Upbringing
I was raised by a dad who wouldn’t allow the use of the phrase “I can’t.” On the rare occasion I would dare utter those two words he would sigh and calmly respond “You can do anything you want to do. What you’re saying is you’ve decided you don’t want to.”
This was a constant and repeated theme until the phrase “I can’t” was extinguished from my vocabulary. What a gift. I wish it was a gift every parent gave every child.
Experience
When I have allowed people onto my property to work on things the experience has not been good. They work on what I’ve requested, destroy everything in their path, and don’t do all that great of a job at what they were hired to do.
It’s just proven to not be worth it. So I take my time, research on the internet to learn how to do things, and do it myself. No destruction of surrounding things and the job gets done to my standards.
I have one shining exception to this. Maintenance Free Exteriors in Highland Village, TX did absolutely perfect work with no damage to my property. If you are in North Texas and need siding or windows call Robert Smith at 972-966-1834 or check out http://www.maintenancefreeexteriors.com. He’s awesome.
The one other thing I won’t do is anything roof related. Sorry — scare of heights so that gets hired out.
Recent Experience
I arrived in Tennessee and had a recommended general handyman show up on my doorstep the day after my furniture was delivered. I was in no way ready to figure out what I needed help with, but hated to turn this older man away who had set the next couple days away to help me, so I allowed him to start.
It was a total and complete disaster. Almost everything he started ended badly. Attaching the water line to the refrigerator took three trips to the store. I wanted new locks and he drilled a door wrong so I had to replace the door. He drilled another brand new door and damaged the surface. On the last door he used the wrong drill bit and blistered the paint so badly I will have to refinish the entire door.
He replaced a half wall of drywall and thought it was okay the replaced sheet was 1/4 inch inset from the wall above it. I had to rehang the drywall after adding sections of 2 x 4’s to get it out level with the other sheet rock.
I could go on and on. I had paid him for 3 days and when he botched up more stuff on the 4th day and not returned I assumed it was a wash for all the damage he had done. Wrong.
He called a week later while sitting in his vehicle in my drive demanding payment. When I said we needed to discuss this since I was having to redo or repair so much stuff that I had assumed we were even he threatened me.
He told me if I didn’t pay him for the last day I would suffer serious consequences. I asked what he meant by the threat and he wouldn’t elaborate, but since he had kept a key from my dead bolt changes I was extremely upset by the threat. He continued to threaten me and I continued to ask for clarification until he hung up.
As a single woman this kind of stuff is really scary. I have learned there is a certain element of the male population that has no problem doing bad things to women who have no males in their life. I was scared.
I went to the police department and made a report in case something happened to me or my house. They suggested I pay him just to get him out of my life. The idea absolutely galled me, but I couldn’t disagree. So in the end, while I wouldn’t pay him for the crappy work he’d done I would pay him to get his miserable ass out of my life for good.
As luck would have it a nice man came that afternoon to replace a water pressure regulator so I called the above mentioned ass and told him he had an hour to come get his money.
He pulled in the driveway and the plumber walked out to his truck. He didn’t need anything – he just wanted to make his presence known. I could have hugged him.
When he saw there was a man here (the plumber made a point of walking out on the driveway when he arrived) the weasel wouldn’t even get out of his truck. I walked out and told him I wanted my key. He acted surprised and dug it out of his pocket and once in my possession I handed him the money and walked away.
Bottom Line
It was an unfortunate experience so early in my move, but I have no intention of letting it sour me on my decision to come here.
I still need help with some things, but I get lots of suggestions before letting anyone in my house again. And I will be using Angie’s List as much as I can – although I’m in a rural area of Tennessee and I’m not sure how much help it will be.
Protect yourself ladies – there are a lot of predatory, lousy workers out there that you don’t need to allow into your home. Learn from my mistake. Be careful.
This all needs to be balanced out with the fact I have an abundance of rags. My mother was a smoker and when she died I brought her towels home and watched them disintegrate along the edges that had been exposed to the smoke. (Boy — is that an anti-smoking example or what? If it eats fabric what the heck is it doing to lungs?) All those towels have been reduced to rags.
