We found a plumber who agreed to fix our new shower attachment, plus do plastering a portion of the ceiling in our (small) kitchen and also a little bit of painting there, all for £200.00.
Before he started the work, we also asked him if he could do rather more painting in the kitchen, bringing the total planned cost to £360.00. We though this is big hike for the extra work but agreed,
The worker arrived last week as we were about to go to work ourselves. Shortly afterwards our youngest son rang to say that he'd gone out for over an hour, having told said son he'd be 5 minutes. When DH came home at the end of the day, he found that the plumber had a young man there too - introduced as his stepson. We'd had no idea that anyone else would be there. Some plastering had been done - possibly finished?- and possibly a little painting, but the shower had not been touched.
The plumber had been meant to come back next week. However, we found that the paint which we'd bought wasn't in the house. DH enquired and was told that the stepson had taken the paint away by mistake. The plumber had also walked off with our house key even though he wasn't due back for some days. (It was dropped off at the house the next day, at our request.)
Since then we have found what seems to be a large quantity of plaster in our bin, unbagged and messy.
We are inclined to tell him not to come back, and pay him a lesser amount for the work done to date - the plastering. Does this sound reasonable? We feel uneasy about him in the house with or without his son while we're at work when this things have happened. One thing perhaps a mistake but it adds up to our feeling uneasy about him.