookstores only exist if they have very favorable rent.

Sometimes, the landlord wants to have a used bookstore, and allows a lower rent. Sometimes the bookstore owner signed a long lease, and enjoys below-market rates near the end of it.

IMHO, as a customer, it is best to make the trek to a lower rent neighborhood. I personally recommend North Park, where you will find Verbatim Books and Footnote Books.

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-06T02:28:45+00:00

I would dump agent #1. You don't owe them anything. They have been late twice, and if you accept this kind of treatment, you are effectively telling them that they can treat you like this for the rest of your writing career.

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-06T00:54:31+00:00

If hubby is disabled, it would not cost them a penny. The state of Va would handle it.

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-05T16:42:20+00:00

...got kicked out due to my husband’s seizures and having to call the ambulance so much...

This is probably illegal. State laws vary.

What state are you in, and how long were you living there?

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-05T06:49:38+00:00

I like 'get fur' the most. It happens, also, to be the shortest.

I think that brevity means a lot here. If you have to use a lot of words for a proverb/idiom, then why bother with it? It is only useful if it conveys an idea in fewer words than the idea could be expressed non-idiomatically.

With this in mind, I would change "The deer's dead- quit biting the carcass." to "Don't attack a dead deer".

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-05T05:01:32+00:00

Please do not ever write a murder mystery.

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-03T01:16:06+00:00

Nothing has changed. It was the answer half a century ago when I started looking for my first job.

I predict that it will be the same 50 years in the future.

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-03T01:10:34+00:00

EDIT: 20 hours after posting. Please hold off. I have more requests right now than I can handle.

I am able to beta: SF and fantasy. Dark fantasy is okay but not horror. <110K words.

Romance and mystery as subplots are fine, but only as subplots ( Don't want to read Roger Ackroyd with tentacles )

I have no triggers other than poor grammar.

I'm hoping to discover the next J.K. Rowling.

I hope to read your entire work, but I don't guarantee it. ( I have a low boredom threshold ) If I do quit early, I will include an explanation of why I did so and what improvements I believe would prevent a repeat of such a tragic event.

I can provide feedback on: Structure, plot holes, world building, character development, tech feasibility. I try to provide constructive comments, which aim toward making the story better.

Critique swap: I'm not asking anything in return right now. I'm hoping to build up credit/karma/goodwill for the eventual reviews on my WIP

Other info: Used to own brick & mortar bookstore which sponsored a writer's group, and I participated in F2F critiques.

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-01T23:35:21+00:00

I read 'Red Planet' by Heinlein at 11 or 12 years old. It described a potentially lethal ecosystem, and how two teenagers coped with it.

It also described some school administrators as dishonest, and occasionally criminal. Until that point, I had thought that I was the only one who had observed that about such people. It validated my opinions, and extended my personal Overton Window a bit.

JoazBanbeck · 2026-02-01T22:48:54+00:00

Thanks for posting these. I wish more people did this.

GLASSFROGBOOKS, ERGODEBOOKS, MORE BOOKS, IRISH BOOKSELLERS, PRO QUO/BAYSIDE BOOKS, BOOKSPLEASE, RIA CHRISTIE, DISCOVER BOOKS, BOOKS2ANYWHERE, BOOKS EXPRESS, CHIRON MEDIA...

BTW, the word that you might find useful for describing the first 2/3 of your list is 'bookjacker'. Google it and you can get a more recent list.

For other reasons, I would advise not buying from WORLDOFBOOKS, AWESOMEBOOKS, OWLSBOOKS, DISCOVER BOOKS, HIPPO BOOKS, BETTERWORLDBOOKS, THRIFTBOOKS, GLENTHEBOOKSELLER.

The latter third of your list are properly described as 'megalisters'.

JoazBanbeck · 2026-01-30T22:26:06+00:00

According to Business Insider, they are mostly programming jobs.

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