More house shit
2010-01-11
An honest contractor, an honest contractor, my fucking kingdom for an honest contractor.
Lord, I am tired of things going wrong with the house. I can’t remember if I mentioned in the latest edition of "How Rob’s house has kicked his ass Weekly" the fact that our house was damp as fuck. I mentioned it in my last column briefly, but I didn’t really get into the issues with our painter.
I should start by saying the damp proof guy was great, he even brought his own kettle and tea bags. Most contractors in this country seem to think they are entitled to whatever is in your cupboards (and underwear drawer). This guy even helped me out with advice on other little niggly house problems we’ve been having (for free!). If you want his name, email me and I’ll give it to you… 30 year guarantee and everything! Very unenglish.
The damp proofer was puzzled at first as to why we were getting damp in the first place as anyone who looks at the side of our house can plainly see, there are huge holes in the bricks left by the last guy who last damp proofed it. He found out shortly afterwards that it now needs a follow up damp proofing because the initial plasterer plastered all the way to the floor covering the holes up, rendering the damp proofing useless. Fuck. Sakes. Incidentally, as he was drilling new holes, giant hibernating spiders were vibrated out of the old holes. When I say "giant", I mean spiders who have survived three or four winters in those holes. Tarantulas eat your horrible, evil, spidery hearts out, they were fucking massive. I knocked one off the wall with a shovel and it made a sound when it hit the dirt. "Do you want me to fill those holes?" the guy asks me. Does Dawn French buy pick-and-mix by the kilo? Fuck yes, fill those in, preferably with the spiders trapped inside. Blech!
Anyway, once the damp proofing was finished (three days late, of course, we’re in England) I called a painter that a friend recommended to repaint the walls and put new baseboards (skirting boards to you limeys) on. It was just before Christmas and to our surprise and delight, the painter said he’d fit us in to his schedule before Christmas. He was even (gasp) friendly! A nice guy, recommended highly by a friend, willing to work right before Christmas? I thought to myself, this is almost too good to be true. Guess what?
I explained to the painter that;
- the house had just been damp-proofed
- the walls need repainting
- the baseboards need replacing and;
- the baseboards need to be large enough to cover the gaps at the bottom of the walls because we can’t plaster all the way to the floor. See a).
No problem, he says, he’s plastered and painted tons of places that have been recently damp proofed.
The guy shows up to the house at the start of December and emails me saying that the damp-proofer left a gap at the bottom of the plaster. He asks if he can plaster to the floor. Stifling the urge to smash my fucking head through the monitor and slice my jugular open with the broken shards, I explain again: No, you can’t plaster over the holes because SEE A) ABOVE, DIPSHIT.
I ask him to please organise a time with our (extremely understanding) tenants to sort this out and ask him if he could please do it on the 18th because the tenants have family coming over the following week for Christmas. He says ok. My tenants call me on the 15th (three days before he’s supposed to have finished work) to tell me he hasn’t been in touch. I call and leave a message and he texts me back on the 17th (aka the day before the day he’s supposed to be finishing) and says "I’ll be there Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (the 21st, 22nd and 23rd), please can you ask your tenants to leave the extra paint out, and oh yeah by the way it will cost £400".
Let’s just go over that little text bit by bit shall we? First of all, he’s obviously forgotten (or more likely ignored) the bit where I told him that that won’t be possible as the tenants’ family will be there. Call me crazy, but plaster infused turkey drumsticks with latex flecked potatoes and sprouts will not win my tenant "Son in Law of the Year" with his inlaws. Secondly, the bastard’s charging £400 to paint and baseboard two tiny rooms using paint we’re providing.
I call my tenant and tell him he’s going to be stuck with unpainted walls and no baseboards over Christmas and apologise profusely. I then text the painter back and tell him to leave it until the new year.
The motherfucker (the painter, not the tenant) has the nerve to text me back with quite possibly the snottiest text I have ever received in my life whinging that he left that whole week open for us and now has no work right before Christmas.
I had a nasty little text effing, jeffing and cuneffing all typed out, but instead of sending it, I did the proper man thing. I chickened out, deleted the text and told my wife to deal with it. I’m such a pussy. Kate spoke to him and actually got him to come in on the weekend. Women are so much better at confrontation. My confrontation skills with gruff labour types consist of shouting FUCK YOU and running away, well without the FUCK YOU part. As regular blog readers will know, The English working class scare the fuck out of me. What if the guy gets all stabby?
We’re going down on Saturday to have a look at his work; the tenants have said "it looks okay". I am expecting a paint and mdf baseboard fucking abortion.