Anyone else had a trades person not show up?

[dewhamc]

I bought living room and bedroom furniture a few weeks ago and found a local man that builds furniture, He has an online presence, lots of reviews, lots of comments, lots of pictures of his work etc so I booked him.

He was supposed to be here at 9am this morning, My cat was locked in my bedroom, My living room is empty so he had room to build everything, I'm disabled (part of the reason I'm not building it all myself) and got up at 7am this morning to drag everything out into my bedroom.

I have messaged him this morning at 10 to double check the time he is coming and he looked at it but hasn't replied. Assuming he is at someone else's doing their furniture now because he told me on the phone he is always there at 9am sharp to get it all done in one day.

Do I send another message or just leave him to it? Only issue I have is I was only available today which is why I booked today.

Ironically the last post on his page is about people booking him then not answering their door to him when he arrives and how out of order it is!

Does he think you didn't answer the door? Or maybe he just pretended you didn't as an excuse for not turning up.

The trades round here are awful. Not turning up, over promising etc. Not all of them of course but they often seem incapable of running a diary.

If they cannot fit in anything for 3-6 months bloody well say so! I am chasing around a plasterer- he did the original work and we needed to leave a few months In between. Can I get him back? Promises not kept, reading emails and texts and not bothering to reply. Shame on them.

OP. I don’t believe your person! Who books something and then doesn’t answer the door??

In my experience its more unusual for them to actually turn up as promised

Just why?? I presume they have more work than they can handle? A quick text to you could say ‘delayed and should be with you in an hour’

Or turn down the work. How difficult is that?

Agreed

I had one of these. Handyman found through local facebook group, arranged time and price for the job, double-checked with him the day before, all fine, but on the morning he was meant to turn up, he didn't show and blocked me on messenger. What is the point of doing that? If you don't want the job, just say so!

Edited to add: all the proper trades guys (plumber, decorator, electrician etc) I have found through personal recommendation and they have all been very reliable. My lesson was not to trust people from facebook/nextdoor etc, even if they seem to have lots of positive reviews.

I assumed the guy who did the same to me probably had a bad hangover or something.

2 years ago I had a broken boiler & it was minus 18 outside (no other form of heating) I'm disabled as are my kids. Local, good rep guy turned up, diagnosed issue, went off 'to Wickes for parts'. Never came back. Bastard.

They are truly hopeless. Of course there are two sides to every story. I am sure there are members of the public who mess the trades around. Don’t pay, claim the job will only take a few mins whilst not taking into account travelling time, parts etc but they are SO unreliable.

We have a wonderful plumber though. He knows we work at home a lot and if he is has made arrangements to come in say 2 days time and finds he has a spare 30 mins he might text me to say OK to come now.

We had a great handyman sadly retired now but he said when doing some decorating some people just didn’t prepare a room whatsoever and even kept trying to use it whilst he was trying to paint. Reastically though most people could kiss a trades when they turn up (definitely me!)

Median - that is disgraceful. I hope karma comes to him.

When I moved house a few years ago I had a days worth of work needed for a handyman - things like shelves and curtain rails etc but enough to book a full day.

Handyman one - just didn't show, when I messaged him he said he'd taken a bigger job.
Handyman two - messaged the day he was due with the old chestnut that his van had broken down
Handyman three - didn't arrive, when I chased saus he had to take his wife to the doctors
Handyman four - didn't arrive, messaged last minute to say his dog was ill.

All of these are all highly recommended on local groups and touting for business on every post they can.