Home Contractors and Worker Staff: Whose house is this anyway?

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.