Respect Thy Contractor and You Will Go Far

Sunday’s newspaper had an article that I found interesting on contractors, and one that I found personally relevant as well. Titled Smart Homeowners Build Relationship with Builders, this article gives the flip side to the homeowner – contractor relationship, telling the woeful tales of the contractor who gets the customer from hell. I feel for these hardworking guys, though I’m sure that there are bad eggs in every bunch. Of course, this is true of every bunch, whether it be contractors, accountants, lawyers, or even policemen, and it’s similarly true that the good eggs are always hard to find.

However, by and large, once you find a good contractor, (or a good doctor, teacher, or even friend), value the relationship and respect the person for a job well done, for this could be one of the more important long-term relationships in your life! Although their jobs are similar to that of a dentist (the nature of either job is to inflict pain), don’t forget that these are guys you invite into your home to make your life better in some small way. After all, would you be so rude or boss around the surgeon who wields the scalpel that could change your life? If not, then why would you be anything but polite to a guy with power tools in your home?

The article lists some great tips about how to really annoy your contractor. It’s funny because we all know that if you’re having work done on your house, you just can’t help but be a perpetrator of a couple of these things yourself. However, I’ve found that developing a relationship of mutual respect can accomplish a lot more than any contract every could, and I’ve found that my special contractor friend is certainly willing to make allowances for some of my typical erratic homeowner behavior, particularly over a nice lunch!

How to drive a contractor crazy (Source: New York Times News Service)

1 Avoid making decisions.

2 Change orders frequently, then become outraged by the additional costs and delays.

3 Ask a contractor to provide a solution to a difficult design problem, then use a different contractor for the job.

4 Challenge a contractor’s expertise with sentences that include the words “my brother-in-law thinks,” “my neighbor thinks” or “I took a shop course when I was in 10th-grade and this is what I think.” If your brother-in-law was that good, why didn’t you hire him?

5 Withhold final payment for months because of minor problems like missing fixtures that are on order.

6 Cling to the belief that contractors have X-ray vision that enables them to see into walls, and thus are aware of faulty wiring and plumbing or rot before the start of a job.

7 Attempt to poach the contractor’s workers by taking them aside and asking them to come back when the job is finished to do another job.

8 Buy appliances or building materials online or from a discount house to save money, then expect the contractor to make everything work when the products are damaged or don’t arrive on time.

9 Call the contractor in the middle of the night and on weekends about problems that can wait until Monday.

10 Hover about a job while murmuring tragically: “It doesn’t look finished.” It’s a job site. It doesn’t look finished because it’s not finished.