Tell me your worst tradesmen stories! (Lighthearted)

[Whyareyouevenhere]

Over the last couple of days I've had a string of tradesmen coming for various things.

Monday: Roofer sorting out slipped slates
Tuesday: Two plumbers fitting a new boiler
Wednesday: Gas fitter replacing my gas fire
Thursday: Plasterer tidying things up after the gas fitter and plastering spare room.

My roofer turned out to be almost a comedy character having put his foot through our guttering and almost falling off his ladder whilst having a shouty conversation with a bloke from over the road.

One of the two plumbers turned out to be a bit of a Lothario and spent most of the day trying to get me to go out for a drink with him on Friday night. The other plumber was about 12.

The gas fitter yesterday turned out to be a wee bit racist when the radio started talking about the refugee crisis in Europe.

Today, thankfully, the plasterer is a lovely chap who seems just completely normal.

Tell me your most weird and wonderful tradesmen stories, please!

Blimey, no wild tradesmen stories- MN I'm disappointed.

have you a dh or partner - if so cant believe the cheek of the plumber!

We had a hilarious plumber! He didn't even have a radiator key on him.

He was meant to a full system flush but he didn't know how. He was clueless didn't realise copper wasn't magnetic.

Feel sorry for the landlord who probably shelled out £££ for the flush

I had a boiler guy tell me the boiler was 'at least 20 years old' when the date it was made was clearly written not only on the sticker he was looking at, but also was part of the name of the boiler (the bosch2004 iyswim). That was when I decided not to get him to fix it, although I think he was building up to telling us to replace the whole thing. Not particularly comedy although the look on my face was probably quite funny.

Unfortunately I live with my tradesman... I get home from work late evening and he's decided to build a lamp, cut some wood, destroy something in the house. He's crazy and just doesn't stop tinkering! I.currently have the entire contents of his van in my kitchen and cant even get to the sink! good job I love him... Even if it does take a while.for him to put a room back together.

Not actually the people, but the work. Oh boy. This is all while we were living over seas.

First rented apartamento - bathroom cabinet door missing a handle, bloke removes said door To take away. DH, a tad obsessed with minute details says "but you don't know where To put the handle " bloke says "on the door idiot Gringo, where the Fuck do you think I'm going To put it "

No sense of needing To match the handle with the other door, either design or position.

Different country, rented house, heating problem. Bloke had To remove half the concrete wall To Get To pipes. These were in the maid's room because it doesn't matter if her room is inca shit state, she's just the maid So he removed literally half the wall, fixed the pipe and left. They don't make good once the Job is done, that is the home owners/tenant's responsibilty.

Next rented house, leaking pipe requires removal of a large section of the concrete floor. Problem discovered. Foundations giving way and hot water pipe is holding up the supporting wall. So the bloke fixed the pipe with a blow torch which he left in position while he ate his lunch. It was resting on the carpet.

A 'plumber' who couldn't read/write.

This wasn't problem until it became clear that (despite him assuring me he was an experienced plumber) he had never fitted a bathroom before and he couldn't read the instructions that came with the bathroom suite. He couldn't figure out the button flush on the toilet. Or the internal overflow. Or anything at all really...

Funnily enough the job took much longer than expected. And then had to be re-done by an actual plumber. Never did get my money back!

An electrician (who we called Gnome Man as he looked like a garden gnome) who brought his own tupperware box with tea, sugar & milk container every day, his own special mug....but who couldn't make his own tea (missus always does it for me, I don't know how to do it) & asked me to make him a cuppa every half an hour whilst regaling me with stories of his life. He then spectacularly fucked up our electrics and I sacked him after a week.

A labourer who insisted on leaving our front door wide open (house of bedsits on Brixton Hill) and when I shut it for the tenth time, he burst through it shoved me all along the hallway and banged my head off a wall.
fuck you couldn't make it up could you?
Mind you he got the sack.

The one who was weeing in the outside tap area by my back door. I think he thought it had plumbing. It doesn't, and I had been helpfully scooping the 'water' out not knowing what it contained. His boss was pinching my building materials and charging me for replacements.

Plumber who came to fix our loo kept telling me how he had had fights with people who failed to pay him. Unfortunately he failed to fix our loo and when I looked at his van, although I knew his company name, it was spelt "Seek-a-Leek".

had a plumber in recently to service the boiler and he was a short chap in his 60's. i also had some problems with leaky radiators but he kept forgetting which radiators were leaking so i had to keep reminding him!

he also kept getting me to go get his tools and pass him this that the other (he used the technical name for his tools and i didn't have a clue what they were so passed him the wrong things :-D ) kept passing me his radiator key and getting me to run upstairs and check there was no air in the rads!

then he kept forgetting where he'd put his tools and his keys and kept getting me to run round the house finding them for him.

i still don't know why he brought his henry hoover with him to service the boiler to be honest...

Not the plumber but the boiler servicing firm. They are lovely, and competent, and sweeties, but their admin needs sharpening.

example one - I received a letter dated eg 30 April 2014 asking me to book a boiler service by 4 April 2014, letter received a month after their suggested date to book.

example two - I opened the door to one of their lovely plumbers on my way out to school who said that they were there to mend the leaking radiator in the bathroom. I don't have a radiator in the bathroom

I'll still use them, though.

Well we rent our house and we've had a long line of incompetant and quite dangerous work done by tradesmen in the four houses we've rented so far to date (or more accurately - work done by the mates of the landlords on the cheap).
The most bemusing is in the house we are renting now and there is just plenty of things to choose from but the most bemusing is the tradesman who lay laminate flooring over the carpet.

We've had a complete run of tradesmen as we've renovated our house from top to bottom but only 2 stand out as awful.
The scaffolders who spent most of the time they were here sunbathing on my lawn. It was only when I popped my head out of my office window after a particularly long quiet period I realised he was completely asleep on the lawn with a lit fag in his hand. They had yet to start on the scaffolding!
The other one was more serious - the plumber who fitted our bathroom despite good references(which turned out to be fake) didn't really understand water! We had several serious floods, when we got another plumber in to fix his mistakes (paid for by withholding the final payment of Mr disaster) he showed me pipe work that had been laid to drain uphill - which is why the shower just filled the tray and then spilled out onto the floor. Some of the things he did would have been funny if they hadn't caused so much damage in our house! The original plumber is nicknamed Duncan The Dildo in this house whenever we talk about him.