Oh, ABSOLUTELY not!!!

That is totally unacceptable! Very unprofessional as well!

Not acceptable, would contact state department chid services; child neglect, allowed around dangerous tools, unsupervised. Am biased, I see too many injured children.

Unless they were friends helping with a DIY project, it doesn't sound very professional, did they have a designated adult in charge of supervising the children by chance, because that would have at least been better. Personally I don't think I would have minded because we are pretty casual people but I would been surprised and probably gotten pretty annoyed if I got stuck babysitting their kids all day because that's stressful when your busy taking care of your own newborn and it's rude if especially if they didn't even inform you they were bringing the kids!

unprofessional...would have asked him to leave the job and take kids with him..,your job not a daycare ctr....

Agree with tigerdunes, the thing to do is to have the contractor immediately leave with his kids. You will be doing yourself and his kids and the subcontractor a big favor by drawing the line firmly in the sand. Don't allow the liability to fall into your lap by allowing the contractor access to your premises if he is coming with kids. If he is a sub, contact the GC and let him know you aren't going to put up with it. You can do this in a professional and firm manner, long before you have to contact CPS.

Nooooooooo

HfH uses volunteers almost exclusively. They do NOT allow children under 18 on a build site during construction/work. Just another bit of info in case the previous poster's opinions were not impressive enough. :-)

Was this a one-time thing or did it happen on multiple occasions? My guess is the installer had a child care failure (haven't we all at some point?) and had no choice but to bring his kids. Now, it's entirely within your rights to (a) insist the kids play in the back yard to avoid waking the baby, and (b) to designate areas that are off-limits. It's also within your rights to tell your contractor it's his responsibility to mind them and give them things to do to keep them occupied, not yours.

I’m surprised by your tolerance of the situation when clearly you were not happy with the situation. I’m betting you won’t be if there is a next time.

Oh hell no.

Obviously it's wrong on every single kind of level from the inconvenience to you to the danger to the children. As a homeowner, if a child was injured you would be sued.

The difficulty is what to do. Obviously ideally the children should be taken off the premises but the homeowner is in a difficult position - you want the job done - you don't want to antagonize someone who is doing critical work.

In my experience (and not just applicable to this situation) pushy people who proceed without considering the needs or wants of "normal" people rely on the reality that normal people generally won't want to confront them and will just grit their teeth and put up with it even to the extent of not having them turn off the radio and telling their father that they had to be isolated in a particular room - let alone telling the father that they had to be gone immediately.

Helen, you make a good point, but the homeowner has a lot to lose here. This is not the time to hold back. When the contractor shows up to the job with kids in tow, it is time to tell the contractor to go home or get someone to pick up the kids. Even the first time. Clearly the tile guy isn't thinking right. You don't bring your children to a construction site. And the insurance co is not going to give a pass for "this is the first time". The homeowner has to put his/her foot down and do it immediately. Is it a PITA, yes, but if one of those kids get hurt, you know what happens next.

I’ve had this happen two times (with our new build), and my reaction was different with each one.

First was our tile guy who brought his young daughter with him (I just happened to walk in while they were there). She was quietly sitting on the floor reading a book in the small bathroom he was tiling. He was mortified when I walked in and apologized profusely for bringing her to the job site. I think his wife was sick or something. I had ZERO problem with it and told him so. He had her under his watchful eye the entire time and she never moved or made a peep.

The second time was like a free for all....this one was the roofer. Again, I just happened to show up at the site unexpectedly. He brought his entire family (wife and 2 kids). The wife was in the driveway with her car door open eating her lunch with the trash spilling out onto the driveway. The kids were literally running all over the place playing and screaming....one actually came bounding out of the house (a toddler) as I was getting out of my car and the roofer was up the ladder. So no one was watching while the toddler was IN the house doing who knows what. I was furious. To allow a child free reign in a house under construction with ZERO supervision is incredibly dangerous....this was complete negligence and also showed a total lack of understanding on the roofers part that this property was not his to use in whatever way he desired. I was totally put off by his disregard of proper boundaries. Needless to say, I was on the phone with my builder in record time and made it clear this was completely unacceptable.....no kids (or family time) on the job site! The first scenario I never even mentioned to my builder.

Agree with nidnay....I'd probably accommodate a rare childcare emergency that was coupled with proper parental supervision and pastime provided by the worker/parent. (Although I would greatly prefer being asked or at least told ahead of time so there was no surprise.) I would not tolerate the "Kidz Gone Wild" scenario......

Denita - I am not advising people to hold back. I'm just saying that human nature when being confronted by human bulldozers is to put up with it because we are programmed to avoid controversy and that's what inconsiderate pushy people rely on.

This is borne out by the OP venting on the forum rather than telling the tile guy IN THE MOMENT that the kids were not acceptable and/or that their behavior was unacceptable. He got away with it and he relied on getting away with it. I suspect this is NOT the first time it's happened since if it were, he would have called because he would have had no idea of whether the kids would be sent away although obviously unless he is also keeping the kids out of school, it would only happen when school is not in session.

I ended up calling the owners and letting them then know the installers brought a bunch of kids. They made excuses about it. We definitely won't be using using them ever again. This was a high end speciality company for installing tile. They were overall really unprofessional and with two young children including a one month old I needed them to finish the project and get the toxic fumes out of the house. They were on 3 days already and a lot of was wasted due to errors and not knowing what they were doing.

I was a contractor in my previous life and absolutely no children. I ran a sub off a cement job as I found small children on the site, it is very dangerous as well as large liability for the contractor. I am surprised they didn't fire them as the state and osha would fine him (bigly)hehe

How did those kids have access to other rooms in your house and the garage?

A child as a supervised working helper is one thing. We desperately need the next generation to become interested in the trades. I don’t view that as any different than the 6 year old at the family restaurant learning to operate the cash register, and wiping tables, but not manning the wok until she’s 10 years older. A responsible working juvenile should be praised.

A hooligan run wild would get the sharp end of my tongue about behaving. If they can’t sit and stare at their little electronic gadget in a safe spot until mommy was done setting tile, mommy was going to need to come to a stopping point and blister their ears and take them home. Or get out the duct tape.

Free liability for the homeowner.

Absolutely inappropriate!

No children allowed on a construction site. It's dangerous, a liability & a cumbersome distraction.

If anyone ever shows up on 1 of my job sites with kids. I would politely tell them to leave & reschedule with no kids. If I got any excuses or they did it again, I fire them on the spot.

If someone got stuck with kids, they should of just called in, apologize for the inconvenience, & reschedule.

The kids were just running around the house and garage and going through our things .. under 8 years old. Definitely not assisting with the job. They were let in by the installers.

Wow, MT ! That's absurd!

What a crazy day that must of been there.

Why bring it up now - should have been addressed when the job was started, you knew in your gut that it was wrong, How was the tile job, if ok, then move on, and just be thankful the kids didn't interfere with the quality of the tile work. In the future, trust your gut and put on your big girl pants and speak up.

No. No one should be onsite ( even adults ) unless they’re working on the project. Example: while having work done on my house years ago I happened to come home from work at noon to get something. While walking down the hallway to my bedroom I was surprised by a woman exiting our bedroom, who introduced herself as the contractor’s fiancé. She stated that our contractor wanted her to see our house (?). While getting ready to go out to a function less than a week later I went to retrieve a ring to wear from a jewelry box ( a large solitaire diamond that I rarely wore other than for dressy occasions ). It was gone. I know, it should have been placed in a safe or elsewhere but I was young & naive. I always suspected that she took ( no one else had access to the house other than her & the contractor ) it but of course couldn’t prove it. Lesson learned.

I was wondering how in the world the parent was even able to complete the tile job with the kids running around, here I am painting at 9 o'clock at night after the kids are in bed because they would get into everything. When my husband did some tile in our home I couldn't do nothing else but keep the kids out of the way even then they still managed to poke the grout and try to get away with stepping on it before it was dry, it was an extremely stressful 2 days!

I hope u sent him home and then called the company to arrange for someone else. There is no reason whatsoever any child should be brought to a worksite, unless it’s bring ur kid to work day. Totally unacceptable n if u let them stay I hope You at least charged babysitting fees! Lol (call the company anyway to complain).

I hope you gave them a bill for babysitting.

i had far more problems with subs bringing DOGS to the job than the tiler who brought his wife and 2 small children on a saturday to finish a job. the dogs barked all day and defecated in the grass next to the truck they were tied to. the children and mother crouched out on the back porch, making themselves as small and invisible as possible.

the children and wife i invited into the house- it was too chilly of a day, fed them snacks, gave them drinks. the dogs, i did not.