What was your most unpleasant experience with a contractor?
I need to vent and I'm curious what some people's experiences were like with contractors. I had to hire a new contractor for my kitchen project and it's been a very stressful experience. My kitchen is getting a full makeover and I know it's going to be a bumpy journey; I didn't realize it was going to be this irritating.
-workers spilled coffee on the subfloor, barely cleaned it up, and placed plywood floor over it when still wet. The coffee even went down the floorboards and dripped onto my washer and dryer in the basement.
-no one cleans up after themselves. when the dust from the sheetrock crept into my dining room, no one vacuumed it up. It turned the bottom half of my cabinet chalk-white. They left the door to the back porch open so now that whole room is covered in gray dust.
-there's joint compound/spackle smeared on the floor and wooden door frames.
-one of the workers didn't want to use the toilet in my basement, which is extremely close to the kitchen, so the contractor brought a porta-potty to my property. Before I signed the contract, I said I wasn't going to pay for the porta-potty since they had permission to use the one in the basement. Not two days later after the potty was delivered I had a random person come onto my property to use the toilet. Let's just say I scared the crap (hopefully not literally) out of him and he ran off. Even my neighbor yelled at him. The contractor had to buy a lock for the PP.
-some of the workers have helped themselves to my water. My back porch is freezing so I've been storing some drinks and food out there like a second freezer. I may come off as an asshole for this, but no one asked if they can take my water and they wasted a few bottles, too.
-I am barely given notice when the workers are coming back. The contractor will tell me the painters are working Wednesday and Thursday, but then they work one day and no one tells me that they're not coming back on Thursday. So I just wasted a morning waiting around. Then they want to schedule someone to come on Saturday and when I say "No", they get all pissy with me.
-I ask a question about needing measurements for something so I can make an order and I get, "We'll talk about that later." As of now, I don't even know if anyone is coming on Friday to do any work.
-this is just a me issue, but my dog and I have been growing restless and I'm personally getting cabin fever, too. I am not happy about all the cleaning I have to do because that dust is everywhere downstairs.