Dealing with contractors lately
So, recently I had occasion to solicit the services of two of my regular contractors. The first one is a painter. He is a really good guy and a hard worker, plus he’s a surfer like me, so when the surf’s up and he’s not on the job, it’s OK.
At one of the rental properties, there was a HUGE water leak underneath the slab of the house (slab leak). I had just rented to the occupying tenants and so the only solution was to re-pipe the house. This is basically done by diverting the water supply from the water meter and running new pipes from the attic and down the walls to the various places that need water (bathrooms, kitchen and laundry). The plumbers cut some pretty large holes in the walls of the house and, per their terms of service, did not fix them.
I called my painter because, in the past, he has patched some pretty awful looking holes in the wall during the time that we fix up these houses for rent. Now, it turns out that he can’t make it for another couple or weeks because of a broken finger or something. Well, he’s a good and reliable type of guy so that’s fine. The tenants have been waiting for two months for this to be done (due to a recent eviction that I had to file against them) so they can wait another two weeks.
The other contractor is a lawn maintenance guy. Now, no offence to lawn maintenance people but I think that the less skilled a job the contractor does, the less likely he is to go out of his way to please the customer.
This guy has been telling me for two weeks that he will go by another property to look at a one-time cleanup job. The regular lawn maintenance people destroyed the sprinkler system because they’re just unconcerned about anything else but cutting and edging the lawn. They do not trim trees, clear brush or trim shrubs. Total slackers! But they’re cheap, so maybe that’s why. Anyway, I asked them to stop cutting the lawn so that it could grow back as weeds and look like some semblance of a proper lawn.
I should mention that I have three other properties like this with no sprinkler system, and they look fine.
So now, the lawn is full of weeds and ready to be cut and this guy just can’t find the time. I spoke with him on the phone today and he promised that within the next few days he’ll get out there to look at it.
