Not So Wonderful Contractors

We have been renovating our house on and off for almost 8 years and that doesn't count the work Brad did on the house before I met him.  Brad bought the house about 1 year before I met him and he did a few improvements to the two existing bathrooms and a lot of work outside demolishing several buildings.  That being said there was a lot left to do inside and outside.  We have done a lot of work ourselves or with the help of friends and family, although there have been several jobs were we were smart enough to hire a contractor.  We have had some good, bad and mediocre contractors over the years.  For some reason the other day a few memories from getting our house sided came to mind.

About 4 years ago we hired a local company to replace our siding.  It was fall and Brad was in the field down south (it was the first year we farmed in FC) and I was working at the racetrack and had to be there early in the morning.  The company started on our siding usually sometime after I left for work and they said it would take about 2 weeks.  I didn't think it would be too bad.  I was under the impression that it would take very little involvement, if any from me.  It turns out the local company used subcontractors that spoke very little English and a lot of Polish and the owner of the company was never around.  I don't know any Polish and I didn't think it was going to be an issue because in all reality I wasn't expecting them to need to communicate with me anyway.  It turned out that one of the 4 workers did speak quite a bit of English when he wanted (or needed to) and asked me one day about using our grill to cook their lunch.  Of course I said yes and then the next day he was talking about how they were all going to go fishing and camping after work.  I told them to have fun!

Late that night (Brad was still away in FC) the dogs started going crazy!  It was probably 1am.  There was a full moon and I thought at first the dogs just saw or heard a coyote or something.  We do have a ton of those around.  But the dogs were relentless and running up and down the stairs and really worked up.  I was freaking out a little bit but I was mostly irritated with the dogs and I went downstairs to let them outside.  When I opened the door to let them out they jumped out and started barking like crazy and their hair was standing on end.  As they bolted out the door I realized there was a white work van parked by the shed that belonged to the team installing our siding.  I freaked out and immediately called the dogs back to the house and quickly locked the door!  After a couple deep breathes I realized it was the workers form the siding company and they were parked in my yard.  I thought about jumping in my car and driving to my brother and sister inlaws house across the field but their van was right next to my car.  I thought about calling the police but they were close to finishing the siding and I really wanted the siding finished and the workers gone!  I ended up calling and waking Brad up and asking him what the heck I was supposed to do.  It probably didn't sound that nice because I was not happy!  He asked what he was supposed to do about it and I told him I don't know but that this was completely unacceptable.

After getting very little sleep I woke up at 5 am to go to work.  I went and did my rounds through the barns and around 7 am I decided it was late enough to call the owner of the company.  After giving him a piece of my mind and asking him what was going on he said he would get to the bottom of it.  A couple hours later I get a phone call back from the company owner and the workers claimed that Brad said they could camp out in the yard after they went fishing that night.  When I explained to the owner of the company that Brad hasn't been home the whole time the workers were there and he has never talked to them.  The owner just kept saying that is what his workers were telling him.  I was so frustrated!   Going home after work was a little awkward and the workers and I spent the next 4 days or so until they were finished not talking. 

That was not the end of the problems with the siding people.  A couple days later they broke a window while they were installing the siding, they didn't tell me and it rained that night.  I was going around the house closing windows when I found the problem.  It happened to be the room where all our pictures were being stored while we were doing renovation (wedding albums, framed wedding pictures, diplomas, etc).  It was 9pm and I called Brad and again he told me he didn't know what I wanted him to do since he was 2 hours away but that he would call the owner of the company.  He drove down and covered the window with plastic.  When the siding was done I was very excited to be done with workers around the house.  It certainly wouldn't be the last time we had problems with a contractor.  Brad likes to blame me for being too picky...he is joking, usually!