He showed up with his dog. That’s right; he brought his dog to work. It romped around our fence-in backyard while this guy and his crew did their work. My dog wasn’t all that happy about it but that’s OK. I just think it’s weird you bring your dog to work when that work is at other people’s houses.
Twice the sub-contractor came to our back door asking if he could use some of our gasoline for his equipment. He told me he forgot to bring his own but then he made no effort to go get some. My guess is he figures he can scam clients for the gas rather than have to pay for it himself. Gas is expensive!
And this may be the weirdest thing of all: He cut up one of my hoses. I have a couple of old hoses in my backyard that do need replacing. One was on one of those spool caddies, and for some reason he had trouble using the hose while it was wound up on the caddy. It tended to get kinks in it and that caused the water to not come out unless you unfurled it from the caddy. He finally took my second hose, hooked it up to the spigot and used it. Somewhere in between, he took the hose on the caddy off the caddy and cut it into three pieces. Now like I said, it was old and needing replacing. It even had a couple of small holes in it, so no great loss. But why the fuck would he cut it up? I didn’t discover this until he was gone so I wasn’t able to ask him what that was all about. I will be quizzing the contractor when he eventually gets back to me.
I’m not naming names right now because I still believe the contractor to be a reasonable person. There are some other issues with the actual work the subcontractor did so I’m not going to pick a fight just yet. I know that contractors do sometimes have problems with those they contact work out to.For example, a few years ago we had some new flooring put down in our house. We contracted with one of the flooring stores in town to have the work done. They hired a subcontractor who came out, tore out our baseboards and then left saying they preferred to work on unoccupied houses (new builds and the like). Huh? So there we were with no baseboards and no one to do the work. We called the contractor and he got us an excellent crew to do the work the very next day. So that worked out well in the end.
Bottom line seems to be that some subcontractors are just moody and sometimes a bit nuts.
7 comments:
This subcontractor sounds like a jackass. I love dogs, but if someone shows up to do work at my house with his own dog, it's going to drive my dogs nuts. I don't like that.
And all that business about gas and cutting up your hose. That's just bizarre. I bet someday he'll end up on Judge Judy.
My parents hired a contractor to do some outdoor work on a 'pond'. That guy brought his dog which I thought was messed up. He also made no effort to contain him when I came by to feed their fish. I like dogs but he did not know that I wasn't terrified of them.
He irritated me more when I had spent a massive amount of time cleaning the water of the cooler, which was the fishes temporary home, by tossing in some water plants with a massive amount of dirty water because it was convenient for him. It was so bad I couldn't see any of the fish in water that was only a foot deep.
If he is the same guy my parents hired then he is a hat for hineys.
I think sub-contractors are a nightmare to every home-owner.
Gish,
The work involved a “cement pond” if you get my Beverly Hillbillies gist. So maybe it is the same guy.
Maybe he's a blogger and will read this and leave a comment 'splaining his sorry self.
Somewhere there's a separate level in hell for subcontractors - just above auto mechanics.
Rule: Keep your tools hidden if you ever call in anyone to make repairs.
My parents work involved a koi-type pond with waterfall-type stuff. They had no end of problems with his original work and then had little luck ever getting a hold of him. He eventually did come back and fix his initial work but I don't think he'll ever receive work from the again nor would they recommend him to anyone.
Good luck with your efforts.
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