To be sick of flaky, no-showing tradesmen!?

[IsItGingerism]

I had a leaking roof for several weeks because after many phone calls to many roofers, who all said they'd come out to look and quote, only one actually turned up as promised, and thankfully fixed the problem. I now have loose plastering around the cornice and ceiling that was water damaged, needs replacing/plastering.

I'm now having the same issue trying to find a plasterer to turn up. I've phoned 5 over the last 3 weeks, all promising to come out at a specified day/time, and then just not showing up when I've had to take time off work to be in! Zero communication from any of them and won't answer further calls.

I had a similar problem last year when having issues with my electricity fuse box. As much as I wanted to use a local electrician, I had to give up and call British Gas.

I am using council recommended tradesmen and ones who seem to have good reviews/local reputations etc but that appears to mean nothing where customer service is concerned.

I am so fucking over the flakiness. I'm not sure why they can't just tell customers that they are too busy to take on anything else instead of stringing people along. Has anyone else had this with traders?

Same here. Trying to get both an electrician and a gardener out for quotes. No gardeners have responded and only electrician who did has not turned up for appointments 3 times. He's now ignoring my messages completely. So annoying!!

Ghastly isn't it. Got you by the short and curlies. ☹️
I do all my own work now and avoid trades whenever possible, but it's a privelage to be able to do so, not everyone can.

Yep. A gardener for me last week. The most annoying thing about it was they were responding to an ad that I’d put up on fb. I wasn’t contacting them and asking for specifically them to come round, they were asking me for the job! Why message me asking if you can do it if you don’t want to!

Same. I moved to a new area of the UK and I can’t believe how difficult it is just get tradies to show up or communicate. It’s a joke. Can you imagine women behaving this way?

This is me too at the moment ... 😫

So frustrating and disheartening when you have to start trawling online to find someone else once again.

It is rubbish. We are having the same. Promises and no shows.

We've had it lots too. The only tradesmen who have been reliable are those we know via family.

To give them benefit of the doubt, I suppose it's the kind of job where you may be really good at plastering or carpentry etc but crap with organisational skills.

But even so, there's no excuse for messing people around. Yanbu.

How frustrating that it seems to be a recurring issue for us. If it was just the flat part of the ceiling I would feel comfortable fixing it myself, but the cornice on that side of the room will likely need replaced. I don't trust myself not to make it worse 🤣

Reccos on FB neighbourhood groups are rarely genuine- they are invariably partners/family of the tradesmen. I don't look there for reccos any more. I tend to pick 10 tradesmen from checkatrade.com based on 'nearest to me' criteria, with high number of reviews and send them a msg describing the work. Usually 50% ignore the request. 20% decline or give randomly high quote without even doing a site visit. The remaining 30% will quote and I pick one.

Oh god yes, they're a nightmare! The only thing I've found which works is putting it on bark - willing tradies then contact you to bid.

Brexit. All the decent tradesmen have gone back home. The ones left are workshy Brits with work ethic issues

It really annoys me how you have all these tradesmen, charging ridiculous daily rates for jobs that aren’t exactly skilled, or they do a bodged job anyway cos they can’t be arsed. They have no professionalism or reliability, treat people like shit by wasting their time and then there are so many women working in the care sector, hard emotional work as well as physical with excellent reliability and professional and they do it for minimum wage

There’s a shortage of tradespeople so they charge what they want, but it doesn’t work that way for women working in care when there’s huge shortages there too

Well this is the result of Blair’s education, education, education policy.

When I was young the more educationally challenged young men went into the trades. They were all then encouraged to go off and do a useless degree.

Now all the tradesmen with experience are retiring and not enough young people have been trained to replace them.

Yup. I can attest to this. Every time I see a "looking for a good local [insert here]" post on the local town facebook group, the comments are full of acquaintances recommending their own family members!

My own method for getting tradespeople to quote is similar to yours, and seems pretty effective: I prioritise by geographical location and then weed out ones with poor reviews. I find that being really local to them and thus easier to fit in around their other jobs has increased the response rate, and eliminated the no-shows.

I'm the same. I've just today had a job done that was quoted for by a different tradesman and I haven't heard from him since March except on one occasion when I emailed to ask what the heck was going on. Then he said he'd be here at the beginning of May - still not seen him.

But if they're not doing our jobs, whose are they doing???

They’re hardly working because they can do 1 days work and charge enough so they don’t need to work the rest of the week

Yep, us too. It's so frustrating. I rang around 10 different roofers and just couldn't get a call back with a quote or actually get someone to come when they said they would. One guy failed to turn up for a quote as promised 4 times now so I've stopped responding to him. We finally found a large company with good online reviews who have turned up when they said they would etc but it's so expensive but we had no choice really. They've been great though. We also had no hot water in the shower for ages and just couldn't get a plumber to come. Finally found one and we properly got scammed (I'm still so mad about it but that's for another thread!). A neighbor then recommended a very local plumber who was very competent and great. It's very hit and miss, but mostly miss.

I posted the other week saying the same. Enthusiastically responded to me before not turning up and ghosting me. Some shit about a sick dog in there somewhere...

I'm a childminder, I cannot imagine treating my potential clients like that!

You're not in Liverpool are you? It's really bad here. There's been a lot of development in the city centre and it seems they're only interested in those types of jobs. They don't want to bother with little domestic jobs. Occasionally I get lucky and find a cracking tradesman who turns up when they said they will, is polite and hard working, fixes the issue and at a fair price eg my gas engineer, he is fantastic. Oh, and the tyre fitter who came to my house recently to fit 2 new tyres.

Roofers are non existent here. I hear you, OP. We've had the top of our bay windows re-surfaced as they were leaking. It just looks so shoddy when you look out from the upstairs windows - you can see the wooden battens they've attached the rubberised material to and they're just bare wood, with some blue colouring on. It looks odd. Before they went I got DH to query it with them as I said that moisture would end up rotting them and they said "nah, the wood's been treated so it'll be fine." Just rubbish. Same people did next door but one's new extension roof andit also doesn't look finished properly round their bay window. They were supposed to be one of the best local companies.

We need more roofing work done as we have leaks from a crappy roof extension done 10 years ago. I won't even go into the hassle we've had trying to get it sorted. It's had tarpaulin on it for a few years instead. 🙄

I needed a garden fenced all around. Feather edge. Big job, 3 days worth. My rental property. Tenants in situ.

Fencer No1 turned up.
Timely but very expensive quote.
Knew I couldn’t afford him.
Let him know real quick.

Fencer No2 promised a visit, was reminded night before and agreed “yes, I’ll be there.”
At appointed time I stood in cold pouring rain waiting for 45 minutes.
Didn’t fkng turn up.
Didn’t respond to my plaintive chaser text as I stood waiting. Batshit man.

Fencer No3 came. Hurrah!
Promised quote real quick.
After several days, had to chase quote.
Quote still not forthcoming.
Gave him best part of 3 weeks.

Meanwhile, Fencer No4 fencer came, saw, quoted very reasonably within 24 hours.
Gave him the job. Start next week.

Told 3rd fencer no need to quote now, but thanks anyway. I’ve got a good quote so no need to wait any longer for yours. Sorry.
Abusive swearing bullying text response from him!
What a prat! 😠

Who the hell do these no show or abusive trades think they are?
Boils my blood.

I'm sure i've had the sick dog excuse too. 😂

Last "gardener" I had cancelled twice then 3rd time swore blind he'd be there, I said 3 times look if you cant do it just say, no problem, he was messaging me at 9 am "Im on my way" then no show. Just never turned up. Yes he is still alive.

There needs to be a national name and shame website, like there is for my industry.

We need some roofing work doing but have no idea what the problem is. I'm seriously considering getting some scaffolding put up and getting up there to inspect and remove the render myself.

Same here! I've wasted so much time in communications with decorators, cleaners and gardeners. They all are mostly the same, offering a service on my social media post or community groups, I message them and they either don't reply, engage in conversation and arrange an appointment and don't appear, or come out and give a quote and don't come back and do the work!.
I've managed to secure a female decorator to start work for me so thats a plus. One gardener turned up unannounced and said we can do so much today and come back for the rest. This was after I'd already spent 2 days wrestling with the Lawnmower to cut the jungle back. The cleaner is a thread all of its own, between 4 companies, 2 left me hanging for 2 weeks, one gave enthusiastic assurances they were coming to quote and didnt, and the last one came, cleaned and made a shit show of it.