People not turning up

K WEST, you and DH sound lovely. I’d love you to live near me. I too am sick of traders letting me down. Trouble is if you go on the local Nextdoor site the recommendations are very often from their mates rather than someone who has used them and been impressed

Nellietheelephant

This may be part of the lifestyle of "the young" nowadays. My daughter (40something!) constantly makes arrangements to meet up with her friends and one or the other of them nearly always texts to say they will be late. No-one seems to mind or take offence. I suppose the ease of modern communication is the reason, really.

Ease of communication is definitely part of the problem. As a teenager I used to make arrangements with friends at school and if things changed I couldn't let them know as we didn't have a house phone and it was long before mobiles, so I couldn't change plans or I'd have had no friends. I used to say that to my DD when she was calling a friend to say she was running late... - a common occurrence. I was never let down either back then.

Last week someone came for an appointment and was one minute late, but apologised! Mind you I'd been let down the previous week by his colleague who's car had broken down, but he did let me know.

It is terribly frustrating. But sometimes balanced out by acts of kindness. I had to find a roofer quickly as my 94 year old dad found water coming through the dining room ceiling; from 100 miles away I thought it sounded like a leak near the chimney. Asked on dad’s local fb page and contacted one of the recommendations. He turned up the next day - early - confirmed to dad that the flashing had slipped and knocked it back into place. And wouldn’t take a penny. All he asked was that I gave him a good review. Which I did (tho not mentioning the no charge bit otherwise I suspect he’d be inundated!)

I think we here suffer from living in an area where there are a lot of holiday lets. Decorators in particular get a lot of work from them on a regular basis and ignore those of us who live here all year round. If they do turn up, I have found that most don’t bother to quote if it’s a sizeable job which won’t fit around doing up the holiday lets - you just hear nothing more from them. So we have gone a little further afield than the popular coastal area to find someone who turns up, quotes, and does the job when he says he will. Manners cost nothing do they?