What is the right play here? tl;dr
I know there are some trade people on this board and I am also interested in the opinion of my fellow lay people.
My house was built 4 years ago. Builder is a total nightmare douche bag. I won’t go into details. On to my issue.
A piece of flashing on my roof was not properly secured and during my first spring in the house we got a nasty storm that brought some sideways rain. The water pushed in underneath my roof, across the top of my ceiling to where it pooled and leaked through my drywall ceiling. It only happened the one time and then we fixed the flashing but it left a nasty stain on my orange peel ceiling. The stain was about 3’ X 8”. This is not huge but it was an eyesore and would be an issue when we go to sell the house.
This was covered under the Tarion warranty and since the builder refused to repair it Tarion mediated a settlement from the builder for the grand sum of $185 to get it repaired. Who are they kidding with that number?
We called 3 companies for a quote on the repair and 2 showed up to do a quote. Of the 2 that showed they both left without quoting the job and said they would be back in touch with the quote. They both followed this up with no quote and proceeded to fall off the face of the earth. Neither company ever got back to us and I gave up on them after 5 phone calls each.
Just after Christmas we decided to have another go at getting the work done. We figured that with the current economy someone may be a bit more hungry for some work.
We called a ceiling and drywall company out of the local paper. It is a father son + son deal with the boy being about 50 years old. We had them quote on doing a patch to the affected area and son suggested he quote for the entire ceiling as well because it would be hard to match if he only patched it. I agreed to two quotes.
He came in a $485 to patch and $1950 to refinish the entire ceiling 12”X30”. We agreed to do the patch only and asked when he could start. This was on or about January 10th of this year.
About 15 phone calls later and roughly 5 months he called on a Sunday night to come Monday and do the job. He started the work on the 1st of June.
I dropped by the house later on the Monday to find the entire ceiling mudded. The second brother was alone in the house and we had never met. I asked why he was doing the whole ceiling when all we wanted was a patch and he said that is what his brother told him to do. He says to me, “Well, if we dropped the ball I guess we will have to eat it.”
The brother who quoted the job called me back at work a few hours later and “Whoops, I thought you wanted the whole thing done.” I reminded him that the only reason we got a quote on the entire ceiling was because he recommended it and after the initial quote it was never discussed again. He asked what we should do and I told him he couldn’t leave it as it was. He agreed to finish the job.
At this point he never brought up a new pricing option so I didn’t either. My thought was that it was his Fuck Up, not mine. If I told him I didn’t plan on paying his original quoted price for a full ceiling repair he would very likely do a half assed job. I kept my mouth shut and they went to work.
On Wednesday he mentioned working me out a cash price to sort the issue out and I just smiled at him and continued talking about the weather. They were not finished the job yet and I wasn’t going to nail him down on a price until they work was done. They finished on Friday with about 35 hours into the job.
Now, being in the car sales business I am aware that a vast majority of consumers would feel that they agreed to a $485 job and that would be all they would open their wallet for. My wife lies firmly in this camp. I don’t really agree with that type of mentality and I did get extra value above and beyond what I had agreed to. Besides, most people can screw up 5 times a day in their job and still get paid their salary. I didn’t expect him to work all week for free. For this reason I was willing to pay extra for it. My thought was that $800 to $1000 was reasonable in this case. $1000 gives him over $28/hour for the work and material would be minimal. This was my estimation of fair.
He called me yesterday and expected the full pop as payment on the job. I told him that this is not what I had in mind. I did tell him the number that I had in mind and he said at the very most he could shave $200 off of the job. I told him that my idea of $1000 for the job was a cut to the chase offer but if he was not interested in making me a reasonable offer that my suggestion is that I would pay him the $485 I had originally agreed to. He sounded very agitated at this point and abruptly ended the telephone call saying he would call me back.
First question: Do you think my offer is fair and the reasoning behind it sound?
Second question: Why are trade people so fucking lazy and careless?
Discuss
My house was built 4 years ago. Builder is a total nightmare douche bag. I won’t go into details. On to my issue.
A piece of flashing on my roof was not properly secured and during my first spring in the house we got a nasty storm that brought some sideways rain. The water pushed in underneath my roof, across the top of my ceiling to where it pooled and leaked through my drywall ceiling. It only happened the one time and then we fixed the flashing but it left a nasty stain on my orange peel ceiling. The stain was about 3’ X 8”. This is not huge but it was an eyesore and would be an issue when we go to sell the house.
This was covered under the Tarion warranty and since the builder refused to repair it Tarion mediated a settlement from the builder for the grand sum of $185 to get it repaired. Who are they kidding with that number?
We called 3 companies for a quote on the repair and 2 showed up to do a quote. Of the 2 that showed they both left without quoting the job and said they would be back in touch with the quote. They both followed this up with no quote and proceeded to fall off the face of the earth. Neither company ever got back to us and I gave up on them after 5 phone calls each.
Just after Christmas we decided to have another go at getting the work done. We figured that with the current economy someone may be a bit more hungry for some work.
We called a ceiling and drywall company out of the local paper. It is a father son + son deal with the boy being about 50 years old. We had them quote on doing a patch to the affected area and son suggested he quote for the entire ceiling as well because it would be hard to match if he only patched it. I agreed to two quotes.
He came in a $485 to patch and $1950 to refinish the entire ceiling 12”X30”. We agreed to do the patch only and asked when he could start. This was on or about January 10th of this year.
About 15 phone calls later and roughly 5 months he called on a Sunday night to come Monday and do the job. He started the work on the 1st of June.
I dropped by the house later on the Monday to find the entire ceiling mudded. The second brother was alone in the house and we had never met. I asked why he was doing the whole ceiling when all we wanted was a patch and he said that is what his brother told him to do. He says to me, “Well, if we dropped the ball I guess we will have to eat it.”
The brother who quoted the job called me back at work a few hours later and “Whoops, I thought you wanted the whole thing done.” I reminded him that the only reason we got a quote on the entire ceiling was because he recommended it and after the initial quote it was never discussed again. He asked what we should do and I told him he couldn’t leave it as it was. He agreed to finish the job.
At this point he never brought up a new pricing option so I didn’t either. My thought was that it was his Fuck Up, not mine. If I told him I didn’t plan on paying his original quoted price for a full ceiling repair he would very likely do a half assed job. I kept my mouth shut and they went to work.
On Wednesday he mentioned working me out a cash price to sort the issue out and I just smiled at him and continued talking about the weather. They were not finished the job yet and I wasn’t going to nail him down on a price until they work was done. They finished on Friday with about 35 hours into the job.
Now, being in the car sales business I am aware that a vast majority of consumers would feel that they agreed to a $485 job and that would be all they would open their wallet for. My wife lies firmly in this camp. I don’t really agree with that type of mentality and I did get extra value above and beyond what I had agreed to. Besides, most people can screw up 5 times a day in their job and still get paid their salary. I didn’t expect him to work all week for free. For this reason I was willing to pay extra for it. My thought was that $800 to $1000 was reasonable in this case. $1000 gives him over $28/hour for the work and material would be minimal. This was my estimation of fair.
He called me yesterday and expected the full pop as payment on the job. I told him that this is not what I had in mind. I did tell him the number that I had in mind and he said at the very most he could shave $200 off of the job. I told him that my idea of $1000 for the job was a cut to the chase offer but if he was not interested in making me a reasonable offer that my suggestion is that I would pay him the $485 I had originally agreed to. He sounded very agitated at this point and abruptly ended the telephone call saying he would call me back.
First question: Do you think my offer is fair and the reasoning behind it sound?
Second question: Why are trade people so fucking lazy and careless?
Discuss
Comments
I think your offer was beyond fair considering they fucked off for 5 months, then showed up and did the wrong job. You know, the cynic in me would say that it wasn't even an unintentional screw up.. thats the angle they play in order to guilt the homeowner into getting the more expensive work completed..
I'll bet that he'll tell you that he'll sue but won't actually carry through. If he does, you still win in a heartbeat.
And btw, if they cannot patch a ceiling and make it look good, I'd have run the other way.
Fuck him.
- put everything in writing
- put everything in writing
- when in doubt look and 1 and 2.
If you signed a contract with this guy there would be no issues. He may be a slime ball anyways, you show him the paperwork and he goes away.If this is all verbal, its your word against his. If you go to court (small claims) the judge will split it down the middle. (Been there!). Ohhh and a I love the "cash deal". First if it is cash take 40% away from the original estimate...thats what he would have to pay in income tax. For info corporate tax is 20%(roughly) and dividens is 20% (roughly) anyways. He will not get away from the tax man.
Get a reciept from this guy and ask for his trade licence number. You will be able to claim 15% off on the 10K tax credit this year.
First question: Do you think my offer is fair and the reasoning behind it sound?
More than resonable. If you have a quote in writing, go by the original only.
Second question: Why are trade people so fucking lazy and careless?
We are not. I see tonnes of other lazy careless people in teaching, goverment, banking, sales and retail. Trades people, especially residential are almost always self employed and have to hustle for living. BTW there is a shortage of qualified tradesmen and as an employer I just shake my head at the some of the "qualified" that I have gone through. There is no slow down at the moment, just the backlog is much shorter.
Do you think they will bother with small claims court for $900? It will cost them $200 to file the forms, plus lawyer's time and their own time away from earning other income. Also, there is no contract so how can they argue he agreed to the services provided (assuming they can prove they did the work in the first place).
If you do cut him a cheque, make sure you do get a receipt so you can claim the tax credit as suggested.
I had the same thing happen to me with a built in microwave. It wasn't working, ask them to give me an estimate to fix it, then they came back trying to charge me like $400 (the service call was suppose to cost me $100) for their time to prepare the estimate. I told them to go fcuk themselves and agreed to pay them $100 (no GST). They then threatened to send it to a collection agency and ruin my credit rating. I told them to go ahead, and btw, I'm keeping my $100! Never heard back from the them and nothing appeared on my credit rating report.
I doubt this would have happened had your tradesman been driving a Cube.
First of all I think the offer you made was indeed more than generous. As others have said, the guy forgot about you for 5 months and then calls you the day before he plans on starting the work? Nope, not good enough.
Question? Was it just a stain on the ceiling or was there actual damage to the ceiling? Water stains can often be sealed with an oil primer and painted. Unless of course your orange peel ceiling was never actually painted, but rather just sprayed on and left that way. Those are a pain. You can't roll them out as the texture just comes off on your painting sleeve.
I'm with Deadmoney. Get the quote in writing and ask for the details of the processes they will undertake. You can't get them to write down every little detail, but it should be reasonable.
No, not all trades people are lazy. Some of us actually care about the work we do. I've also had people call me to do work and told them various ways we could save them money by using different methods than what they originally asked me about. Not cutting corners, but approaching things in a different way.
He totally screwed up. It's often almost impossible to make a patch job look perfect again, but redoing an entire ceiling of that size is a big job that you never agreed to pay for.
Personally I think he knows who screwed up and that's him and his brother. Their lack of communication caused the problem. Don't pay for their bad business practices. He said he's going to call you back. I think he will go away for a while, realize that he's got to eat a major chunk of the loss and move on.
After working so hard to find someone to take my money I just got excited when I found someone who said they would do the job. That and the fact that when I shake someones hand it is good as gold. I didn't think I would have to sign in blood.
This thread has been an eye opener. I will get a contract whenever I do this kind of business again.
Billy - Damage was the width of a piece of drywall tape and about 2 and a half feet long, It had already been partially repaired and only needed to be finished the rest was just a stain. Never painted.
Why not fake it through some orange peel over top of the replaced drywall tape and then spray paint the entire ceiling? Would that be the way to do this job and get good results on the cheap?
I can understand how you feel though. You make an agreement with someone and all of a sudden things go south..quick.. It's not really much for someone to type up/write a quick quote giving general details of what they intend to do. I'd ask for it. I provide it without question if someone asks for it or if I get a vibe that it ought to be provided.
As for the damage, it's hard to say without actually seeing it. Like I said before, it's hard to perfectly match texture spray on ceilings. I've seen guys use the same mix, same hopper, same spray gun, etc. and the stuff doesn't look the same as the rest of the ceiling. I hate the crap. Probably developed by some stupid drywaller who didn't like to finish his work. Never painted textured ceiling is a horrible thing. You can't ever fix it if something like this happens. Often people mix primer in with the mix so that it's actually hardened when it dries and you can paint it later by roller or spray paint.
Fixing the damaged area, then oil priming (by spray) the stain, and spraypainting (latex) the entire ceiling would be the best/but an expensive option. It's not easy though. Ask any painter to paint a ceiling without painting the walls and you're going to hear bitching. Have to mask off/dropsheet the rest of the room completely and pray to the gods for no drippage on the walls. Masking=time/$
On the other side of the coin, I'm currently getting screwed for $1k by a customer who just thinks they don't have to pay me at all. I should have known when I was walking through the kitchen at one point and saw letters from collection agencies on the table and the phone rang off the hook while I was there. Can't believe it. I almost killed myself on that job doing great work and now I don't think I'm going to get paid. Sometimes, customers SUCK! Just kidding.