GOOD ON YA!

Americans best Aussies, Canucks when tackling chores

Americans, Australians and Canadians share a language – though each nationality delivers it with drastically different accents and lingos all their own – but when it comes to who takes better care of their homes, one should be ‘chuffed.’

According to a new survey by Compare the Market , a home insurance company based in the Land Down Under, Americans tackled many specific chores more frequently than Aussies and Canucks. As Aussies might say: ‘Fair dinkum!’ (translation: ‘Yeah, honestly!’)

“In general, it appears Americans are on the ball when it comes to important home chores, leaving Oz and Canada with some catching up to do,” says Adrian Taylor, Compare the Market’s general manager of general insurance. (Though that’s not to say we’re ‘bludgers’ or ‘lazy.’)

Take gutter cleaning and trimming excess branches. Most respondents from each country do that chore one or twice a year but at 11 per cent, the proportion of Americans who do that chore weekly is more than double their Canadian and Australian counterparts, at 3.7 per cent and 1.4 per cent respectively. Australians were the most likely to  never  clean the gutters or trim excess branches out of all three countries, the survey found.

Americans would also earn a ‘Good on ya’ for their commitment to checking appliances for exposed wires and build-ups of dust and lint. Americans were the most likely to do that monthly or weekly compared to Canadians and Australians.

When it comes to checking smoke alarms, Canadians were more likely to have done so within the past three months at 40.4 per cent – an ever-so-slight edge over Americans at 40.2 per cent and considerably more regularly than Australians at 34.3 per cent. Still, it’s ‘defo’ (definitely) worth a pat on the back.

Americans lagged when it comes to fixing broken locks, doors and windows. The survey found 49.5 per cent of Canadians fixed them immediately, trailed by Australians at 46.7 per cent and Americans at 44.6 per cent.

On the other end of the scale, Americans were more likely than Canadians or Australians to  never  get those fixed, though the differences between each nation were slim.

While many household chores help keep your home clean and tidy, the survey focused on ones that can help prevent potential damage to the home. Full gutters and overhanging branches, for example, could lead to store damage, while exposed wires and lint buildup could increase the chance of an electrical fire.

Broken locks, doors and windows, meanwhile, could lead to a break-in and a dead smoke alarm battery could lead to serious danger to a home and its occupants in the event of a fire.

“The key here is that if you don’t take care of these things and an incident does occur, you may not be covered by your home insurance policy,” Taylor says.

“Many Australian insurance companies have specific wording in their policies, which in some cases won’t cover damage caused by neglect.”

Taylor encourages homeowners to check off these chores regularly throughout the year and to jump on any issues immediately, especially broken locks, doors, windows, smoke alarms and exposed wiring.

2023-06-09T13:21:36Z dg43tfdfdgfd