Venting - dealing with contractors!!

[PrincessMommy]

I'm so frustrated!!!

Some of you may remember my contractor issues.   Here's a quick synopsis.   We began discussions with a contractor about doing our master bath and kitchen in Dec. 2017.   I opted to go with the MB first since it was in much worse shape.  They began in March/April and finished almost within their time frame in late May.   It is a husband and wife team and I liked working with them both.  She's definitely not about selling me up on high-end items.  When they finished I was clear I was ready to start ASAP on the kitchen.  Since that time there has been a general lack of communication.  I kept emailing them, reminding them I was ready to move.   There'd been some stuff in the summer.  The engineer came in June.. and architect in July - then silence.  I kept emailing.  She sent me an email sometime in Nov. with an updated concept and  asking me about a time to go pick out cabinets because there was a big 30% off sale up to Dec. 8th.  I emailed her back rather annoyed that some "changes" were things we had originally talked about back in Dec. and I explained I was annoyed that I had been waiting for so many months with barely any communication.   We set a time to meet at the store.  Then she told me that she had had a 2nd occurrence of breast cancer and surgery... lots of brain fog and issues related to recovery.   So... I feel awful. I had no idea she was dealing with this.  She tells me that they can start in as early as 2 weeks at that time.  So we're looking at a Christmas renovation.  I'm ready to jump..... I want it done.  But dh balks - so we compromise and I tell her we can start Dec. 26th.   Then silence.

I honestly can't remember how much we've talked since then.  but, she does send me some info. and we talk about other issues with the concept and she works on it more.  I'm still thinking  - any week now.... but here we are in mid March and we STILL don't have a date.    So I asked her today about a start date because Easter is a BIG deal at our house.  My sunroom (where we entertain) is filled with boxes of kitchen cabinets).  She says they're finishing up a job and maybe in 2-3 weeks they can start.

I'm just so pissed off.  I mean, no communication about Dec actually not working.  They've bumped me constantly without talking with me.  I've put up with far too much.  My dh says to fire them now.  But, I've invested some of my own time with this... and we are starting to make progress. Either way I know I won't have a kitchen by Easter.  I realize now that I should have changed contractors last summer.  I just didn't want to start the process over again of looking for someone new.  That alone is such a PIA.  

But, mostly I'm so mad and I feel rather dismissed as a client.   I'm also having  a very bad experience trying to get my fireplace upgraded to propane (it's like NO ONE wants to talk with their customers- what is with that???!!!).   Today was yet another day they came out to attach the tank to the lines... but oh, we can't do this part because I didn't have something done.  Of course not because NO ONE told me "have this done before the guys come out to hook up the line".    This is probably the 3rd time this has happened on this one job.  And then, no one calls and says, "Mrs. Debbi, we heard there was a problem, I'm sorry - we really need to make sure this gets done BEFORE our guys comes out again."  nope.. no communication. It's crazy.  Don't they want customers??

I've only paid a down-payment for the fireplace job... they don't seem to want the rest of their money.

[Carol in Cal.]

UGH!

[AK_Mom4]

I hear your pain. I suppose one  course of action would be to figure out if you owe them any money at this point and send them a letter with a check.  Then find another contractor to finish the job.   Or - if it is worth it to wait another year to get this project done, then just keep on the current path. 

In my experience, contractors are generally good for one major job.  Then, their attention is gone off to new horizons.  

[JIN MOUSA]

7 hours ago, Seasider too said:

BTW, ime with construction, sometimes you get farther when business can happen man to man. Sad but true. Perhaps your husband could call the male business owner?

i know, shouldn’t have to be this way. But you might get answers faster. 

THIS drives me up a wall. I had SO much more knowledge about general construction stuff and specifically about our project, but I had to go above and beyond to more or less prove that to our contractors before they'd even get close to talking to me about the project the same way they talked to DH about it. 

OP - contractor stuff is so frustrating. I've half-jokingly played with the idea of getting trained and licensed to be a GC, and then just do good business (like regular communication). 

What is it about construction or people who are drawn to construction that it so often involves such terrible communication? Is there any other industry that seems to have such an endemic communication problem?

[Miss Tick]

28 minutes ago, JIN MOUSA said:

What is it about construction or people who are drawn to construction that it so often involves such terrible communication? 

I agree! There is a limit to how much I can excuse by saying, "well, they are good at what they DO." They have an uphill battle because we did have a contractor for a while who WAS good at communicating, but then he retired (boo-hoo). So, perhaps sadly, I know that the Communicating Contractor Unicorn does exist.

[PrincessMommy]

1 hour ago, AK_Mom4 said:

I hear your pain. I suppose one  course of action would be to figure out if you owe them any money at this point and send them a letter with a check.  Then find another contractor to finish the job.   Or - if it is worth it to wait another year to get this project done, then just keep on the current path. 

In my experience, contractors are generally good for one major job.  Then, their attention is gone off to new horizons.  

I did consider asking her to send me a bill for work done and be finished with them... but starting the process over with cabinets sitting in my sunroom is just overwhelming too.  IT would probably be summer or later before it gets done if I do that.   I realize there's really no good option for me at this point. 

[PrincessMommy]

2 minutes ago, SusanC said:

I agree! There is a limit to how much I can excuse by saying, "well, they are good at what they DO." They have an uphill battle because we did have a contractor for a while who WAS good at communicating, but then he retired (boo-hoo). So, perhaps sadly, I know that the Communicating Contractor Unicorn does exist.

yup, exactly.  I feel like I have offered a boatload of patience.  I've reached my limit.  I hate to call them because well.. I'm so angry and then I start crying.. I hate that!!  I don't want to cry, I want to be in control of the situation.

[Miss Tick]

32 minutes ago, PrincessMommy said:

yup, exactly.  I feel like I have offered a boatload of patience.  I've reached my limit.  I hate to call them because well.. I'm so angry and then I start crying.. I hate that!!  I don't want to cry, I want to be in control of the situation.

Can you start by not calling them? Adopt their model of communication while you start looking for another contractor to pick up where they have dropped out. If you find someone then call or email and officially cancel the existing folks. By then you will feel in control again and better able to handle the conversation. 

[Selkie]

That is so frustrating! Do you have a signed contract with them?

I think you need to get assertive. Tell them if the job cannot be completed by xxx (whatever date you have in mind), then you are hiring someone else.

And if you do hire someone else, get a written contract that specifies the work will be completed within a certain timeframe.

[alisoncooks]

That would frustrate me to no end. I have very little patience with people who don't do their job. I have deep sympathy for personal health problems, but being an adult sometimes means you must bow out when you can't uphold your end. 

I hope you get it straightened out ASAP.  Installing cabinets isn't a hugely skilled job -- I'd look into hiring someone to get that done. You might can still host your Easter stuff!

[PrincessMommy]

25 minutes ago, alisoncooks said:

That would frustrate me to no end. I have very little patience with people who don't do their job. I have deep sympathy for personal health problems, but being an adult sometimes means you must bow out when you can't uphold your end. 

I hope you get it straightened out ASAP.  Installing cabinets isn't a hugely skilled job -- I'd look into hiring someone to get that done. You might can still host your Easter stuff!

It's more involved than just cabinets.  We could do that ourselves.   They're knocking down a load-bearing wall,  adding 2 new footers under the house, moving plumbing and hot-water baseboard heat, and redoing the floors. 

[PrincessMommy]

sorry to belabor this topic.  I need to process.

After I told her I was unhappy about waiting another 3 weeks because we have a house-full for Easter I received an email back basically saying she's sorry it's been so difficult and couldn't we just move the boxes into the corner of the sunroom for Easter.   I was livid.  

I responded with an email explaining that that was not a solution because the boxes are already in the corner of the sunroom - that's the problem.  I told her I was angry.  That I felt like I was not a priority as a customer and that I was paying the price for being patient with them.  I'd had the boxes in my sunroom since early January.  That was last Friday.   I heard nothing from her until last night when she sent a brief separate email (not a "reply" email) saying she had received the architect's updated plans and that she would review them and get back to me.  What??!!  Nothing about my email?? No calls. No assurances.  It's like she didn't even read my email.  

Today I had an appt. with another contractor to look at the job.  Of course, they want to do things a little different.  No.. just no.  I have these architectural plans already.  I'm fine with that.  But, he didn't take any measurements or anything and said he'd get back to me.   I hate this process.   I've got another appt. with another contractor next week.

Edited March 27, 2019 by PrincessMommy

[RootAnn]

29 minutes ago, PrincessMommy said:

I responded with an email explaining that that was not a solution because the boxes are already in the corner of the sunroom - that's the problem.  I told her I was angry.  That I felt like I was not a priority as a customer and that I was paying the price for being patient with them.  I'd had the boxes in my sunroom since early January.  That was last Friday.   I heard nothing from her until last night when she sent a brief separate email (not a "reply" email) saying she had received the architect's updated plans and that she would review them and get back to me.  What??!!  Nothing about my email?? No calls. No assurances.  It's like she didn't even read my email. 

No excuses for her, but maybe an attempt at why she might have chosen to not reply directly to your email. The last time she tried to reply, your email back was (rightly) fly-off-the-handle mad. She likely does not care for confrontation and nothing she could say would make you feel any better because she's already told you there isn't anything she's going to do to speed up getting your project done - or even starting on it. She likely read the email, felt bad (again), but knew that if she replied in any way, you'd just vent in her direction again.

On the topic of contractors not talking -- I've definitely seen this quite a bit with a friend of ours. She had people coming in to do work in her basement. The guy who did the bidding didn't tell her what she needed to do to prep the area. She called the company a week before they were sending people down to do the job and asked what she'd need to do to prep the area. They told her the bidding guy would have told her if there was anything she needed to do. So, she didn't do anything. The guys came to do the work and couldn't do some of it because 1) the area wasn't prepped properly (moving things -- easy to do if you have the right people & enough time) and 2) the guys didn't have all the things they needed to do the job because the bidding guy didn't communicate with his own company. So, they had to make another trip. Crazy! It happened again with a different company - this time it was replacing some windows - but our friend took it upon herself to do extra things that she wasn't asked to do so that the job would be ready to go & done the first time. When we had windows done, it was a problem with the bidding guy not communicating about matching the color of the new wood trim to the existing trim - even though we'd sent a matching piece of trim (as requested) with the bidding guy. Just NO communication!!

So, I feel ya. No advice on the kitchen project. Our preferred contractors were a husband/wife team, but they were like 70 years old about 10 years ago, so I don't think they are still doing projects. They were great - inexpensive, clean, and did great work. 

[Guest]

I’m sorry. You have every right to be angry. 

I am really glad we’re not the contractors you hired right now. 😏