O.K. I need a medium to grip about the ins and outs and experiences with home contractors, their staff and home care taker types of staff. So, here I go. Let'er rip!
In this blog entry, I focus on "Whose house is this anyway?" This entry is related to those workers that get too comfortable in while doing a job or working on a project in "your house".
Number one complaint, is when they take over a bathroom and the toilet seat is either left perpetually up and/or the bathroom vent fan is left running non-stop even when they are working with drywall dust and wood dust, etc.
Continuation of when they have become a little too comfortable:
- They ask you what time to show up for work each day and you agree on a time. Maybe you should have discussed what time zone, because either they are 20 minutes to 1.5 hours late or at times don't show up at all and don't bother to contact you.
- They walk in and out of the house during the day and leave the doors open in the heat of summer and the freezing cold of winter.
- They deposit the bags of trash and other refuse where ever the heck they feel like dropping it. Either on the floor of your house or out on the lawn or in the driveway. Have a pick-up truck? It might as well be a random open trash dumpster to them. The waste disposal company provided large canister trash bins.... Not sure what they are for.
- You as the homeowner know that the night before or the day before you placed X number of new outlets down in the work area and only so many have been installed and X number remain in the box. Where is the missing outlet? Hey, and by the way, where is the center stop for the door knob, hardware and screws that I left in a box "right here" last night? Well, believe me, you won't get any answers. But, check the trash. Sure enough, there is the new missing electrical receptacle outlet mysteriously thrown in the trash and the "empty" box with still no acknowledgement by the workers as to the contents.
- Drill and screw driver bits, as well as vendor provided tools such as Allen wrenches. Say good-bye to them if a worker gets their hands on your hardware, as it will either go into their tool box or into the trash. o
- When you go into the trash to find those new missing items, you discover a good percentage of the new nails and screws in in the trash. Obviously, if it hits the floor and they aren't paying it isn't worth retrieving.
- That new shovel "outside" in the shed somehow ends up inside the house as a adhesive stirrer covered in a material that you will never be able to remove.
- Your drill, left out in the open, you discover after the workers are no longer at your house is a fire hazard. They used it and burned out the engine and it starts smoking, as soon as you turn it on and sparking.
- Show me the money.... Workers telling you that the job is complete and doing piss poor work at the end such as not completely sanding dry wall and painting over it and installing fixture plates over wet paint and getting paint splatters all over and not cleaning it up.
- They put drop clothes down. But, it doesn't matter what side is up or down to them. You discover that they put the dusty side splattered with paint and chunks of compound down on top of your carpets and have been breaking the chunks down as they repeatedly walk back and forth making your carpet dirtier than it would have been if left uncovered.
- They actually cover doors and furniture with plastic and tape as they are creating lots of drywall dust. But, they remove it before the dust has settled and leave you to clean up the mess.
- What is that odor? Ask and they feign that they do not know what you are referring to and continue working. Later that evening you decide to check over your newly installed tub and come across a really botched up cover up job of spray paint where they attempted to cover their damage.
- How did they chip and damage the tub? Well, they got pissed off when you came to check on the job and noticed that they were idiotic enough to have installed a very noticeably different shade/color of tile that had gotten into the box with the matching tile. Yeah, so you told them to remove it and that pissed him off so he got careless and let things fly and chipped the porcelain off of the new tub. Smart.....
- They are creating a high volume of dust and yet go and open up doors to places they shouldn't even be opening doors to and leave them open and don't bother to cover your possessions.
- The radio that happened to be in the general location they decide to use and cover with drywall dust and layers of paint. Thanks.... I really wanted the old distressed and beat up look.
- The sinks, toilets and tubs see materials and abuse that they have never seen and are left beaten up, splattered in paint and debris and you pray to God that the plumbing doesn't back-up, as you discovered they have been dumping grout and other materials down the drain and toilet.
- They ask for an extension cord and two days later you discover that they tripped a circuit and didn't bother to tell you. Check the garage fridge and sure enough, it is on the same circuit and has been off for far too long.
- That extension cord you finally discover in the rubble left on the floor covered in paint, compound and dust. Yeah, the one that you normally have in your office and would prefer to keep as close to presentable as possible.
- It's 30 degrees outdoors and the workers leave for the day. You go downstairs a while later to discover that they left the windows open.
- They are reconnecting the washing machine and dryer. When they are connecting the washing machine, you inquire if they need any special material for the threads. "No, no problem, o.k." Come downstairs a day later and discover the newly tiled floor is covered in water (Thank you God for the fact that some of the trail of water was pouring into the sump pump hole) and "yes...there is a problem" they should have used silicon tape to help seal the threads of the hose. So, you have them come back and they use they disconnect and use the silicon tape you provided. You go to do laundry and discover that they didn't pay attention to hot and cold and have improperly connected the lines to the washer. Encore!
- Discuss with the worker the gap between the drywall and the newly tiled floor in the basement and is there something that could be done to help keep out bugs, etc. by blocking the gap. Next day, proud worker shows you he just sealed 26 linear feet with your multiple $6 a tubes white silicon caulk that you had purchased to seal the interior windows. Thanks for asking....who is paying for this? This is the same area that might have drywall cut and removed when the electrician comes in to upgrade and add electrical lines and outlets.
- The worker has 20 minute drywall compound and asks if there are any other areas in the house that he can use up the rest of the compound before it hardens. You tell him that the screw holes from the old drapery hardware in the living room need to be filled. A minute later he's cradling the cell phone on his shoulder in a conversation, as he's slapping on compound to the wall and splattering it on whatever is situated below, i.e. off-white upholstry, etc.
O.K. I need a medium to grip about the ins and outs and experiences with home contractors, their staff and home care taker types of staff. So, here I go. Let'er rip!
In this blog entry, I focus on "Is this supposed to be a time capsule?" This entry is related to a couple of experiences I have had when entering areas of building construction that haven't been visited by humans since the construction workers last had their lunch 20 years ago.
My first experience was with a garden style apartment complex that was probably built in the mid to late 60's that I lived in for approximately 5 years.
Now, this was a complex in a nice section of Fairfax County and honestly, the rent was pretty darn reasonable for the location. I realized that I was forgoing amenities such as newer and full sized stove and refrigerator. There was no dishwasher nor garbage disposal and other than paint, counter top and bathroom vanity the apartment had never had any money spent in upgrades and renovations.
But, it was in an ideal location and close to work. Positive points.
Now the downside to a complex like that is even the leasing and maintenance manager is chintzy and tight with the dime. In order to get the air filters changed it took an act of Congress and I am certain I was posted on the record somewhere for having the audacity to ask for such a thing. So, my request for the complex to send someone in to actually clean the air vents as they were spewing out chunks of dust and allergens was met with a scoff and "No, sorry, we won't pay for that."
O.K. So, I decide to get out the screw driver and my vacuum cleaner and do a little vent cleaning myself.
If I had a digital camera back then, I would have recorded the thickness of the filth inside of the air intake vent adjacent to the HVAC closet. Twenty five or thirty or so years of dirt, debris, allergens and generations of dead dust mites accumulated into inches of layers inside the vent.
Quite the job pulling that waste out and vacuuming. But, I thought, I need to do this for me. I don't need to be breathing this stuff in or continue to spread it throughout the apartment.
The gem was the loser of a worker from 1960? that had decided to create a time capsule by disposing of their lunch bag with an empty milk carton and a snack cake wrapper way at the very back of the vent just as it turned into the HVAC system.
Yeah, I kept that time capsule and left it on top of the refrigerator when I moved out. Doubt the management got the message. But, I just needed to leave that one for the record.
Next.... The current house, O'Dea-O'Dea, built exclusively for Mrs. O'Dea-O'Dea in 1983 and a time capsule discovered by me in December 2010.
My new neighbors has a mirror image house of this style and the basement of their house was built out by previous owners, as opposed to the builders who had built out the basement in this house to a living space in 1983.
Like I said, everything is flipped between the two houses. So, we all have our moments of feeling disoriented when in each other's houses.
My neighbor's husband jokingly said to me, "Have you seen my wife's room yet?" as we were standing at the foot of the basement stairs.
Huh?
He points to a door adjacent to the stairs and tells me to open it.
Low and behold there is this small closet space with bare foundation cement walls and no ceiling.
I had no idea this space existed and once it came to having workers in my basement helping to renovate and repair drywall, etc., I had them open a hole to see if indeed my house also had this secret closet/
Yes, it did! Bonus.... An excellent place to store wine, liquor and/or weapons, etc.!
Oh, but the time capsule.
Workers what is in your heads when you knowingly leave your lunch and food wrappers behind walls of construction or in vents, etc.?
A nice little gift bag on the floor with food wrappers just to let us know that human life had once touched the space decades ago.
Geez.... Thank you unknown stranger!
O.K. I need a medium to grip about the ins and outs and experiences with home contractors, their staff and home care taker types of staff. So, here I go. Let'er rip!
In this blog entry, I focus on "Did they ever see the crying Indian Chief?" This entry is related to those workers from South of The Boarder that are selling their services as landscapers and yard workers.
One would think, if you hire a landscape company or workers to provide landscaping services or clean your yard that they would be clean and not litter.
Guess again.
I know that it must be a cultural difference and that in the late 1960's and early 1970's when Americans were finally getting in touch to the impact they were having on the environment there were heavy advertising campaigns, education and public service announcements that featured the likes of a native American Indian at the side of the highway crying at how modern man was abusing the land and littering. In schools, we were taught about "ecology" and that was the sound bite of the 70's, as "green" is to the late 2000 decade.
It can be God awful hot and humid in Virginia from March through October. Therefore, if you have workers in your yard, it is only fair to keep them hydrated with a supply of soft drinks and water.
The thing that you don't expect that as these guys are working the empty drink containers get thrown to the ground along with any other trash that they might process through their hands. Cigarette butts...to the ground... cigarette wrappers and boxes,,,to the ground...Drink containers and cups...to the ground....Fast food bags and wrappers...to the ground.
When and if they do finally get picked up they are randomly intermingled with the bags of yard waste.
You know, the yard waste that the contracted waste disposal company is going to separately pick-up and will end up in a mulch pile for decomposing and very likely back into local landscapes as a rich organic and natural soil conditioner.
Lord help us....the Indian isn't the only one crying.
O.K. I need a medium to grip about the ins and outs and experiences with home contractors, their staff and home care taker types of staff. So, here I go. Let'er rip!
In this blog entry, I focus on "Do this and don't do that..." This entry is related to a very enterprising and nice teen from the neighborhood trying to drum up lawn mowing and yard care business.
First time over, I walk him around the yard to make certain he knows where the property boundaries are located and to show him a sprinkler electrical wire that is exposed at the edge of a garden bed "See this, this is a wire for the sprinkler system. Please be careful and don't cut this." "These weeds near the composting bin are out of control and need to be mowed down."
Can you guess what occurs?
Of course:
The cable with the electrical wires for the sprinkler system gets cut and he doesn't tell me.
That healthy patch of weeds doesn't get mowed, as he thinks they are flowers, even though I told them they are weeds and I want him to mow them down.
A week later, I am out mowing the lawn, myself, once again.
Why, because his method of mowing a lawn wasn't to cover the whole lawn in consecutive strips with the mower. It was a random job probably dictated by what he felt "required" mowing.
So, he's a teen. Nice kid. Wants to work.
I next give him a chance at weeding a garden bed. Tell him my preference is that I pay him by the hour. But, he insists that it might take him longer than I would anticipate and therefore he'd prefer $50 for the job.
O.K. Kid. Go to it.
It takes him a few days after his daytime job to spend brief periods of time weeding prior to the sun setting. The final evening he is out there in the dark finishing up.
It's dark. I pay the kid his $50.
Check out the work in the daylight. Well, he left some tall flowering weeds. Sort of wondering if he actually got the roots when he did the work.
Two weeks later, there is the answer growing full force.
Breaking off and cutting weeds.... It isn't "weeding".
Nice try. No thanks, I can do it myself next time.
