You may remember the saga of the buckets and the collapsing ceiling a little while ago and as a result of this we decided to call next door and ask for their roofer’s number since they’d had work done and seemed happy with it.
The roofer (lets’ call him Russ, shall we?) turned up, sucked air in over his teeth (compulsory for all builders) *1 and told me he’d call with a price which he duly did. In fact, the price was reasonable, so there and then, I asked when he could start work and he told me he could begin work when he got back from holiday in 2 weeks time. In the end, we agreed that he would start on the Monday, 3 weeks from our conversation to give him time to get over his holiday. He told me the work would take 3 days, which suited me nicely as I was flying to the Czech Republic on the Thursday.
The Monday duly rolls round and at 11 am when there was no sign of him I called him:– “Oh no,” he assured me “I was only going to phone you today to make arrangements. I wasn’t going to start work!” I muttered a bit and complained about how my buckets were having to multiply to keep up with the drips and so the scaffolders turned up 2 days later.
I flew away.
Saturday I get an e-mail from hubby who tells me the carpenter has been and put the timbers up – we just need the tiling done. The roofer turns up on Sunday and goes away again because he doesn’t have a ladder….?!?!! (I have no words to describe how I felt about this).
I fly home 10 days later on the Sunday – exhausted. The tiles are still missing.
Monday the roofer came to call (not the gasman) – "the timbers are wrong and the whole lot needs to come off and the chippie needs to start again". He starts to tell me how it won’t add much to the price .....and it is at this point he discovers that waiting for the wife to get back was the wrong ploy – I was in the mood to play hardball!!
Funny thing was, that had he spoke to hubby, then hubby (being too nice in such matters) might have agreed to almost anything. As it was, I think he waited for the wife to come home because he thought she’s be a soft touch …wrong!
.Now, we are just a couple of days later – the carpenter has been and put the timbers right and the roofer is currently up there hammering and cutting and doing roofer type stuff. It’s going to cost us the same amount as we agreed and no – I haven’t even made him a cup of tea….
I think I like this dealing with tradesmen lark!
*1In fact, I think they get special training in it in builders school.
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