To be fed up of trades men and their lies

[cherryys]

Just a rant really

We're going through a house renovation and everything is soo stressful but the main stress in my life are bloody trades men who you hire because they tell you they can start tomorrow at x time and when that time comes you don't hear from them for 6-10 hours when they tell you they are at someone else's house 5 hours away and will have to delay you for 5 days....

Why say you can start tomorrow then? I'm about to loose it with all of them when they get here.

My DH is very chilled but I'm on a deadline and I want to pay people who are reliable but none of them are .. they are not cheap and they make promises they can't keep.

Why not be honest and say I'd take the job but can't start until x date. I would appreciate that much more

Yesterday I was meant to have an electrician and Plummer in from 9am and one didn't text all day only to get a text today to say" I was busy see you tomorrow at 8am" (it's 8:30 and no word from him) & the other who turned up at 8pm last night after my kids were in bed ..

AIBU to send them both a text to not bother turning up today?

Hope it makes sense.. I am so angry

Yes, I agree! It’s a bit bonkers but after years of dealing with late/rubbish/dishonest tradesmen, I decided that it was worth doing more to keep hold of the good ones and that being extra nice to the good people was better than being fruitlessly angry with the bad ones.

I would definitely rather hire women. They're more socially and interpersonally intelligent and there's virtually zero risk of being sexually harassed or finding yourself having questionable conversations.

I hear you, OP!

This is nuts really isn’t it? It’s not how capitalism is supposed to work! The tradesmen who are good, punctual etc. are meant to get a good reputation and lots of jobs while the useless ones are meant to eventually go to the wall.

Whats actually happened is that we are so desperate to keep hold of anyone even halfway decent that we have to bribe them! And even the “good” tradesmen tend to be shit over things like punctuality because they know they can get away with it!

The whole thing is broken!

We have a plumber we used a lot as he was struggling with his business a bit, due to various circumstances. Then he landed a fairly big contract, but said he was free to do other work at the weekend.

We asked him to come and look at another job, and the last message I have from him is from 22nd June, saying "see ypu tomorrow".

Still waiting 🙄

This is my experience too. I can usually get them to turn up for quotes, but anything beyond that is hopeless.
Currently having this issue with flooring fitters, and even flooring shops themselves. It's like nobody wants or needs the work.

We used to do this but then we hired a female plumber who was totally useless. Poor woman - I felt for her but she clearly had no idea what she was doing.

Honestly I feel your pain. We have been royally dicked about by a builder. He’s now fucked off having done a third of the job with no date to come back. It’s so tedious. We found another guy who is reliable AND does a good job so we are holding on to him!
I think that time management and being honest about your schedule are two basic adult skills so why can’t these people do it? And while they are at it they can stop judging all of the previous works done in a home and making you feel shit about what’s already been done. Grow the fuck up.
I feel better for getting that off my chest!

Even getting a quote is a nightmare. We waited in all day last Wednesday for a roofer who didn't turn up or message or anything. Then he knocked on the door at 7pm last night!

This is exactly why we do as much as possible ourselves. OH has a garage full of tools, including a full range of power tools, scaffolding tower, etc., and two sheds full of small tools, boxes of all kinds of "bits" including brackets, screws, fixings, electrical components, bits of pipework, etc. When we first moved in over 25 years ago, neither of us had a clue and we had to use tradesmen for everything. Over the years, we were ground down by incompetents, lyers, con-men, unreliables, etc. And, no, it's not a matter of employing the cheapest or odd job men, etc., the worst incompetent was a GasSafe engineer who botched up a gas fire installation which filled the house with dangerous fumes as he didn't attach the vent! You're not even safe with the ones who are qualified and regulated!

So we started doing the smaller stuff ourselves, then with confidence growing, we've moved onto bigger stuff. Obviously, OH won't touch gas appliances or the electric fuse board (but he checks what the gas engineers and electricians are doing!), but we try literally everything else ourselves. We've just replaced our decking (only 5 years old but was very shoddily built, not even level!), some concrete fence posts, replaced a few radiators, and damp-proofed a wall, including new plasterboard and re-plastering it.

Given the stress and wasted time of trying to find tradesman who'll turn up and maybe competent, it's often just easier to do it yourself. We've spent a fortune on equipment, but it's still massively cheaper than paying for tradesmen, especially when they do a shoddy job and you need someone else to replace it!

Is there any sort of regulation of these cowboys?

I had a kitchen fitter not show up on a Monday morning-after texting him at 5pm on the previous Friday to confirm and then tearing the old kitchen out over the weekend.

He finally responded to a final text 5 days later to say he’d been held up on another job.

And then had the bloody cheek to text a week later to say he was ‘ready’ to start.

We have some bubbling and cracking on an exterior wall. Got a quote for over £3k to re plaster accompanied with much head shaking and teeth sucking about what a ‘big job’ it was. Got a second quote from a plasterer who confirmed it was dodgy paint that had bubbled and the whole thing was sorted with £300.

Sack them and find somebody else.

I operate a one strike and you're out policy. They are often utter piss taking wankers.

That sounds like an extremely shitty builder tbh.

Thats not one builder - that’s standard across all trades for our young people.

I always check reviews before making a call and all of them have 5 amazing reviews ... who gives them these reviews? Could they be fake?*

Of course they're often fake; even a 10 second google tells you how easy glowing reviews are to buy

I'm very lucky to have built up a group of tradespeople who can be utterly relied on, but this is exactly why I cringe if a job crops up which falls outside of their skills. For me personal recommendations from folk I actually know are the only sensible route, the problem being that those good enough to be recommended are usually rammed with work

Ha @Lampzade I once hired a 'man with a van'. He texted he'd be here about 8am, I replied saying great I'll move my car if he could text when five minutes out, he texted back thanks. Then he texted he was five minutes out.... never saw or heard from him again!
OP it is such a cliche now. I was very fortunate with my last builder (recommended by world of mouth, he never needs to advertise) . All his subs not only turned up on time, they were polite, took pride in their work, and tidied up after. In return I paid them within 24 hours of their invoice.

Had a few jobs done lately by a local handyman, he did an excellent job, paid him within minutes of getting the invoice, he’s coming round next week to quote for more work - feel like a lottery winner! Good and reliable tradesmen are like gold dust !

Had our fair share over the years of rubbish trades people

DH is a joiner, I run the admin so he definitely doesn't do this himself but it is a total free for all in the trade. I don't understand how they get away with it. Finding reliable tradesmen to link up with is a bloody nightmare.

I have had such bad luck with tradesmen that if I posted the details on here half the town would know it was me. Think, needing to phone the police levels bad.

Suffice to say, had to have someone round for a big job this morning that you’d think was standard. I was mentally prepared, which is why I’m not surprised it’s gone super complicated and will need to be done another day with different equipment.

For this job I went through a huge company, so even though I’m paying probably 20% more than independent, I knew he’d turn up and I’d have a phone number and customer service for if/when it went wrong.

Yip, same here. Loads of work for a reliable tradesman, and we can afford it. We just can't face the utter carnage.

We had a full bathroom renovation ten years ago and the stress caused us to nearly break up. I'm not doing it again.

Yes totally agree. My house needs some work and I’m dreading trying to sort it out because every tradesman either rips me off, does a bad job or doesn’t turn up.

I’m now one of those people who would rather move into an already renovated house with someone else’s taste rather than having to deal with them.

Actually, I’m thinking maybe I need to see if there are any trades women out there. I feel I would get a better experience (🤞).

Haha yep, I honestly don't believe a word they say until they've proven themselves.

Over time you do tend to identify one good plumber, one good electrician etc.

We've got some tilers doing a job right now and they are nice blokes who are doing good work, but complete liars when it comes to when they're turning up as per usual.

I work from home so it doesn't inconvenience me too much in that way but on the other hand we've been without any shower or bath for 2 months and I'm getting just a tiny bit impatient to get the fucking bathroom finished.

I've had so many nightmares I can't even tell you.

Scaffolders who caused a leak in our roof.
Decorator who painted AROUND the 2 boxes of flooring stacked against the wall in the living room instead of moving them and painting behind it.
Cowboy plasterer who made a hole in our ceiling, asked us what we thought of his work, and then stormed out of the house fuming when I enthusiastically lied and said, "it looks good so far, it'll be great when it's finished."
Bathroom guy who broke our entire central heating system and refused to take responsibility for it. Cost us £10k to replace.
Tiler who laid all the tiles crooked on our bathroom floor.
Windows company who caused a leak in our conservatory and broken floorboards in a bedroom.
Floor guy who crashed into our Sky box, dropped it on the floor and broke it, and pretended he didn't know what was wrong with it.
The worst bathroom skirting you've ever seen in your life, it looked like it was cracked plastic and held together with chewing gum.

Overall we are down about £60k fixing issues caused by tradesmen. For one house in a 3 yr period. What amazes me is that all those people literally still thought they were great at their jobs even when confronted with literal evidence that they weren't.

You should have called the police, clearly something terrible has befallen him.

I really sympathise as it's utterly infuriating.

We don't haggle. We're really upfront about the work that needs to be done rather than trying to tack on "surprise" jobs mid-way through. We also pay straight away - as in you'll have the bank transfer whilst you are packing up and still standing on my drive. We'll be as flexible as possible on timing as one of us is usually always around, so we'll work round your diary etc.

Even then, trying to find someone who will a) turn up, b) do a decent job, and c) actually turn up when they say they will, seems to be like searching for the holy grail.