Workmen using our stuff

[wowfudge]

Without asking.

The background is we are having work done on the house and currently have no kitchen. I have given up fighting the dust until the plastering has been completed. My kitchen consists of a microwave, a toaster and hotplate, all crammed into about a metre square. Contents of kitchen and dining room are piled up around the house. So far so stressful.

I just wish the guys would ask before they help themselves to things which they then never clean afterwards - mop and bucket, various plastic boxes, soft floor brush, washing up bowl (and God knows what that has been used for), towels. I have things which can be used for messy jobs, but they just grab whatever is to hand from my once clean and tidy utility room.

We had to remove a radiator today and that was just left outside in the pissing down rain - it needs to be refitted, it isn't being thrown out. I have hidden the hoover or it'll get wrecked.

I keep finding used coffee and tea mugs outside or balanced on top of things and my patience is wearing thin.

Argh! Rant over.

YANBU. But IME it's par for the course. still remembers the time i discovered they were using my good crockery for mixing cement :(

Blimey Sponge I would lose it at that point. DP thinks I am getting unnecessarily annoyed, but he doesn't even notice half the stuff that goes on.

Chill out. Building work is stressful so you need to gather up anything that's really important to you and move it where they can't use it. If you're happy with their work this isn't a battle worth fighting for the sake of washing a few mugs and towels. You'll want to replace most things when you have a shiny new kitchen anyway.

Just leave the old stuff and stuff to use for messy jobs where it can be easily found and used, and hide everything else upstairs/at your mothers house/in the shed til they're gone.

I feel your pain. Some years ago, we were having our kitchen done which involved removing a wall between the old kitchen and an adjacent outhouse. Workmen were told to come and go via the back door only to minimise mess and disruption in the rest of the house but I came home one day to find them mixing cement on the hall floor. No, they hadn't thought to remove the carpet before doing so ...... ARGH!!!

I'm sure it will be lovely when it's done OP. Hang on in there .......

The wrecked hoover happened to us - we came back one day and found it full of rubble and dust. Who hoovers up rubble?! Anyway, that was the end of that hoover .

My plasterer 'borrowed' my stepladders while I was out, left them absolutely caked in large plaster splashes. A few months later, exactly the same thing happened to my sister, different plasterers though. Why don't they bring their own? What would they use if a customer didn't have any?

I'm such a bloody wuss when it comes to dealing with workmen. A few years ago, somebody was smoking while painting the outside of our sash windows. They were wide open so the smoke was drifting into the house. Did I say anything? Did I fuck.

DP admitted he gave the builder the washing up bowl earlier. Apparently he did try to ring me to check what he should give him, but my phone was dead .

Short of emptying the cellar - assuming I could find somewhere to put the contents - there's not a lot I can do.

Our lovely electrician brings all his own equipment. He has all his own stuff for cleaning up after himself and was showing DP how not to get dusty footprints everywhere the other week. If only there were more like him!

It's very difficult to chill out when you work full time, are studying for a professional qualification and, when you get home, the place is a pigsty. I have turned a blind eye to lots of things so far.

My decorator was in the house for three weeks, he pretty much gutted it, did tiling, boarded up old fireplace, everything. He brought his own supplies, cup, kettle, everything. He's amazing.

I had a plasterer who tipped excess admittedly very thin watered down plaster down the drain! Another tipped it into the border in the front garden. Bonkers.

I feel your pain, OP. The way forward is to hide everything, absolutely bloody every single thing.

I had my dust pan and brush wrecked.

I rescued my lovingly hand painted 'Daddy's First Christmas' mug, complete with baby DS handprints from a perilous perch once and promptly hid it. I mean, come on!!

Sadly, I have decided I am 'treating' myself to a new broom, dustpan and brush, etc, etc once the kitchen is finished. How sad is that?

I am also considering spending some of my eBay profits (from selling the stuff we've ripped out) on a post build clean by professionals.

At least it your work being done. I heard the water tap outside going a few months ago. Went outside and it was workman filling up this huge contraption, using my hosepipe aswell, turns out he was from 5 rows up and had used it as I was the only person about with an outside tap and hose.
Thankfully I'm not on a water metre, as it turns out they had been using it for weeks whilst I wasn't here.
I don't mind and would have said yes if they'd asked but it really got my back up so I locked the hosepipe in the shed the next day wasn't be petty or anything

YANBU

Well yes, there is that Sunny. Apparently the plasterer is coming tomorrow so hopefully by the end of the week, the worst of it will be over. We'll do the decorating so I know that providing I cover up everything within 10m of DP, things will settle down!

Some of those things are unreasonable and some reasonable.

Using a mop for mopping and a brush for brushing seem fine.

Coffee mugs outside? Unless you'd like them to sit inside and drink then that's a little unfair (although they should be returned at the end of the day.

Radiator outside? No problem.

Washing up bowl - blame DH.

Towels. That would annoy me and if they were ruined then that would come off the final payment to them.

Our oh so very clever bathroom fitter fitted the old loo he took out with plaster and the bath with old tiles. The men removing all the old bathroom complained about the weight, I'm afraid I just shrugged.

I'm still removing cement from the outside doorhandles from repointing work done last year.

Best workman we had did our kitchen, he had his own hoover, dustpan and brushes and put something down in the hall to protect the carpet.