AIBU to expect trades people (usually) men to...

We have had similar problems but primarily before any work has started! We have been trying to get our dining room ceiling plastered and it has been proving very difficult to even get people round to quote and/or they come round and then don't bother giving us a price. Most recently, a man came round and gave us a quote and we had him booked in to do the work (many FB recommendations) but when my husband texted him the week before to confirm, he said he had to put it off because of "other jobs" and then ignored further messages trying to rebook the work. We finally told him to forget it and are now back to square one. Very frustrating.

The last time we had some work some - by a local electrician - it was done over 2 early evenings, no tidying up, cable left hanging down for us to pin up. The excessive bill arrived and strangely I 'forgot' to pay it till the last due date. Won't be using him again.

I have had to wait to have jobs done because Builders are very busy and materials have been hard to get but I am very impressed by how polite,cheerful and professional the trades people have been when they came to do the work
I love them all!

I'd love them too if they turned up Avitor1 ! I'd love them even more if they actually did the job instead of dumping the building materials in my garden and then buggering off for 3 weeks.

My daughter was recently driven to distraction by the antics of the "gardener" she had employed to tackle her back garden ( building a low retaining wall, levelling the area to be grassed etc)
He came highly recommended by her next door neighbour, and to be fair, the work he had done in her garden looked ok.
He came, priced up the job, agreed on a start date. But....

He arrived 2 days early with no notice, so things hadn't been moved out of the way. Came with 2 "helpers", and left them to carry on, while he disappeared!

After that, he was mysteriously unavailable for days, always had an excuse. Or would arrive, get a phone call and disappear after 10 mins!

Initially he told my daughter the job would take 5 days tops. After nearly 3 weeks of this, she'd had enough, told him to go.

The family pitched in and finished the job, including laying the turf, in 2 days!

I don't think she will ever employ a tradesman again, the stress made her so ill.

ps - the neighbour was mortified!

xx

Sounds par for the course to me. We were having major work done on some outbuildings. The chap arrived on time stopped a couple of days to supervise and then left the men to get on with it. One afternoon they packed up, we thought for the day but they never returned and phone calls were unanswered .issues are still to be sorted about keys and parts of bills.It is at least 12 years ago
I found out from another source though although highly recommended and excellent workmanship, he very rarely completes a job if a more lucrative one comes along.

My daughter is having major renovations done to her house. They started in March. Then they found termites so everything stopped until that was fixed. Two months later work restarted. Then there were lockdowns. They have hardly started, it is costing many thousands and it looks like they will be lucky to get it finished by Christmas. On top of that there is a shortage of wood so materials are hard to obtain. Sshheeesh.

I knew it wasn't just me!!!
Like the rest of the world it seems we've woken up out of this pandemic and decided to have some (stored up) jobs done.
Firstly some little plumbing jobs. Man turned up when he said he would, identified problem, had a go at fixing it, identified bits needed for jobs 2 and 3, went away. Sent bill which we paid immediately. No mention of when he would return to complete jobs 2 and 3. Emailed him twice, promised to turn up late the next day, then we got a message and we'd been bumped. Then that happened again! By now he was 'onto 3 strikes and you're out'. Emailed 'do you want this work or not?' Yes, I'll be round first thing tomorrow. We're retired and don't do 'first thing' any more, but we made a real effort. Then when he hadn't appeared I checked emails only to find he'd sent one in the middle of the night saying he was ill and was going for a COVID test next morning. Now, after having been tested + I'm not sure I want him in the house. Meanwhile we've been flushing the loo with buckets of water for over three months now.
Secondly - hedges. We got a guy to come and remove two trees for us, which he did efficiently. We asked him to come back and prune a huge Yew tree and a couple of others. Yes, that's OK, I'll send a date over. Email arrived, date and price agreed. Waited in...no show. Emailed and phoned to see where he was....'oh I read your email but forgot to write it in the diary'. I'm beginning to think we're living in a parallel universe.

Only this morning a lady has put on our neighbours nextdoor local site, a photo of a guy who's ripping people off, especially the elderly. He's been taking money for supplies and not finishing the job or not turning at all, I'd never pay upfront, but some folk do. He's been named and shamed big time, just hope he doesn't take it further with the very angry lady who put it on.

I seem to be in a minority here. I had major work on roof, chimney and guttering carried out in some of the worst weather ever. To say they did a good job is an under statement. All work was carried out to time and came in under budget plus they did some "extras" that they did not charge for.

We’re lucky as we have a number of local tradesman who if they can’t do that particular job, will recommend someone who can. Word would get round if they messed up.

There is a national shortage of materials, as a company we place our order nobody seems to let you know if the manufacturer is out of stock we have some unhappy customers, but it's not always our fault

Timely post from the OP. For 15 years we've lived in one house and had really reliable, friendly tradespeople. Now we're back in London and having trouble finding people. There is one plumber who everyone says is great, but he's really busy and when he says "next month" he might just as well have said in six months time.
But today I've had a gas engineer who had turned up at a time to suit me, and coming back at 7am tomorrow to fit the part so that we can go out as planned.

grannyactivist

My (new) next door neighbour is having some work done on his house and is paying to have a workman come from elsewhere in the country, that he’s used before and trusts! The builder will be staying in a local hotel and it will still be cheaper for my neighbour than employing an unknown local person.

Yes, we do this with our builder who had done work on several places for us. It's more difficult with plumbers because you need to know exactly what you want and bathroom equipment usually needs to be ordered. With electricians you need to have plans of all the work you need done so that they can do it all in one go. But it's certainly a lot cheaper to bring in a reliable tradesman from elsewhere, even if you have to provide accommodation.

It makes me laugh sometimes that they advertise "no job too small" yet when you ask them to do the job they "fit it in" as they are busy. I just wish they would be honest and say the job is not work the money. Also the quote of £x if you pay cash but at least an extra £100 if you want to pay into a bank account which I dont mind even though its illegal really but you then have no come back if something isn't right or goes wrong shortly after.

I can't even get a quote to get some alterations made to my kitchen. I asked a tradesman who was working next door if he could give me a quote. It wasn't worth his while unless I wanted a complete new kitchen

I had horrendous experience few years ago having upstairs bathroom refurbished. Went with what seemed to be a reputable local company. Only small bathroom. Quoted a week for the work. Four weeks ,after and after one problem after another they finally finished. But had left us with no bath or shower for the 4 weeks. Luckily we had a downstairs loo. Barely here, shoddy workmanship, things left undone. And I discovered couple of years ago when I had flooring replaced that they hadn't installed the underfloor waterproofing, which they charged me for. Needless to day, they are no longer in business. Just about to have it all redone as I've hated it since it was done and standard of work very poor. We've had some fabulous trades people. But its often such a leap of faith when we book someone.

Chewbacca, sorry to hear you're having such a frustrating time with your builders, it sounds like a nightmare.
We must have been lucky, we had many jobs carried out on our house since moving here three years ago, all the builders, without exception, were professional, reliable and did the job required, they also tidied up after themselves. This was mostly pre Covid so maybe not so much work pressure.
However, our last job, a driveway to the front of our property, was carried out after the easing following the first lockdown. When the builder came to assess the work, I did stress to him that we'd like the job done in one go, he did assure us he starts and finishes a job before starting another. True to his word, this is exactly what happened. It did take some time as he worked by himself but the final result was very good. We've had many neighbours admire his work.
We're not planning any more work at the moment, the garden could do with a makeover but I don't think that's happening.
I hope your builder returns soon and does the work satisfactorily.

Fennel

On an American family magazine that I buy there's been a discussion about this.
The main points were that, similar to here, due to to Covid many workers have become comfortable about not working, managing on govt. support etc. So don't want to make the effort.
Also there's a genuine problem of difficulty in obtaining parts/equipment as the companies that produce them have also been affected by Covid.
And the blockage of the Suez Canal by a container vessel, only recently cleared which were brings supplies from SE Asia.

I do NOT believe that tradespeople have been lazing about on government handouts!

I've had a new radiator fitted, a shed re-roofed and my daughter has had her house re-wired - all during lockdown. All the people working have been busy throughout.

One tradesperson I spoke to during the second lockdown (a decorator) was fully booked for 4 months. He said that getting paint had been a nightmare as only certain sizes of base paint were available and he had sometimes had to buy either several small pots and "block" them or buy way more of a colour than he needed for the job.
He said different manufacturers had similar but not identical problems. One had only 2.5l paint base (don't remember which "type of paint") for over a week. He said he had never been busier.
Needless to say, I decorated with my husband and yes, we had lots of problems getting the right paint in the right size. Not major delays, but regularly a 24-48 hrs wait.

We are now aware there's a shortage of bricks. Our builder won't want to come till he's certain we have them. We will keep the "builders yard" look in our back garden quite happily until we do and he will come then. He only promises for 3 weeks at a time and we have found him to be reliable.

"Actually do the job that you've asked for and been quoted for and that they don't suddenly change the spec without discussing it with you"

We had that in the past. We didn't like what he was doing so he was told to do what we had originally discussed! Of course it meant him going and getting the supplies he had quoted us for rather than bodging the job with odds and ends.

Jules1960

There is a national shortage of materials, as a company we place our order nobody seems to let you know if the manufacturer is out of stock we have some unhappy customers, but it's not always our fault

You're right Jules1960 that it's not always the fault of the company - but there is absolutely no reason why they can't keep in touch with the customer and keep them up to date with what is happening. I don't have a problem with things going wrong but I like to know exactly what is appening and what to expect, and bad customer service is something that can be easily rectified with a little thought and effort.

Yet another ditto. Contacted my favourite plumber 3 months ago. Asked him if he could fit a new bath. Yes, no problem. But it was, because he was very busy. Contacted ANOTHER plumber I've used to book a date because she wasn't overbooked, but she couldn't fix a date at that point and just wanted to drop in, on the off chance I was in to quote me.

I originally wanted it done within a month. Other than that, I was fairly laid back about it.

Anyway, it was done yesterday. He did a great job. Worked from 10-9.30pm. Not QUITE finished but just about. He is worth waiting for, because he does such good work.

Downside is that the leak from the old bath had caused so much damage, part of the ceiling below now needs replastering. God alone knows how long it'll take for me to get a plasterer!

We ordered a greenhouse last December and arranged with a man that he would make a level base for it and erect it. It arrived at the end of last month (6 months ? due to shortage of materials and manpower apparently) but the man who promised to do the work didn't return phone calls or emails. Now have a lovely man who is definitely retirement age but has begun the work on the base and will finish the job in a couple of weeks.

Chewbacca
Thanks for that. Glad its not just me
Never turn up at all or get a call 'Can't make it today' when you have cancelled a long awaited appointment at the hairdresser to fit in with the plumber who is sooooo busy and he could originally have only fitted your long awaited new sink on that specific day.?

I had my share of workmen in past who couldn't care less. So I looked up Checkatrade, and all are genuine people. I have a good man who arrived this morning, took all my rubbish and green stuff. There is no backchat, insults or telling me what I should be doing with my garden. And I no longer take a taxi, last bloke came on to me. I laughed it off. But I was unnerved.