Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Disappointments, Pet Peeves & Venting About It !


Nothing ruffles my feathers more than when you have an issue that needs resolving and you hit a DEAD END to get it taken care of. It all started a year ago last spring.......
I WARN YOU, READ NO FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ PLENTY OF GRIPING AND COMPLAINING.

#1.......I won't say who the contractor and his crew were that did the new roofs and siding on my 2 out buildings.
Basically I was happy with the outcome. There were a couple things that I would have had them do differently, but all in all I felt relieved when the work was done. Face it, had my husband not died he would have been out there painting those buildings himself, there would have been no expensive siding. I suppose he would have insisted on shingling the new roofs too, cause like most men they don't listen to their women when we can see outside the box and see nothing but trouble. I have always felt if you don't do that kind of work in the first place then hire someone who does it for a living and does it right. I took care of spinal cord injuries for most of my working days, last thing I needed was my guy falling off a roof and breaking his neck or killing himself. Now my husband would have saw it as saving money to do the work himself. He put the first roof on this house and the out buildings. The house roof was replaced about 8-9 years ago by guys who do it for a living. I had to pull teeth to convince him that he was "too old" to be up there in the first place. 

Anyways, I'm off track....the crew last year was recommended by one of my brothers. This brother is a landlord, he and his wife own over 40 rental properties. They started out small, but over the years they thrived and were able to hire other people to do electrical and plumbing work on their apartments for them. Now to get to the problem, I paid the contractor for his work in 3 different payments. The deal was to pay half at the start, then the other half at the finish. It was on the contract to do it that way. Mid-stream he came to me to let me know "his guys" really needed some more pay and wondered if I could write a check. What a joke he was, I discovered that the first week they came here. They would start out like gang busters and by 11am would be ready for lunch break (which lasted a good 2 hours or more). Then they would return from lunch to work at not working and would kinda gather up their tools and be done for the day. It would seem that alcohol (and maybe more), was part of the lunch menu. This guy, the boss, was trying to talk to me with garbled speech and he was definitely dropping on the rating scale. They would work several days (often when it was raining) and then go to another inside job, in the mean time, on those bright, sunny days. So don't they say turkeys don't know to come out of the rain. I began to think of them as turkeys. They had to get in my husband's wood shop because the wood under a window needed replaced before the siding could go on. They tracked mud all over the floor. My husband would have blown a gasket. They stored their tools in there. A spade, that belonged to us was in there and they used it regularly to shovel dirt at the bottom where the siding hit the ground. It disappeared when they finished the job. Since I had paid up front for the work and supplies I had a refund coming back to me from the supplier. Tacking on the price I had to pay to replace the spade made that refund around $280. I paid for the dumpster that they used for all the old shingles and stuff. How nice that before they threw in one thing from this job that they brought some crap they wanted to be rid of from their homes and threw in it. I probably would not have minded had they asked if it was okay, but they didn't. I called the lumber company to see about that refund.....it took them 3 days to locate the paper work on it and low and behold they had given it to the contractor. I left a message on his phone never to hear from him again. I was angry!!!!!!!! I called my brother, after all he is the one who suggested, no he is the one who called this nut in the first place. I threatened all sorts of stuff. How could he recommend a drunk and druggie to do my stuff, be on my roofs!!!!! I was taking that guy to small claims court, that was it! I was calling the BBB! My brother, mind you, he is a law officer, advised me not to do that. Maybe he thought I would get shot or something since I am a widow living alone out here in the boon docks. He said he would deduct the amount owed me when he has this guy do his next roof. We could all be so lucky that the guy doesn't kill himself in the mean time because of his lifestyle. Still steaming over that one. Mad enough to chew nails!


#2......again I won't mention any names. The shrubs are needing trimmed, nice short-as-you-can-go, without killing them trim. I called people in the business. Why oh why do you continue to advertise if you are so ***m busy????? Or better yet do some hiring if you can't keep up with the demand. First call was to see if they could come give me an estimate, oh yes, they say they can. A week later I call them again, oh yes, they will be out. The 3rd call she tells me that they couldn't find my place. OH, GIVE ME A BREAK! I LIVE ON A FRIGGIN' STATE ROUTE THAT STARTS AND ENDS ON 2 OTHER MAJOR STATE ROUTES! 


#3.......again I won't mention any names. The shrubs never got trimmed. Again I search for someone. I call a local nursery. Yes, they do have people who do that. She will have them come out and give me an estimate. They will call me. 8 days later I call them, oh she needs to put me on hold so she can locate the guy who does that........3 minutes later, she can't find the guy, takes my number (didn't I give her that 8 days ago?) and she will get back to me. That was a good 2-3 weeks ago. I guess I can safely say they are not going to call me back. 

#4.......again I won't mention any names. The shrubs, those damned shrubs, I'm losing my religion, and they still need trimmed. I call someone my daughter recommends. Nice lady, it is her brother who has done this kind of work for over 20 years. Yes, they give free estimates, but they are so far behind from all that rain we had over that 2 weeks period. She will tell her brother.......waiting.......waiting.......waiting!
I have 40 bags of mulch in my garage that I can not put down till those shrubs are trimmed, just saying!
I will mention that the last time I checked my Credit Karma score it was 800, way better than that gal in the commercial who brags about her Fico score. I pay my bills pronto!


 #5........lastly, again I won't mention any names, but if this shoe fits then I hope you wear it and it hurts. I realize that fellow bloggers have all sorts of reasons for not blogging. I am guilty of this myself. We are all busy, we have homes, families and things to do and blogging is often something we do in our spare time for entertainment and relaxation. But for the life of me I don't understand why you blog and then all of a sudden make your blog PRIVATE, invitation only places. It is like slamming the door in our faces. Shame on you! How do you even get invited in the first place? Maybe you don't because they don't value their faithful followers that much, I don't know. I just know that it is like a slap in the face to those of us who loved reading your posts, who supported you when you had both good and bad days. Shaking my head here. Kinda makes you feel like the kid who just didn't belong and was left out. I would never do that to anyone. If it ever came down to this for me I would explain leaving and close my blog out. No one will need to feel hurt or shunned. As for the private blogs, I will be going through my list and delete you. I'm sure it will not break your hearts.
There, I came on here to say what I had to say. You can either agree or disagree, it is your free choice to comment or not. Today comes with it's own troubles. I am dealing with a leak on the captive pressure tank in the basement. I have plumber coming. Nothing worse than a water leak.





7 comments:

  1. My only problem with your entry is you did not name names!! Why not? Screw them! It's your blog and you can call it as you see it. Name them and maybe save someone the hassle of choosing them to do their work. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh Pammy, back in the day this girl would have not cared one bit to give those people piece of my mind and let everyone know who they are. I suspect that I gave too many pieces away and now just coasting on what is left. It does no good :(

      Delete
  2. I dislike hiring any kind of home improvement work done. It always seems that whatever I hire the workers to fix, causes something else to be broken in the process.
    Last September we had all the vinyl trim replaced on the house, when the 'so called' experts weren't on the Facebook accounts they were watching videos, the job supervisor was the worst offender. What happened to putting in an hour's work for an hour's pay.......gone with the rest of our morals I s'pect.
    ~Jo

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Two years ago I went on Angie's list to find someone to install a new captive water pressure tank in my basement. The guy made the mistake of not removing the filter in my wet/dry vac before he sucked up the water mess he made. It ruined the filter. It cost me over $50 extra to replace the filter plus gasoline, wear and tear on my Jeep for this unexpected error on his part. My lesson learned. I don't go on Angie's List anymore.

      Delete
  3. Oh mercy me! You are loaded for bear! I don't blame you!!! I miss blogging. Hope to get back to it soon!
    XO

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh my it sounds like you have been through the wringer lately.....I'm hoping this will all be a distant memory..this too shall pass

    ReplyDelete
  5. You can vent any day! I had my pet peeve post last week, it felt good to get some of it out. Contractors are a bit crazy, and i feel a lot of workers are lazy, but not all of them it is just hard to find the right people. And as for the private blogs I do not understand that. I frankly have never been invited to read a blog and I have definitely felt hurt by some that have gone private, it brings me back to middle school when I felt unpopular!

    Hang in there my friend,
    Meredith

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
~WRITE IT ON YOUR HEART................
THAT THE ONES YOU LOVE ARE LIFE'S MOST PRECIOUS GIFTS~