To be at the end of my tether with tradies

@zov I prefer to use professionals to carry out any work that needs doing in my home, haven't experienced the problems outlined by the OP, but you do you.

You'd probably be surprised that a number of people have agreed with my post,

Yeah I found @ThinWomansBrain 's comment about the term 'Tradies' being offensive really odd too. She hasn't even been back to acknowldge that she was wrong. (Because the word is not offensive. Loads of people use it.)

Now another poster is at it too! 😂

@IHateWasps · Today 13:38

You are being very unreasonable to call them “Tradies”. I have never heard anyone use that term in this country before. Please keep that dreadful Australian slang where it belongs.

LOL, are you normally this offended at nothing? And the irony of you slating people for using what YOU class as an offensive term, and then going on to bash and berate Australian slang! Just because YOU can't BEAR it, that doesn't give you the right to tell others they can't use it!

As for the OP's issue, I feel your pain OP. I have had nothing but trouble with tradies for the past 3-4 years, so much so that me and DH tend to do most stuff ourselves now.

The same person who appointed you as the thread police.

Who made you the language police?

@Jabtastic

meaning that only the absolute bottom tier are seeing trades as an option

This is the real problem. It's like a race to the bottom in terms of "type" of person going into the trades. And that's just the ones wanting to do it properly via apprentice schemes. There's also the "underclass" of unskilled/unqualified ones who are like the wild west with shoddy work, probably also engaged in tax evasion/benefit fraud, etc., but getting work because there are so few decent tradesmen so people are desperate and take who they can get.

We need a national drive to improve the quality of people going into the trades, improve the quality and availability of training, and tackle the incompetents/fraudsters, all the entirely change the landscape of manual/skilled workers.

I detest those terms too. I thankfully never hear them in my area but I cannot bear Australian slang and it is best avoided whenever possible.

Sadly similar here. We tried a female plumber for a couple of small jobs, but just as unreliable and flaky as her male counterparts. Not only that, but she wouldn't do any "heavy" work, like replacing a radiator or boiler - all she wanted to do were small jobs. One of the jobs was to repair a leaky pipe - it started leaking again a couple of days later, but she never came back to try again - happy enough to take the money for the first botched attempt, but just ghosted us when we asked her to come back and do it properly.

We do say chippie and sparkie for trade people in this country though so why is tradie offensive?

You are being very unreasonable to call them “Tradies”. I have never heard anyone use that term in this country before. Please keep that dreadful Australian slang where it belongs.

I've just realised that I've been waiting for quotes for two weeks from a window/jet wash cleaner and a double glazing company. Bloody tumbleweed.
The jet washer is the fourth one I've asked for a quote, maybe I'll be fifth time lucky....

My bugbear is tradesmen who come around and act like it’s beneath them working for you. If I had a tenner every time a tradie’s last job was next door to George Michael’s house or some other celebrity I would have enough money for a fortnight in the Maldives. Always next door to the celebs house never the celeb 🤣

Yes I blame Blair too. At least university education was free back then. So many degrees now leading to high debt but no graduate job at the end. Middle of the road kids are being forced into university by parents meaning that only the absolute bottom tier are seeing trades as an option. These are the same children who couldn't manage time keeping or organisation at school. We expect them to learn as adults.

I agree with this!

I think finding good tradesmen is like kissing a lot of frogs to find your Prince. When you do find one capable of speaking directly to a female and carrying out their instructions rather than only being able to talk to a man, then you cherish them and get them back when you need them in future. It's an absolute minefield, I pay with my own money, I decide what needs doing, I phone them and yet some will still only talk to my DH, he then goes off track and complicates the job spec (unnecessarily, think I want an ugly garden wall knocked down and the gap turfing over. He adds in a load of other odd garden jobs but can't remember exactly what he said when I ask him to be more specific...) drives me round the bend!

Have found it all hit and miss. Find good ones and don't let go (and pay promptly).

The off the scale quotes get me. Decided to get three quotes for some work last year. 1st repeat cancelled on me. 2nd came a day early when nobody here and got the hump because of that. Faded away. 3rd 'it's caused by X and will cost £4K+'. 4th 'it's caused by Y and will cost £3K'. 5th 'it's the early stages of X and is a £300 job'.

5th did the work five months later. Seems good. On the day wanted £250.

Descended from tradies here. These idiots you describe are the buffoons who voted for Brexit because they didn't want to compete with skilled, conscientious workmen. Our workmen are all Eastern Europeans and are 'tidy workers' as my dad would call them. The locals are semi-skilled highwaymen.

We urgently need to reform and re-balance the education sector to encourage the right mix of trades and graduates.

I once hired a female decorator and had a similar experience. Towards the end of the job, she brought her young teens along, and I found them poorly painting and sanding my very expensive built-in units. They ended up sanding away some of the carved details in the wood. They even dragged metal ladders across my new wood flooring. At the end of the day when she was clearing away I’d ask her not to bother hoovering as she’d scrape the metal part of the hoover over all my new wood flooring.

I have had years of dealing with tradesmen after redeveloping three houses and I gave up using independent people and went with larger firms, they’re more reliable and always come back to sort out anything that hasn’t been done quite to standard.

DP is a gardener, primarily employed by retired people, and regularly gets asked to do tasks that are definitely not gardener jobs, mostly because he’s a man with a van and tools and turns up when he says, so they think they might as well ask him while he’s there.

I also think this so always move my car off my drive.

Thinking similarly I employed a female decorator. She was an absolute piss take, and did a very shoddy job. We've basically had to redo everything. One of my worst tradie experiences sadly.

You find outrage where there should be none. In many places that’s what they call themselves. And they are proud to be tradies. Bet you get outraged on behalf of other ethnicities too 🙄

I’m with you. I’m waiting for my third electrician- he’s two days late, changed it to today but didn’t respond to my text or call yesterday asking what time he was coming roughly so I could plan a couple of errands round him. The plasterer rang him this morning and he replied to him that he’d be here late afternoon. I could have opened my cafe (closed as I thought the electric would be off). The last two electricians were also lovely when they came round. Both said they’d be ably to start the following week and would send a quote through, then both also ignored the couple of texts/calls from me and never got back to me at all. Why couldn’t they just say they couldn’t fit me in or something? Why leave me sat there wondering? I just don’t get it. I can take a no, but I don’t understand the ghosting!

That's how I feel - that even when it's done I won't feel happy as there's been so many cock ups along the way. The heating manifold being installed in the utility means that we now can't fit the boiler in, which means it has to stay in the bathroom which means we're limited on size of shower tray.
What I tried to unsuccessfully convey to him the other day was that 10 years ago when prices were half what they are now, people may have been able to tell him to just get on with it. As it stands with the cost of work now, the average person has to watch every penny. He also doesn't get that it's a consumers market - we all know what we want from much research on the net but no, big man knows best!!!

I'd love to get their details. Just planning a new bathroom. I'm in West Kent.