Is this a thing? Landscaping gardeners lying about family crisis then ghosting you. ‘Cos it’s happened twice

[bellinisurge]

We have a small overgrown back garden that needs new fencing and decking removed and replaced with paving. We went through “Check a trade” and matched it with local Facebook recommendations. Start Date and price agreed (about £5k) then silence. When he didn’t turn up, I contacted him and he explained he’d had a family crisis. I accepted that, wished him well, then started looking again. Found another. Same thing happened. Start date and price agreed (about £6k). Then , after a no show, another family crisis and a promise to get back to me after I chased. Again utter silence.
Is “agreeing a £5k job then going silent and, when chased, faking a family emergency to get out of it” a thing?

I was ghosted by a mechanic once, with the same 'family emergency'

It was weird because he lived near me and id see him park up often

Just the norm in today's world - everyone reckons they can be a gardener but can't see it through 🤷‍♀️

I worked in a home improvement supplier's and often heard,oh I won't manage because my vans in the garage/broken down whilst they were sat with me having a cuppa.

I get ghosted a lot by tradespeople. Latest one lives literally round the corner from me so it’s not exactly far away 🤣 I’m a single mum and my house looks a bit scruffy atm so perhaps they think I can’t afford to pay for their services. But the reason it looks scruffy is because I keep getting ghosted 😂😂

The only people I’ve had any luck with are bigger companies.

I wouldn’t touch checkatrade again.

Can you try to get a local recommendation?

It's just the standard lie when they either don't want the job or aren't organised enough to fit it in.

I don't think it's specific to landscape gardeners.

See also "my van got broken into / broke down".

Doesn't make it any less frustrating though.

I think it's generally where they've had a quiet patch and accepted you as a smaller job, and then get an offer of a bigger project which they want to prioritise. It's not just gardeners. Bloody annoying though.

Gardeners are the worst! Been ghosted by several, including one who then texted at 10.30pm out of the blue and asked to come the next day

I wonder who is doing so well they can turn down a £5k job for a week’s work. I’ll never use check a trade again. I even compared it to what suggestions I was getting on my local FB group. A lot of those suggestions seemed to be people’s family members so I was a bit sceptical

Yeah it’s become quite a minefield tbh. I don’t even know what’s worse anymore, them not turning up or turning up and doing a really shit job (decorators, utter nightmare). So, I wish you lots of good luck.

We have had it from gardeners, plumbers, electricians and builders. The only reason we manage to get someone to fix the boiler when needed is because we have a relative who is able to do it.

When something needs done I get a total sinking feeling at the thought of having to find a tradesperson to carry out the work.

Thanks everyone. I feel better now. I find it really weird to go silent and then lie about parents dying and family crises when pushed. That’s such a dickish thing to do.

I had the decorator’s boss spin me a line about rushing to be with his mother (seriously ill) at a very distant hospital. It turned out later that had happened the previous year and he’d just rolled it out again. Caught him out when I phoned to complain and he forgot the lie. Such a lot of wankers about.

Same here. We dread anything needing to be done and have purposely put off quite a bit of work because we simply can't face the fiasco of getting tradesmen to quote let alone do the work. So many just lie through their teeth, don't turn up to give a quote, then ghost you when you give them the go ahead and are left waiting for them to bother turning up.

DH has done an awful lot of stuff himself over the years and has built up quite a range of tools, equipment, supplies, etc, including every power tool imaginable, scaffolding tower, and seems to be on Christmas card terms with the local tool hire company for hiring cement mixers, pneumatic drills, etc! Not bad considering when we moved into our first home he barely had a screwdriver to his name. He never wanted to do any of it, but it's just quicker to do it yourself than waste so much time farting about with unreliable tradesmen and he keeps saying he can't believe how easy things are if you have the right tools (hence the garage full of power tools and the hire shop on speed-dial!), He also watches a lot of "how to" videos on YouTube!

His next project is to remove our decking (shoddily installed by a supposedly reputable firm a few years ago who sent the village idiot to do the work), and replace it all - that's his "Summer Job" this year!

His Winter job is to take out the shower in our main bathroom and replace it with a walk in shower!

Not bad for a desk worker!

I have MS. I actually cleared a lot of it myself so that the stuff I couldn’t do - fencing, decking clearance, laying paving- would be quicker. Tempted to hire a circular saw (I used to have one) to at least clear the decking myself. But it would knacker me for weeks

Exactly this. They don’t want the job.

That’s pretty impressive taxguru! Good for him, and you. I was going to say some men are really adept at this kind of stuff but then remembered I was on mumsnet so……

Not until it suits them, and they suddenly start pestering you after they ghosted you for weeks!

We had one landscape firm who we agreed to relay our front lawn. Didn't turn up on the agreed date, we phoned and got the usual lies about the van breaking down, then another date agreed, he didn't show up, saying the other well trodden lie of the supplier's van having broken down. On the third agreed start date, he just didn't answer the phone and ignored messages we left on the answerphone. Then about a couple of months later, he randomly turned up with a lorry load of turf expecting to relay the lawn - wasn't best pleased when we told him to sod off - even though he could clearly see we'd had it relaid by someone else in the meantime. If we hadn't been in, I genuinely think he'd have ripped up the new turf laid by another firm and laid his own! He'd already got the digger off his lorry before we went out to stop him, even through the lawn was clearly relaid with new turf already!

I've had this loads with gardeners.
Only need lawn mowing and I've had everything from not turning up at all, turning up once then ghosting, turning up a couple of times then ghosting.
The best one was a guy who had mown the lawn a few times, I had arranged a date and time for him to come, he didn't turn up and didn't respond to my message. I ended asking on a local Facebook group for recommendations for a gardener and he replied saying he could give me a quote, was really reliable and what was my address. Im guessing he didn't realise who I was 😂

That’s outrageous!! What the hell is happening with people?

Thing is he's not really "that" kind of bloke and is very reluctant, but needs must I suppose. Both he and I are constantly amazed at what we can achieve ourselves, as I do a lot of things too, particularly decorating which is something I've never done before and we used to get decorators in, but regularly disappointed with their shoddiness re finish quality (wallpaper joins not lining up, paint runs on doors, etc), not just one firm either!

I seem to get it with all trades. The amount that seem to have hospitalised children is phenomenal. I don’t know who would be sick enough to lie about their own child being in hospital but it happens with such alarming regularity that it cannot be an unfortunate coincidence.

i think Checkatrade is a paid service - they pay to advertise on there, rather than them being sought out as good traders.

I use facebook groups for recommendations.

I used to do all my own decorating then within 4 days of moving house, ended up in hospital with an eye problem. Told to not move at all! So I ended up with cowboy decorators. The way they behaved in my home and the work they did, bloody tragic and pretty scary to be honest.

@Datafan55, I did not know that