1. Why in the world would you let a delivery driver use your bathroom?

2. How could you possibly discern the use of a power saw contributed to the "early" deterioration of your deck?

3. The guy dragging a door down your steps should have been stopped in his tracks.

4. The outlet in the kitchen and the broken outlet cover are truly NBD.

To answer your questions: No, breaking things is not normal, but you've not proven anything beyond the door/steps. The outlet could easily have already been loose in its box, and the towel bar (installed 7 years ago without proper backup) might have finally just given up - seven years of putting towels on/pulling them off means a LOT of opportunity to "loosen" on its own.

I think you're hiring the wrong people to work on your house, if they're truly causing these problems.

I understand completely about workers damaging things! I recently had a new faucet put in the bathroom sink and the "plumber" came out and said " well, you have a new faucet but won't be able to hold water in sink as some arm thing broke." I thought he was going to fix it but haven't heard from him since. I can use a sink stopper but still........ Ugh! He is supposed to be a plumber so I would think he could get any part he needed to repair something HE broke.

I think some of these sorts of mishaps can be minimized by finding, using, and retaining high quality experienced workmen and women who have come to you with references from people you know.

Your attribution of fault in the deck situation sounds implausible. I with Imstillchloecat, I question how you could know that the vibration made a difference.

Oh yeah, another one. Guy came to blow out the sprinklers, took a valve he said was damaged and never brought it back and I never heard from him again. But honestly I have only had one good experience with sprinkler blow out guys so I thought it was a sprinkler thing. I have no idea what would happen if I turned the sprinkler water supply back on with a valve missing. Another thing I would have to learn. Better add it to my list.

Closet installer: I asked him to align some visible hardware for a foldout desk and he deliberately “made it off center” for me. Didn’t explain why he did it differently than I asked. I think that one was spite.

Oh, and there was the super friendly and competent tile guy who continued to lay the tile well past the door of the bathroom. The tile looks perfect and hasn’t moved in 30 years so I know he did a good job. But I had to cover up the excess with a piece of wood which looked stupid. I removed that last row with a hammer drill last month so I could correct the problem.

I usually overlook ALL this stuff because the guys generally do a good job with what they are building or doing even though they break something unrelated. I try to be easy to work with and make it a positive experience for them. I can actually empathize with them since I have done a lot of the work too. I “get” fatigue and alignment issues and time crunches. I think the contractors are generally good, and since they do a lot of jobs, something is not going to be perfect. If they do 100 tasks and mess up one, I figure that is probably good odds. But if they do one task, are in the house for 30 minutes, and break something, that upsets me. There is too much on my plate right now to deal with the carelessness.

Oh, it is a guest bathroom (actually a combo) and I have never been inclined to be heartless when a guest (worker or otherwise) clearly needs to use it. If they smelled funny I might say no, but these guys presented as well groomed professionals.

Regarding the deck, it shook when he stomped on it. It didn’t shake when I stepped on it. Other contractors have set up saws on tarps on the ground. I don’t know why he chose to use a deck as his workshop. It seems to me that you use vibrating power tools on concrete or ground, not anything framed with wood and held together with nails or screws (even with joist supports). Those come loose. I don’t even do aerobic exercise on plywood subfloor - only concrete basement floor. It surprises me that professionals think it’s OK to set up heavy duty chop saws or table saws on a wood floor surface.

Regarding the towel rack, it didn’t have a towel on it. There was no pulling. The other side was fine. The other racks directly above it were fine. It was held in with anchors per the instructions that came with it. Now I need to go into the back of the drywall and install blocking and replace and repair the drywall since at least one person (and an able-bodied one at that) used it as a support bar.

With your further clarification, I think what's really happening here is lack of clear communication of expectations on YOUR part. And lack of willingness to challenge these workers when they don't do what you wanted. AND: lack of holding them to completing a job appropriately.

Cholecat, that is my problem ,not being assertive enough and thinking they would do the job properly without standing over them! But, I am learning my lesson!

So it's all Jane's fault? Typical. Workmen and contractors are expected to be professional. We are taught not to confront, don't say it isn't so, and if we do we are still somehow at fault.

Should Jane have told him " Don't damage the towel bar when you go in to use the bathroom". Nonsense. Have you ever had the need to stand over a contractor as he works? Highly resented on their part, you'll not get more co-operation, you'll very well might get less.

Most recent case for me was when I explained very clearly which direction I wanted the floor boards of a pergola to be laid. The next day the contractor brought the lumber, proceeded to saw it up. I could plainly see the boards were too short to run the way they were suppose to. I went out and questioned him. He got angry, red in the face, and started to toss the lumber back in the truck, as he had to go buy the correct length of boards. You see, it would have been cheaper and easier to run the boards the way HE wanted.

Clarify please. Are you really complaining about a 30 year old job?

She's generalizing.

So it's all Jane's fault?

I think some good suggestions were made here. Taking the time to find quality workmen/women with references is pretty basic. Yes, one expects a certain level of competence but we KNOW that in any profession there is a broad range from excellence to outright incompetence.

You yourself, schoolhouse, did monitor the flooring work and questioned the workman before he actually put the boards in.

If one does more work on the front end, finding excellence, that may (many times but not all times) make a difference in how much one might need to supervise.

Gee, sounds like some of you must have husbands who are contractors or plumbers as the blame for a bad job seems to be the homeowners fault.

Gee, sounds like some of you must have husbands who are contractors or plumbers as the blame for a bad job seems to be the homeowners fault.

Cholecat, that is my problem ,not being assertive enough and thinking they would do the job properly without standing over them! But, I am learning my lesson!

Didn't you just admit that the lack of assertiveness and supervision was *your* issue? I do not think the issue is 'blame', anyway, I think that certain ways of going about getting things done with people you may not know may improve the outcome.

Yes Lucille I said that has been MY problem but seems like the OP was being blamed for shoddy workers. Of course if your renting then you can dump the problem in someone else's lap. Homeowners can't !

Oh Jane, I don’t know about the towel bar, I’m more concerned that you’re letting strangers into your home. I just don’t think of that as wise. (Sorry, but it’s true).

When it comes to the people you hire, I think that maybe some of your own perspectives about the transactions may be part of the problem.

For example, it’s not your job to make the construction workers experience a “positive” one. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not about being rude or inconsiderate, we should always treat the folks we hire with respect, offer a drink and/or use of the facilities. However, doing a good job is what they are hired to do, breaking something or not doing it 100% correctly, is not. Hard work? Sure, but that’s their chosen profession and they know what the demands are, empathy should have nothing to do with the outcome. There has to be a good balance between, nice and assertive. IMO, your attempts to be nice and even rationalize their inadequacies, has gotten in the way of the end goal.

When the tiler tiled beyond the point of where he was supposed to stop. Being nice and good at the job means nothing if it was done wrong. You should have absolutely made him fix it before you gave him the final payment.

Regarding the deck. I’m sorry but I’m not buying into the idea that the vibrations of a power saw would contribute to the demise of your deck. Just my opinion, but I’m more inclined to believe that original install was most likely flawed. Cudo’s for installing your own though.

I don’t hoover, but I’ve also never assumed some construction guy will treat our home with the care we do. It’s important to be present, ask questions, check things out before they leave and insist something wrong be corrected. And as a helpful tool, I also learn everything I can about the process of the work so I can tell if it’s being done right (and question when it isn’t).

The only bad experience I’ve had so far is when our contractor’s helper was sanding drywall over our relatively new carpet upstairs. When I saw him, I went to the contractor who was downstairs and casually thanked him for the new carpet he was going to be installing for free (because mine was now covered in drywall dust and construction crap!). He ran upstairs and there was a lot of yelling but the mess was cleaned and tarps were down within minutes. However, the next day, he forgot the tarps. When I told him, no tarpies, no workie, he bought some at the store to use. He was not happy, but that wasn’t my problem.

We have a crew coming in a week or so to polish and seal some of our stone. While the estimator was going over what they expected from us, I took the opportunity for him to note what’s expected from them as well on the contract. IE that if the crew showed up without tarps, they would be turned away at their own cost.

Schoolhouse, if that flooring guy had done that with me, I probably would have suggested he come back another time or that I find someone else to do the job. That was totally unprofessional on his part. I don’t know if I’d trust him to still do a good job and I’d let him know that. Just curious, if he had to buy new, did he acclimate the new boards before installing them?

I was raised to be polite to everyone, including showing respect for the competence of a worker in my home. I've had to learn not to assume *anything* of a worker and to remember that it is not mean to show that I am the person paying for work to be done the way I want it done. Laying it out and confirming that the person understands my expectations has prevented some problems.

I haven't let a worker us my bathroom since a mover rifled through my medicine cabinet and stole a few tablets out of a bottle of pain meds I had been given post-op. (I only became suspicious because the cabinet had a child-proof lock, which we never engaged, and it was engaged when I next entered the room.)

NEVER let workers use your bathroom. My husband is a contractor, and that's what he says. They can take a break and go to gas station, or if extended project, they rent a port a potty. Period.

What about the people who create messes everywhere they go? Not just messy but dirty too. I’m talking about adults, not kids. It’s astounding how a neat clean place can turn into something that looked like a tornado hit it within hours. And these people don’t do it on purpose either. I’m left flabbergasted and speechless at the transformation and their lack of awareness. They’re so used to creating messes, it’s normal to them.

This is an old thread, and I pretty much overlooked it before, but I thought I would point out that there is a Vacuum Cleaner Collection Club that has annual conventions, and almost all of the members are men. These men (and I have met some of them) are obsessed with cleaning. Just because some men (and women as well) make messes does not mean that all men do. There are men who are just as obsessed with cleaning as some women are. Messes and cleaning do not have a gender.

Just to be clear, I never mentioned gender. Nor was I even remotely suggesting its a gender thing.

This is a smaller community, but we have the advantage of knowing - at least in some way - just about anyone who has ever worked for us. Or, someone in the family knows them, or a neighbor. In casual conversation, can almost always find some commonalities in our circles ;0) I've known our appliance service person 10 years now. Our plumber, more like 40. I always tell them which bathroom is available for their use and make sure they know they can clean up in the laundry too (keep soap, towels, paper toweling at the sink there) if they wish. The electrician I've called is such a nice guy, turns out DH knew his father - I left him here working while I ran to the dentist one day, couldn't make the appointments work out any other way than that.

The one time I've hired outside yard work help for a bigger project than I could manage, it was a crew that my BIL had contracted for both work at his church and his beach house. I put out a cooler of fruit and bottled water, showed them which door they could use if they wanted a bathroom. None of them came in, although they did take advantage of the water and snacks. They left on their breaks, lunch, and presumably used the bathroom there.