Does it take a miracle to get good home remodeling?
By arcadian
@arcadian (930)
United States
August 4, 2007 2:26pm CST
It seems like every yahoo who owns a hammer thinks of himself as an excellant carpenter/plumber/ sheetrock hanger, framer- you name it. My landlady hired someone to put in a dishwasher. she lives upstairs of my aparment and when the installation leaked, it was into the floor of her place, the ceiling of mine. which dropped a four by five foot section onto the floor before the lake was discovered. She had the same jerk return to fix the damage. He used the lack of intelligent judgment and skill available to him to do more damage. So for the past year I've had a badly patched ceiling, and mold growing out of the wall neaby where water continued to flow. (yes I've been desperately searching for a better place to live) A series of fixer upper guys have been through here, installing windows, sliding glass door and so on all badly, and I never get any substantial advance notice. Who else lives with this kind of nightmare?
3 responses
@Buggheart (445)
• United States
5 Aug 07
I have lived the nightmare. We had to have part of our kitchen ceiling replaced twice. Once the guy who did the original drywall did the job and it was a perfect patch. The next time we couldn't get ahold of him and hired someone else who did a terrible job. We've had really good luck with most of the contractors we have hired but once in a while we get a really bad one who does bad work or we never know when they're going to show up to do the work or they come out to assess the place for an estimate only to never deliver the estimate. I don't understand. We live in Michigan where the economy is horrible and people are not doing much with their homes so to have contractors acting so goofy when they probably really need the work just baffles me. I've definitely found that the best way to find good contractors is to get references from friends, family and neighbors but even then it doesn't always work out. We've started using a company called Handyman Connection for some things as they do a good job and show up on time but they are more expensive than others.
1 person likes this
@arcadian (930)
• United States
7 Aug 07
More expnsive sounds natural- my rooommate used to do that kind of work and quit because it costs money to do the job right and when people ar bickering over cost, he's sensitive enough to try to trim the price for them and ends up unable to afford the job himself. He finishes but at little or no profit. So that's over.
Everything is more expensive, and when laborers aren't making enough on a job to justify the time it takes, the travel and so on, they will burn out o give up. Cheaper is no criterion at all. I appreciated your input.
@Buggheart (445)
• United States
8 Aug 07
The other thing is that I often have small jobs. For example we needed a small brick paver area in our back yard. Only about 5 feet square. Nobody wants to come out to do a small job so they come and look and then never come back. That's very frustrating too.
1 person likes this
@pyewacket (43903)
• United States
5 Aug 07
Tell me about it...and talk about cheap labor...I live in an apartment, and most of the so called professionals our landlord hires are none other than relatives of his...they do real crap, shoddy work for any repairs, and even our super who isn't related to the landlord is a major jerk who can't put in a light bulb in right...over the years I've actually become handy in doing some repairs myself--The only other alternative would be for me to hire real repairmen to do a good job of things...gee, do you think I could tell them to hand the bill to the landlord...I'm sure he'd love that!
1 person likes this
@HighReed1 (1126)
• United States
4 Aug 07
I'm sorry you had run-ins with idiots. Not all are like that.
When looking for someone to do the work, see if they are licensed. Ask for references from past customers. Ask to see pictures of their work.
If they won't supply these or don't have them, I'd keep looking. They should also work with you on when is the best time to come and do the work.
Reading your topic, I was appalled. My father was a contractor for many years and so is my husband. They would NEVER have gone in to work without talking to the customer and finding out the best times to come. Poor workmanship was NEVER tolerated! If a customer wasn't happy (which was rarely), they made sure it was taken care of. If it was a plumbing thing, the subcontractor that did the work had BETTER do it right, or he would have been blackballed.
I hope you have better luck in a new place. Remember the pointers I gave when picking someone to do work for you. :)
1 person likes this
