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Comment by lazide | Hacker News Reader

Hence one reason why DIY is nearly unheard of in most of Europe and Asia (that and lack of space for tools).

Europeans are the most inclined to modify stuff around their homes in my experience. In Asia I don’t see it at all.

Yes, here in SE Asia almost nobody who owns a home does the work, there's a very strong culture of hiring someone to do it.

How much of that is just a cost thing? Is hiring people to do home maintenance inexpensive and easily available where you are? That's usually not the case in American cities.

Some of it is cost. And almost everyone knows a handyman or somebody in the neighbourhood who is an electrician, concrete guy, tile guy, &c. But part of it is cultural. It's considered a form of virtue signalling to have a bunch of servants or workers on your property. Most middle class people also have maids, nannies, drivers, and such.

Come on most Americans are completely clueless DIY wise compared to most French people.

Cette Vieille Maison is one of my favorite shows.

Cite?

How much of this is just the hacker news demographic skewing perceptions? For a lot of people here, it makes far more sense to hire someone to do home maintenance while you continue to work on a well-paid technology job. Doing a lot of home repair is a hobby/choice, not something you're doing out of necessity.

For techies, for sure. Also most techies (in my experience) don’t have a lot of exposure or hands on with blue collar type stuff, which most of this is.

Every town in America has at least one, if not several Home Depot’s, Lowe’s, OSH’s, etc. and at least 75-90% of the traffic at any given time is private home owners, not contractors. Americans do a LOT of DIY.

There isn’t any real comparison anywhere else I’ve been able to find, and I’ve looked. Not as much in France, but Germany, Switzerland, Italy, India, Bulgaria (closest to having something like that), Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, etc.

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