by LJ Baker | Aug 22, 2026 | Job diary
Adventures of a Handy Human… today is cleaning Friday. Two houses, and then my own, as well as taking a client shopping. The shopping part surprises people when they hear it. It is not really a cleaning job and it is not really a handyman job. It is just something...
by LJ Baker | Aug 18, 2026 | How it works
There is a category of job that everybody knows needs doing and nobody does. Usually because it involves a ladder. Solar panels. People are often surprised these need cleaning at all. In this valley they absolutely do — dust through summer, and whatever the trees drop...
by LJ Baker | Aug 4, 2026 | How it works
I would rather be straight about this up front than have you book me for something I am going to turn down when I arrive. Things I do. Replacing a faucet. Swapping a sink. Putting in a garbage disposal or taking a dead one out. Replacing an outlet or a switch on an...
by LJ Baker | Jul 21, 2026 | How it works
If you are lifting your gate with your knee to get it to latch, you do not need a new gate. You almost certainly need one of these three. The post has moved. Ground shifts. A post that is even slightly out of plumb throws the whole gate out, and it shows up as the far...
by LJ Baker | Jul 7, 2026 | How it works
When somebody asks me for a cleaning estimate, my first question is always which one they mean. They are genuinely different jobs. A regular clean is maintenance. Floors, surfaces, kitchen, bathrooms, dusting, the things that need doing because a week has gone by. It...
by LJ Baker | Jun 23, 2026 | How it works
This is the most common irrigation call I get in a Sacramento summer. One zone will not come on, the rest are fine. Nearly always it is one of three things, and you can check two of them without me. One — the timer. Sounds obvious. It is astonishing how often a zone...
by LJ Baker | Jun 9, 2026 | How it works
People ask me what a yard cleanup actually is, because it sounds like a vague thing to buy. Fair question. Here is what it is. First, I look at it. Not over the phone — a yard that sounds bad in a text message is sometimes a two hour job, and one that sounds fine...
by LJ Baker | Jun 30, 2025 | Job diary
Spent the end of the month on baseboard and trim. Baseboard looks like the simplest job in the house until you get to a corner. Walls are never square. Not in an old house, not in a new one either. So you can cut a perfect forty-five degree mitre and still end up with...
by LJ Baker | Jun 26, 2025 | Job diary
This one had gotten away from the owners. Not their fault… life happens, and a yard does not wait for you. Started knee-high. Weeds through the beds, growth right up the fence line, the sort of thing where you cannot really see where the lawn stops and the border...
by LJ Baker | Jun 20, 2025 | Job diary
Adventures of a Handy Human… this week was water and hinges. First one was a stone fountain in a back garden that had stopped running. Nine times out of ten that is not the fountain, it is the line feeding it or a valve that has seized up. This one was the line. Got...
