21/06/2026
I love the heat, much prefer it to the cold, but it’s hugely challenging to work in.
It’s not just the sweat, heat, chafing, and dangers to health, but it’s also the threat to income, bizarrely.
We have conflicting laws where overgrowth is a fire hazard, yet using equipment to deal with it is also a fire hazard. We can’t cut, but we can drive and smoke and charge dodgy batteries and have dodgy house wiring, all of which cause fires on an order of magnitude moré than strimmers…
Consider this: the people who work as gardeners, paysagists, handymen and so forth now have to deal with not being allowed to use equipment that may cause sparks…
So we’re not allowed to work when it’s hot, we’re not allowed to work on public holidays, we’re not allowed to work during certain hours of the day, we can’t cut in heavy rain, our income falls off a cliff from November to March, we don’t get tax right offs for our equipment, and our expensive kit is expected to tackle 4ft high grass or gardens that resemble jungles, all the while paying taxes, mortgages and absorbing fuel costs.
And then you see people on Facebook indignantly claiming that paying moré than €20 per hour is scandalous.
We don’t get the luxury of being paid whilst not working unfortunately, and we certainly don’t get pay in lieu of work for these sort of restrictions.
So it’s no wonder that we either have to ignore the rules (and yes I do always carry a fire extinguisher!!), ramp up the charges or go out of business.
And then nobody wins.
Eye roll over 🙄🤣
