It's pretty simple. Here's what to do:
"Brrrp,brrrp....brrrp,brrrrp..." (phone ringing)
"Hello?" (Mrs. Smith answering her phone - she has a blocked sink)
"Hi, Mrs. Smith; this is Paul Jones from A-Plus plumbing here. I'm supposed to be coming out to your house this morning to look at a blocked sink for you, but this job I'm working on at the moment is taking longer than I thought."
"Oh, I see; when can you come then; I have to go out later for a doctor's appointment."
"I should be about an hour and half late. Is that ok? Sorry to muck you around."
"That's all right Paul; I'll call the doctor and see if I can change my appointment. Thanks for letting me know."
"Thanks Mrs. Smith. I'll get there as soon as I can."
TA-DA!
Weekend warrior DIY folk need to take responsibility and realise they are not capable of carrying out all these works. This is everyone who is not a qualified tradesperson or a construction industry professional.
That's not what the dispute is here.
Here's one little anecdote for ya's:
When we built our current PPoR, they had to excavate a decent chunk of earth as we are up on a hill on a sloping block.
Our garage is on the boundary of next door's block. There is a wooden slat fence that separates our neighbor's front yard from the back yard and it ends on our boundary.
So, the excavator manages to clip one slat and break it off. He doesn't give a sheet and continues on, finishes his job and buggers off to next one.
A few days later the neighbor calls us (she is a friend) and mentions the broken bit.
I say; "No worries; I'll let the builder know and he'll get it fixed." It's about half an hour of his time and a piece of treated pine half a metre long.
So I'm on site with the builder a few days later and show him, and he says he'll get on to it.
The house gets built, fence doesn't get fixed, we move in, and the broken section is hidden behind our garage and lots of her trees.
Since then, we have had the neighbor at us to get onto the builder to fix the fence. We text him, and he texts us back, and on, and on it goes...
Several late night texts (no doubt fuelled by a few wines) from our neighbor about this broken fence, and a whinge every time she comes over for a wine and a swim, etc. Starting to get tiresome. We text the builder again; "Yes; I'll get on to that".
Eventually she gets fed-up and gets it fixed herself - $100 to get someone in.
We weren't told, and I could have done it for her for nothing, and had a laugh and a few wines with her and the wife as they watched me fix the bloody thing...nice pleasant hour on a Saturday afternoon, most likely.
But; the builder was promising and promising; so I stayed out of it. Now she's at us to get the builder to pay her back the $100.
He won't pay. The house cost almost $800k to build, and the friggin' dude won't cough up $100 for the lady (a widower). The wife sends him a semi-rude text along the lines of; "Stop being a tool and pay the lady her money, FFS."
Fast-forward to this week - 2.5 years later - he finally pays her the $100.
What a dikk-wad. And he wants folks to recommend him.
but over the years it's been challenging when I've coordinated everything myself with separate tradies. My fav sparky just moved interstate this year so I've had to find another one, and yes it certainly takes time and effort to find reliable ones (who don't charge the earth!)
