Never rains but pours
I have come to the maddening conclusion that all workmen are the same the world over.
Three weeks into my return, I noticed that the leak in the bathroom upstairs from the toilet was very serious business. The fact that the bathroom is located directly above my kitchen pressed this home much sooner than I'd otherwise have cared to take drastic action. By drastic I mean getting the job of repairing the leak seen to immediately as opposed to putting it off as I usually do - I've become quite good at the ostrich routine of late. It keeps me sane. After realising that the emergency call out meant 72hrs turn up by the local repairs, buckets to catch the leaking water in the ceiling of the kitchen became a normal fixture. I drew the line at using saucepans - couldn't leave it down with anyone to eat from my place were that to happen!
After a week of living in what was fast becoming a reinaction of Titanic in its initial stages, the kitchen ceiling threatening mutiny, the repairers turned up, confirmed there definitely was a leak in my upstairs bathroom. I basically lost access to my upstairs bathroom - a sacrifice worth it, given the rebellion my kitchen looked to carry out. A much better surprise was on the way (at least that's what I thought!) when I was told I was going to have a new bathroom suite. There was a catch though, I had to take time off to facilitate this and considering my leave was eaten up already, I had to scratch may head around this! My poor head did protest - but would I listen to it? Oh no, I was gonna have my new bathroom suite if it killed me - and kill me it is almost doing!
The fellas to bring this bathroom suite to a reality came - convinced me to start the work ASAP and that they'd have it done within 5days. (I do believe I'm getting very gullible in my old age!). It's hard to lie at my workplace - basically it's hard for to lie, my mouth runs away with me and I find myself putting my foot in it! Besides, one can only have so many deaths in the family. I've killed off so many of my relatives that work gets suspicious if I mention someone has died. That's one excuse out of the window. The kids were in various places with school activities which I'd already mentioned to colleagues. This ruled them out too. Fortunately mom was around for some of the days to chip in around these "scheduled works".
Well workmen bring a whole new meaning to "work" and "men". The initial troupe came alright - stripped the whole place, cleaned up and said they'd return to finish off the following day. In the meantime, we couldn't use the bath - only they omitted to tell mom this was for just a day. A fact I found puzzling especially as I wondered how we were to know the sealant had taken properly for the bath. Being curious as ever, I forgo their notification the following morning and filled up the bath just to check and lord behold, there was a leak in the outlet underneath. Anyway, the following day, the troupe didn't surface, nor the day after. Not amused, I rung their offices.
Surprise, surprise, the troupe came less than an hour after I'd been off the phone to their boss. These guys however were not plumbers so couldn't sort out the leak in the bath system - they were painters you see and one has to take note of specialists when they make calls! Fair enough I thought, but you guys are all under the same contracting company, how about some communication eh? Well this is like waiting to bleed blood out of a stone. They have an unwritten rule of not communicating even though they work in the same company and know each other jolly well. It's part of their money generating scheme you see. Anyway the painters & decorators managed in the course of 12hrs to do just one side of the wall, which they then said needed to dry off - so they'd return the following day to finish it off. Well guess what, they too disappeared the following day and got lost- possibly at the pub. I tell you by the 5th day, with a house looking like a building site, they hadn't even cleaned up when they left, you could say I was not very a happy bunny. Fuming and royaly pissed off after spending all day Friday waiting for them to surface just about tipped the scales of my anger to a full blown fury. Even my boss couldn't reprimand me about taking a day off to stay in to wait on these guys! Honestly workmen demand more time than showbiz persons - the main difference being one gets screwed for crap appearance most of the time!
Monday saw me on the phone to their manager who again took out his "whip" to remind the boys to put in an appearance to placate the ranting crazy woman. Placate is exactly what these cowboys did, case of they came, saw and walked out after god knows exactly what they did that day! My bath was still leaking, my walls were still waiting to be stripped and redecorated or tiled (thank God I told them not to remove my existing tiles and mirrors!), and the rubbish they were leaving was now taking up residence underneath the bath! Cheeky buggers! Talk about nightmare workers! Well I took off another Wednesday morning and lay in wait...Soon as it hit 10am and they'd not shown as they said, I was back on the blower to their manager who tried the same placating crap. The cowboys came shortly after, again..., went about stripping and sealing where necessary, took off the radiators, sealed all else that was unfinished then walked out on a departing well known phrase ... yeah you got it. "we'll be back in the morning". Even Arnold meant it when he said those darn words - well without the "morning" bit of course!
For a job quoted and pushed to take 5days, it's going into a month! With the temperatures first approaching what they ought to be in winter, I have a beautiful bath in a cold unfinished bathroom suite! Oh well - at least the leaks into my kitchen are no longer! Talk of the kitchen reminds me - I need a new kitchen suite and prayers to boot for that happening!