Home Improvements Hell

I took a short trip to Home Improve­ment Hell today. If you own a home, you’ve been there and will know what I’m talk­ing about.

We des­per­ately need to get our house painted. We also need to have our gut­ters repaired and our deck repaired and refin­ished. And we’re quickly run­ning out of warm weather in which to get the work done.

This spring I had a con­trac­tor out to the house and got a quote that involved stuc­co­ing the exte­rior, fix­ing the gut­ters, installing a new garage door, and replac­ing some or all win­dows. I’d met the guy at the spring home show, was impressed enough to take a card and give him my con­tact info, and liked him even more when he came to the house and put together the quote. Over the sum­mer The Hus­band and I had a series of con­ver­sa­tions and agreed to dump the idea of stuc­co­ing the exte­rior because it sim­ply would not increase the value of the house enough to jus­tify the expense. We agreed that paint­ing and fix­ing the gut­ters were the two high­est pri­or­ity tasks. Replac­ing the garage door is pretty much a given to be done when the house is painted. And the ques­tion of replac­ing some of the win­dows is still up in the air — to be deter­mined, mostly, by what the other projects will cost. With every­thing else hap­pen­ing this sum­mer and my ten­dency to pro­cras­ti­nate, no def­i­nite steps were taken to start the project.

Then early this fall I had our handy­man take down the eye-sore of a shed attached to our back deck and, as will hap­pen, it was dis­cov­ered that some minor repair work was needed on the deck. It’s also very clear that if we don’t have the deck refin­ished soon it will end up need­ing more repairs or, even worse, need to be replaced. The handy­man could repair the deck but it’s not his area of exper­tise and since he works by the hour, not by the job, we’d most likely be bet­ter off get­ting a deck guy to do it.

So I finally called the con­trac­tor back in early Sep­tem­ber to try to get things mov­ing and done before it got too far into win­ter. I called, left a mes­sage, and waited for a return call. Two weeks later, I call again. This time I get a call back from a sec­re­tary — she takes my name and wants to know in detail the work I want done. I tell her that it’s in ref­er­ence to a quote ear­lier this year, that I want to make a few changes to the work we want done, and I want to make sure the num­bers quoted are still good. A week later I call back. Oh, yes, he’s got­ten the mes­sage, they’re really sorry they haven’t got­ten back, he’ll call this Fri­day. Well, he didn’t call on Fri­day but he did call some time the next week.

Yes, he remem­bers me. No stucco? That’s fine; sure he remem­bers quot­ing paint­ing and repairs as an alter­na­tive. Sure, they can fix the deck and refin­ish it too. He’s going to have his painter call me by the end of the week to sched­ule an appoint­ment to look at the job and con­firm the quote.

Painter calls a week later; he’ll come out to take a look on Wednes­day. Wednes­day morn­ing he calls, can he resched­ule for Fri­day? Sure. Fri­day comes, nat­u­rally I have to shuf­fle things with The Hus­band so I can be home for the appoint­ment with the painter. Painter doesn’t show. He doesn’t call. Finally, Tues­day he calls; he’s so sorry, his wife had to be rushed to the hos­pi­tal, she’s got COPD and pneu­mo­nia. Let’s make an appoint­ment for Thurs­day. Wednes­day I can­cel; I hate to do it but I want to see The Daugh­ter play in the Dis­trict Cham­pi­onships. We resched­ule for Sun­day after­noon. Today.

The Daugh­ter and I are shop­ping, finally get­ting things done but we have to quit before we’re done so I can be home to meet the painter. Appoint­ment time rolls around but no one shows. Half an hour later, he calls. He’s run­ning late. He’ll be here in two, two and half hours. Excuse me?!? I didn’t talk to him — The Daugh­ter answered and sim­ply took the mes­sage. Well this sucks. The Daugh­ter and I were going to go out and fin­ish our shop­ping after the appoint­ment. We cut our errands short so I can get home, there’s not enough time to go out now, and by the time we’re done look­ing at the job the stores will be closed. I’m pissed.

Well, the painter finally shows. Stink­ing of cig­a­rettes… and alco­hol!! Are you kid­ding me?! I went through the paces of show­ing him the job; he’s mum­bling and ram­bling and I just want to go into the house and lock all the doors. At one point he’s apol­o­giz­ing again for not show­ing up; his wife was in the hos­pi­tal except this time the story involves her being attacked by a pack of dogs. Huh?! There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell I’d let this guy work on my house. Can we just go back in time and not have any of this happen?

Now I’m bummed. I’ve wasted two months try­ing to deal with these clowns and now I have to start the whole process of find­ing a con­trac­tor from the very begin­ning. Cr*p.

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