Help! Having a nightmare trying to find a tradesman to do bathroom repairs.

[northernlights0710]

I need a small repair job doing in my bathroom and I'm buggered if I can find anyone to do it!

I've advertised on Rated People, MyBuilder.com, rung people on Check a Trade, all of which has resulted in any of the following:

1. Call not returned.

1. Call returned with a promise to show up at a certain time and date to quote, with no show. When I call them to find out why, I get excuses, another date and time, and ..... another no show!

1. One guy turned up and suggested a plan of action but went away and didn't send a quote. His English wasn't good so perhaps he misunderstood. (But he smelled of alcohol and it was 9am, and I didn't feel particularly comfortable around him. I live alone.)

1. Finally found someone who came round, seemed nice, and was keen to do the job and offered me a price. I said I wanted to think about it for a couple of days. Which I thought was normal when hiring a tradesman?

I rang him 48 hours later and he said he was at work and would call me back. Since then nothing. I've called him (voicemail), texted him and clicked "Hire" on his profile on MyBuilder.com to no avail.

It's only been a couple of days that I haven't been able to get hold of him and I'm wondering if I should I give him longer or try to hire someone else?

Which seems an impossible task at the moment. I'm not a cheapskate and I'm willing to pay them what they want. Is this normal?

The job is to repair damaged tiles and make good two holes in the wall ripped out by the plumber to repair a leak. (The leak is now fixed.)

If I was confident doing the work myself, I would. Does anyone have any ideas? I'm not used to hiring tradesmen but I'm really shocked by their lies and unreliability. If I carried on like this in my work I'd be unemployed. Seems they can get away with it though.

I am tempted to leave poor feedback online but that may rebound on me.

I can't tell you how to resolve the problem but I can say that this has happened to me. People who say they will quote and never got back to me, people not coming to look at the work. I can only conclude that they didn't need the work. I have employed a handyman to do small jobs and found them to be more reliable. Does that help?

thing is, in the nicest way, if someone offered you a £30 for an hour's work and someone offered you £150 for 2 hours work... who you gonna pick?

if they're small jobs pop on FB local site and ask for handy man recommendations or YouTube vids and DIY. (dependant on actual job tho)

Thanks Lois and Klutzy, maybe a handyman is the way to go.

Klutzy, as I said - I'm willing to pay these guys what they want. I was happy to pay the guy who came round and gave me a quote £200 for work that he said would take less than a full day.

That's more than I earn :-)

It's school half term - the guy you want to do the work may be away.

Also Klutzy, I fully get that people get better offers. I get better offers all the time in the course of my work. But if I binned the confirmed booking paying less for the better paying job my reputation would be trash and that would impact on my ability to get work.

And why do they tell lies? Why not just say they don't have time, have better paying, bigger jobs or that they're not interested?

A bit of honesty and courtesy wouldn't go amiss. I would never lie and just not show up like this. Perhaps I'm just naive.

We've had this no end. Like you say a common courtesy call or even text would be enough.
We've had them not turn up for quotes, jobs, everything. When they have turned up it's usually hours late. It's a joke.
We have a plumber who we know well and lives a few doors down, even he has let us down numerous times - on big jobs too. They have the monopoly unfortunately, too much work it seems they can pick and choose.
I agree try a handyman. They usually advertise or are recommended on Facebook (although we even had one of those turn us down as several hours work wasn't enough!)
And don't be ripped off just because you're willing to pay

Thanks keepingbees. It's good to hear that someone understands. But depressing to thing that even a neighbour would let you donw!

As you say, they have a monopoly and too much work.

I've rung my insurer in desperation (as it's an insurance claim) and explained the situation - I think they're going to appoint their own contractor. Thank God!

But if not, then I'll go the handyman route. Thanks!

Think, not thing!

My local authority used to keep a list of handyman with the sort of job they could do competently. I don't know if others do?

Why did you need a couple of days to think about it after all trouble you'd already had?

I would guess the OP didn't want to take the first quote then realised it was the only quote. Perfectly reasonable.

Wowfudge - yes, you are spot on. Lesson learnt!

@KlutzyDraconequus I don't think the cost had anything to do with it to be fair - we had exactly the same issues for a £10k piece of work!

It's ridiculous, I don't understand why on earth Trades waste their time (and ours) coming round and then never actually sending the quote or going AWOL once they have.

I wish that if they don't want the work they would just say, or they should be a bit more organised. As a customer I wouldn't use someone that proves themselves unreliable before they get the job

But we finally cut through all the nonsense and got the work done and it is beautiful

The insurance contractor might be the way to go. Lots of cowboys out there too, we've had our fair share of those as well.
Good luck I hope you get it done eventually!

madsie - that is interesting. Your experience is exactly what I'm talking about but glad you got sorted out in the end.

Keepingbees - the insurance contractor hasn't rung me yet either, LOL!

And in the meantime the guy who came round to quote then went quiet has resurfaced. Said he'd got stuck on a big job that was more complicated than first thought.
Then said he's going to Spain and if I can wait I week he could do it when he gets back.

So - stupidly - I said "OK". The reason being that I want a specialist tiler (and he is one) to do the job how I want it, whereas the insurance contractor may have other ideas and may not have specialist tiling skills. In that he/she can do an okay job, but it won't look great.

The tiler who's gone to Spain has got great reviews on MyBuilder.com too. Maybe I get everything I deserve!

FWIW. The work we tried to get done was also worth several thousands.In the end I got a handyman to fit my kitchen! He was absolutely brilliant, I could not fault him, a perfect job carried out really cheerfully. He knew an electrician to do the electrics and I knew a plumber to do the plumbing bits and fit a new cloakroom suite. Totally mad! How people can turn down work I don't know.