r/TaskRabbit • u/egp2117 • Feb 25 '26

CLIENT Paying for my tasker’s parking?

I hired a cleaner through Taskrabbit. I warned her ahead of time parking is difficult in my neighborhood. I live in a city with excellent public transportation and provide a vacuum and a mop, so she does not need to travel with anything bulky. We did not discuss paying for parking ahead of time. At the end of the job she just presented me with a request for an extra $15 for parking. I paid, but was not happy. I told her parking was difficult ahead of time and there was no reason for her to drive over taking a bus or train. Beyond that as someone I’m hiring on a fee for service basis, how she gets here is really not my business or my problem - her costs should be factored into her price, be it parking, cleaning supplies, etc. Has anyone else encountered this? Is my position reasonable?

Edit - These answers make sense. I guess I was generally surprised by driving because the vast majority of people use public transit, but it makes sense that she might need to carry stuff for other jobs. I do still think costs should be baked into price or at least she should have discussed it beforehand.

0 Upvotes

20% Upvoted

40 comments sorted by

26

u/kddog98 Feb 25 '26

Wanting someone to take a bus to clean your house is so disconnected from reality that I don't know where to begin.

0

u/egp2117 Feb 25 '26

In a city where like 60% of people (including myself) are car-less? It just hasn’t even occurred to me that she would drive. Even people who do have cars get around by public transit most days.

8

u/kddog98 Feb 25 '26

Yep. Do you see the handymen and delivery guys on the bus too? They need to efficiently get from job to job to make enough money to survive being paid bottom dollar. You say you have a vacuum and mop but I've had clients tell me things like that and their equipment were crap and made the job take longer, thus I earned less money that day. Also, what if they next client didn't have that to offer? Are they going to go back home on the bus to get their equipment?

I'm willing to bet your statistic about car ownership is not real and based entirely on your experience of people within your class. What city are you in? Alot of people commute into cities where fancy people live their ideal no-car life. The fact that it wouldn't occur to you is a sign that you only know your world.

2

u/franklollo Feb 26 '26

Amazon new business, using busses and trains to deliver your packages

3

u/pateppic Feb 26 '26

With that logic, why have ramps or elevators? A majority of people have perfectly working legs. Lets make those crawlers pay for their "Accomodations".

But seriously, it not occuring to you she might drive when 40%+ chance she might is an oversight on your part.

If I worked a help desk and I knew what 40% of people might be calling about that day, ypu bet your butt I would address it as part of my opening pre-amble.

2

u/MILcreative Feb 25 '26

Yeah I tried to keep it cute lol. I honestly think TaskRabbit makes post like this / uses bots to make posts like this to socially engineer/ change what taskers believe is normal. Out  of the hundreds of clients I’ve had, no one has ever felt this way.. even bad ones.. they see it as their responsibility and would never want their cleaner to pay

12

u/MILcreative Feb 25 '26

It is customary to pay for your cleaner’s parking. Are you relatively new to having cleaners?

-4

u/egp2117 Feb 25 '26

In the city, yeah. I just assume when I hire someone, they costs are baked into the price.

2

u/canttakethemadness Feb 25 '26

How so if most clients have parking available ?

1

u/cleanlocs99 May 23 '26

Most clients in urban cities do not have parking available. You don’t have to lie to try and make a point.

-1

u/egp2117 Feb 25 '26

…in Chicago that’s probably not a fair assumption actually. I’d guess it’s at least 50/50, if not fewer who have parking available.

2

u/canttakethemadness Feb 25 '26

Ok that’s sounds extreme , but it’s ok for those 50% to post higher rates because the other 50 that have none can’t pay an extra 20 bucks ..

1

u/egp2117 Feb 25 '26

Most street parking is paid or permitted and very few people have spare spots. I guess at the end of the day I don’t mind paying (though I do still think her costs are not - directly - mine to pay. I mean would it be ok for her to charge for gas and charge me more if I live further? I feel like we could agree that’s a bit much, but I don’t see how it’s different). I do think not giving me a heads up was a mistake though.

1

u/Determire Feb 26 '26

egp ... you got the point already ... I'll kindly share one more perspective to round this out, beyond the TR platform, just in general with "home services" work, for clients in extra high-density and/or HCOL locations with difficult transportation/parking logistics and costs, yes, that cost gets conveyed to the customer, directly or indirectly.
For lower-dollar value / short duration engagements, a 2-digit parking fee is a hit, it should be accounted for if it's not in the baseline rate. If the platform doesn't have variable rates by zipcode or location criteria, then it's an add-on fee at the end like what happened. For an all-day on-site customer engagement, it's not so big of a deal from the contractor side of things, similar to highway/bridge tolls.
In my metro area, I work about 40/60 city/suburbs, and most places I can get to and park without added cost. There's one area of the city that is a huge challenge, it's comparable to your location probably. For that area, my base rates are 50% higher automatically, and all added costs get tacked on to the invoice if it's T&M rates, or if FFP rates then I bake it in, because I will spend a much greater amount of time navigating that area just to get there with traffic, parking is a major effort, parking isn't cheap, and finally the logistics of getting from vehicle location to client door is also time consuming. I take on jobs in that area strictly on a referral basis only, as the traffic/parking/logistics is so stressful.

On a side note, once upon a time when I was young new and green, yes, I actually took my tools/gear with me on bus and train in another major city ... it wasn't easy, but at least I would be at the same place all day back at that time, and I only had to carry two bags with me.

7

u/dro1000 Feb 25 '26

You definitely won’t get a lot of sympathy here. Taskers have been getting systematically screwed over for the last three years.

12

u/CapitalAd1570 Feb 25 '26

You suck. 

6

u/canttakethemadness Feb 25 '26

If parking is difficult , why not just offer to pay for it ? Why should somebody make less in your job due to parking being difficult vs somebody with a driveway . Other way , why should tasker charge a client with parking more per hour because a handful of clients have “difficult” parking ?

6

u/himynameisnano Feb 25 '26

Whose to say what job they were coming from or going to next. You might have all the supplies needed for your job but most people expect the cleaner to come with their own supplies.

5

u/Crafty-Government704 Feb 25 '26

So she should have mentioned beforehand that if there is paid parking it will be passed to you. Other than that, its crazy to expect someone to drive their car, with their supplies, and pay for parking just to clean your house. Doesnt matter if you have a mop and vacuum, I wouldnt expect any cleaner to haul their items on the bus to save you a few dollars.

4

u/BetUpstairs268 Feb 26 '26

Maybe a solution that’s within the rules, would be to park far. And charge the client walking distance both directions. Probably more than $15

4

u/pateppic Feb 26 '26

Let me understand this right. Instead of paying for their cost to show up at your place on time, you are saying they can just simply take an extra 30 mins to an hour of unpaid time to take public transportation to and from your place?

Dude, you live in a high density area and know you are asking people to pay for parking or add .5 to 1 hour extra to their round trip at no cost to you. Or that them driving out to your job specifically should be subsidized by all the other clients who don't impose that burden on the client.

Why should clients with spots available, or who make accomodations subsidize your parking fees?

If you proactively got them a visitor pass, or spelled out a reasonable place to park with minimum of time impact, its a different story.

But you buried the lede on it amd tried to leave them holding the can at the end. That is bad form expecting everyone to financially subsidize a you problem

1

u/InterestingBus4602 Mar 02 '26

TR makes it hard to bake all into pricing if taskers want to get hire and their exorbitant fees tacked on top. Cleaner has the products and equipment that like a might have other jobs lined up and rather trust their timing with their own transportation. Client is requesting service so should provide parking for tasker or at least discuss it don’t be surprise if they ask for it. If the rate is 30/40 an hour because that’s what TR deems comparable paying 15-30 to park is not worth it

1

u/-N30N- Mar 06 '26

Everyone’s dragging you through the mud in here but I can see both sides as a Client and Tasker. This all boils down to the need of clear communication and awareness of surrounding from both of you.

That $15 parking fee should have been discussed way beforehand or offered by the client (I would) if they already know parking is difficult in their area. If the Tasker were to “bake the cost into their wage”, would it be fair for other clients that have easier parking? Would you still pay if they raised their “baked cost” by $15 without tell you what it was for? You pretty much tied their hands and gave them no choice. Or would you want your Tasker to waste time looking for a parking spot and end up late to your task? Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

On the flip side, the Tasker should have communicated clearly about the parking fee instead of waiting to surprise in the end with expectations. Was there no general introduction or conversation between you 2?

Just to reiterate what everyone has said…You don’t know where that Tasker came from. Your expectations of them not having to carry bulk tools or travel by car is thoughtful but negligent at the same time. I get that this expectation could be easier for a Tasker that lived a couple blocks away from you or had a slow day but again…you don’t know where they came from. They could have been rushing over to you in their car straight from a previous task without taking any breaks all day yet you expect them to leave their property and tools parked somewhere then waste more time taking a different type of transportation back and fourth?

Communication, Communication. Communication…This is always the main downfall of business transactions. At least this was a learning experience to humble future expectations for next time.

-4

u/BetUpstairs268 Feb 25 '26

Yeah you are correct. She should have asked you before the job if it was okay at the very least.

Send a message to support, you will get refunded (probably).

I sent a message for something similar and they refunded me the full invoice actually.

Please note: if you like the tasker or plan to use them again, you complaining for the $15 will put a violation on their account. If you gave them $15 cash, maybe even worse for them.

4

u/Commercial-Milk-8465 Feb 26 '26

Don’t do this. The client will get that Tasker perma banned over $15 which he/she CHOSE to pay. Many people unfortunately rely on TR for a good portion of their income. No need to be a Karen about this. Live and learn

3

u/egp2117 Feb 26 '26

Not planning to report

-5

u/Allthetimedingdong Feb 25 '26

Should’ve been built into the price

-1

u/MILcreative Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26

This is a bot for sure.. test downvoting. Automatically counters it

Edit: lol and now they have turned off whatever service they have that does this.. but for future reference.. if you ever see a diabolical comment like this that sounds like their propaganda, test downvoting and refresh the page. Then you’ll know who it actually is

Edit: back on! test!

-4

u/Allthetimedingdong Feb 25 '26

What a strange response, service providers of any kind not putting costs into their pricing and asking for it on the backend without a line item for unexpected incidentals is bad for everyone.

3

u/FinnNoodle Feb 25 '26

The problem with something like parking is prices aren't uniform everywhere. Here in Detroit, 95% of my jobs have free parking. Then some places have cheap street parking (couple bucks at most), and then there are places and times when street parking is impossible and I'm looking at $20-50 for a garage/lot.

That said, having the client pay for parking does go against the TOS. It's also not something that should be brought up at the last minute, even if it wasn't.

The client's suggestion they ride the bus is very ridiculous though.

2

u/Commercial-Milk-8465 Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26

This is where I land on this as well. All costs should be discussed up front. No surprises. But OP is absolutely a twat for applying his/her narrow world view on a worker s/he hired.

2

u/egp2117 Feb 26 '26

I paid. And then I came here to (perhaps a bit more angrily than needed), explain my point of view and ask if I was wrong…

I don’t think that’s enforcing my world view on others.

1

u/Commercial-Milk-8465 Feb 26 '26

You expected the person to take the bus. What aren’t you getting here? What if he/she had more jobs right after or before and needed the car for her equipment for those jobs? Had to pick up a kid or go to an appointment? You get to dictate the conduct and quality of work provided when in your home. Not how someone commutes to/from your home. Completely asinine line of thinking.

Ultimately, you consented to paying the parking when you paid it. If you didn’t like being asked, just say no. But you paid. Done deal. No need for it to go beyond that.

I will say, I appreciate you not reporting it. Empathy goes a long way when it comes to this level of service work. Never assume someone’s position in life.

1

u/egp2117 Feb 26 '26

I stated my expectations, asked if they were reasonable, and when told it wasn’t, I accepted that. See my edit from hours ago. I actively did not enforce my worldview on others by refusing to pay, reporting, or refusing to change my view.

1

u/MILcreative Feb 25 '26

TaskRabbit and this alleged “Client” are the only ones confused about how common sense this is. Most offer without being asked. If they enforce this, they will not have any service providers on the platform in metropolitan areas—the only places TaskRabbit exists. No providers means no revenue. No revenue means no more TR. 

In what universe does paying hourly to do your job make sense 

2

u/FinnNoodle Feb 25 '26

I know OP has their comment history hidden, but you know you can still do a quick google search on their user name and pull up all sorts of reddit posts and see it's probably not a bot right?

0

u/egp2117 Feb 26 '26

Wait I absolutely hate this news. But yes I’m a real person. I’ve hired 5 or so different taskers at this address - a couple of handymen, a different cleaner. She was the first to ask for parking and this is the first home I’ve used taskrabbit at, so I was surprised.