I had a card for a commercial electrician in my collection – a guy who did excellent work for my company a few years back. I could tell he was one of those guys who loved what he did, so when we needed some work done here I thought I’d call him up.
His boss answered instead and so I put the question to him. “I know you do commercial work,” I said, “but is there anyone you could recommend who does good residential work?”
The guy just laughed. “Well,” he said, “it seems that everyone I refer to somebody winds up ripping them off or not getting the job right. I’ve gotten out of the business of recommending people.”
Our experience bears this out. Along our journey of getting our house in selling condition, we hired various contractors. Kelly and I agree that out of the lot of them, there are none we would consider turning loose on our friends.
One contractor cut out some termite damage and left the remaining trim intact, simply caulking his cut in a very sloppy way. He also tacked on new exterior bathroom vents but didn’t bother connecting them to anything. Another built us a beautiful set of shelves for our bedroom but never came back to finish the job. Still another painted our house but left paint spots in our carpeting.
A cleaning crew broke the globe to our ceiling fan and simply threw away the busted piece, leaving us with half a globe. They didn’t bother letting us know it happened, taking the broken piece with them. The flooring crew we just hired to do our floor left it with a big slice in a prominent place.
None of the handymen we hired was up to the task. However, there is one handywoman we’d hire again in a heartbeat: Laurie Bence, the woman who repaired the foundation of our Garner home five years ago. She apparently underbid the work and got a bit grumbly as the project stretched on, but she did what she said she would do. We paid her above the contracted amount to compensate. She’s Canadian and told us she would soon head back north, but she’s now apparently living here again. The next time we spot her in Lowe’s we’re going to sign her up for our next project.
Suzzanne has the name of a general purpose handy man that we use. I can only remember his first name, Jerry. He’s done several things for us that have all worked out well. Give her a call. She’s in Cary this week.