Since moving into my
house a year ago, I’ve found another category of humanoid with the same work
ethic, honesty and communication skills as recruiters.
Yes, I’m talking about
contractors—those who can make repairs and improvements in your living space.
Finding contractors who
combine competency in their declared area of expertise with reliability and
accuracy is like finding a purple squirrel. You either go to Yelp or you ask
your friends for recommendations, but even then it’s problematic.
I learned within the
first couple of months here to ignore any of the names given me by my realtor:
his plumbing firm came out twice; each time there were “lady, you should get
this done” sizeable additions to the final invoice. And of the two handymen he
recommended, one never responded at all to my call, and the other kept
insisting on texting me even after I told him repeatedly that texting is not
how I communicate. His estimate was also quite vague.
I lucked out on the
electricians, whom I found via a neighborhood social media platform,
Nextdoor.com. Every person I’ve dealt with at Autumn Electric has been
professional, competent and good at explaining things to me. Plus—they clean up
after their work. They didn’t give the lowest estimate, but I’ve had them out
for two rounds of remediation work, and I’ll happily call on them for the
improvements, too.
I just wish they did
plumbing, too. Because I’m back on the grrr corner. I’ve called a total of six
providers, four from Nextdoor and two recommended by friends.
Of the Nextdoor crowd, two
flat out refused to come out to look at the job, and gave me estimates over the
phone, based on hearing “replace a kitchen and two bathroom faucets”. I don’t
do business without a written estimate, and I’m extremely uncomfortable with
someone tossing one out without actually seeing what the issues are. So they got
scratched straight away.
One came out, looked
around and gave me a quote. He’d put himself forward on Nextdoor as being “cheap”,
which isn’t necessarily a positive. Moreover, I gotta say that I had to air out
the house after he left because the stench of cigarette smoke he exuded like to
knocked me out. I wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of him being around
for hours in somewhat small spaces.
The fourth is someone I’ve
used before. I found him agonizingly slow, although thorough, and he had to go
out three times to Home Depot because he only completely scoped out what parts
would be needed for the job immediately in front of him, not once for
everything on his list. Still—thorough and competent. Although I got a little
tired of him talking about Hungary, the paradise of the universe. (His parents
brought him here when he was a boy; they’ve since returned and he goes “home”
once a year, where he gets another injection of nationalism.) Dude—do not wave
that flag in front of someone who’s ingested the history of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, interbellum Europe and nation-state Nazi
collaborators.
He came out, did a
thorough assessment, and pointed out that if I want to attach the dishwasher
drain directly to the garbage disposal, he’ll have to uninstall and reinstall
it, because it’s using the wrong size/type line (half-inch copper instead of
three-quarter inch flex). Well, no one else had mentioned that, so I thought about
it and put out a call to friends for recos.
Enter the last two. One
joined the ranks of don’t-need-no-stinkin’-visit-to-quote, but embellished it
by being rude, condescending and insulting. He quoted his rates ($110 for the first 75 minutes; $15 for each quarter hour
thereafter), and tossed out what he thought it would take to replace a standard faucet. I asked what his
definition of standard is, and he gave me a brand
name (Moën, if you’re interested), not a description (center-set, single-hole,
widespread, for starters). He then dissed the replacements I’ve already bought
(“Take it back and get a Moën.”). When I suggested that there might be special
circumstances, he reverted to his rates again, only very slowly.
Again—nothing in
writing, incomplete assessment of the jobs to be done and the very real
possibility that his upfront laziness could end up costing me a lot on the
backend. Plus—in a free market, there are many plumbers out there who aren’t
jerks to the customers’ faces. So he’s dismissed with prejudice.
The final outfit were
quite professional, showing up in an extremely gaudy panel truck. They took a
look at the kitchen sink, and were marking it down on their estimator app when
I drew their attention to the dishwasher drain line issue. Oh. Well. Yeah—wrong
size/type. Have to disconnect and reinstall. Okay, fine. But then they didn’t
bother to look at the bathrooms because “they’re all standard.”
I got their
app-generated estimate, but honestly: what kind of estimate doesn’t have a
total? And there was only one bathroom faucet listed, not the two. Again—it’s
an app; you couldn’t click on the function that indicates the number of
instances, and the function that totals it all up?
So I called Mr. Hungary,
and get this: he’s not sure when he can come do it. I gave him a three-day
window next week, but… (He runs a renovation company and does this on the
side.) Dude—you bid on the job, WTF?
Well, I just stayed
quiet, and eventually he thought he might be able to do it next Thursday. Send
thoughts and prayers for me, readers. I want the new faucets.
No comments:
Post a Comment