URGENT ADVICE required - builder has made a bodge job of my bathroom refit.

ryder72

My advise is stay clear of these find a tradesman website, my dead grandmother could list herself as a skilled electrician, never mind she couldnt distinguish pliers from screwdrivers.

another_casualty

Furts wrote: »

True but also accept your role in all this. You allowed the work to be undertaken with no inspection/checking/supervision on your part. You chose to pay for the work without ever seeing it first. You knew there were issues for perhaps weeks because you have been placing a number of queries on this Forum. You relied on the tenant to inform you of a damaged carpet - you had not been to check.

Being a landlord does entail accepting some responsibilities for these matters. Be reasonable and frank here - you could have taken a greater degree of ownership over all this. Because you failed in this a con artist has rolled you over and robbed your pockets.

All round a sad tale to tell.

Just about sums it up imho

thenap80

another_casualty wrote: »

Just about sums it up imho

But then I was advised to pay by posters on here before seeing the work. I was basically told it was the right thing to do even though I had not seenthe work as it would have been evil not to pay the man and hold out so that is why i paid the 700 before going round - shows that advice on here isn't always best to take.

another_casualty

Sorry if I missed your original,posts about this.
I would say that if you were there on a daily basis say, you could monitor the situation a lot easier.
Chatting to him. Making cups of tea etc.
The small things go a long way sometimes.
He may have said that he actually underestimated the job, and you may have paid more and got a better result .
A lot of ' builders' just do hit and run jobs .
It's hard to get good trades people .

I've had great advice on my posts on mse .

The only thing I would say to reassure you on here , is that most of the posts here are spot on. You will have to pay more to someone else and the job will be good . I would leave it go . Put it behind you .
Best of luck

Doozergirl

thenap80 wrote: »

But then I was advised to pay by posters on here before seeing the work. I was basically told it was the right thing to do even though I had not seenthe work as it would have been evil not to pay the man and hold out so that is why i paid the 700 before going round - shows that advice on here isn't always best to take.

I've just put two and two together! I distinctly remember your carpet thread and I also remember another thread from a few weeks ago where a landlord hadn't seen the work but the tradesperson was expecting payment. That was you as well!

On the 20th Feb you had been asked for payment but hadn't seen the property. On the 3rd of March you still hadn't seen the property who you received a message about the carpet!

Why didn't you go and look? Of course you were going to have to pay the guy at some point for some of his work, you can't just leave it endlessly until you can be bothered to go around there!

FWIW, I was the first poster on your carpet thread. I was concerned about the attitude of saying that 'it would scrub out' and agreed that you should withhold until he cleaned it up. It wasn't a unanimous, the points about the actual cost of the carpet were totally fair and no one understood that you had seen none of the work at all!

I don't remember if I posted on the one before, but given the different set of circumstance in that thread, I would have actually said that it would only be fair to pay up but would also have expected you to go and see what was going on in your own property asap for everybody's sake! I think everybody would! It is wrong to withhold money because you can't be bothered to go and look at the work.

Reading back further, the whole plan for the bathroom just sounds like a bit of a bodge. I'm sorry I didn't see your initial thread asking if the price was fair as it isn't. You did get a reply from someone that fits bathrooms and they said it was too cheap. Someone else said they thought he labour was okay but they spent £3000, which is more than you. Someone else thought it might be a bit cheap...

The lesson you have to learn here is to treat your rental property like your own home. Firstly, tenants don't deserve lackadaisical landlords. Secondly, this is your investment and you should be protecting it. If it is too far away to manage properly, give it up.

Also, labour costs a lot more than materials. I'm astounded that you value a hall carpet that takes a couple of hours to fit at £1300 but valued a fully tiled new bathroom with the huge amount of labour it entails at about the same price!

You read some reviews on a website. Someone here volunteered to advise you that the website wasn't a good place to find tradespeople and linked to a thread about it. You had one quote. You did not see any of the person's work beforehand. You were advised that the quote was too cheap and a bit too cheap. You were told to go and check the work and pay up - or that it basically wasn't the tradesman's fault that you weren't checking the work and shouldn't withhold money for that reason. 2 weeks later you still hadn't been around.

And you tell us that we're to blame?

Aylesbury_Duck

thenap80 wrote: »

But then I was advised to pay by posters on here before seeing the work. I was basically told it was the right thing to do even though I had not seenthe work as it would have been evil not to pay the man and hold out so that is why i paid the 700 before going round - shows that advice on here isn't always best to take.

Sorry OP, but as others have pointed out, you didn't manage the process properly (at all, in fact). It was 20th February when the works were complete and you asked whether you should pay or withhold payment until you had visited "in a few days time". It was 3rd March when your tenant reported the stained carpet and you asked again about withholding payment, but still hadn't visited. You visited on 6th March, a full two weeks after work was completed, and found the mess that masquerades as a re-fit.

I think that those that advised paying promptly did so on the basis that you would visit promptly. It's unfair to have a builder have to indulge your personal timetable before he gets paid.

Furts

I have already said I cannot work this out, and I remain puzzled. OP took on a labour only quote, which is unusual for a bathroom refit, and supplied all materials yet never saw the work being done. How did OP know what was required?

The material quality, in general, is poor - my shower screen alone cost more than all the material expenditure on OP's bathroom. Add this to the cheap labour bill and the end result is not going to be top notch.


With completion on 20 Feb, and an inspection within two weeks there remains another odd element which also puzzles me. Did all the yellowing of the window, the broken glass, the mould, the yellowing silicone, the filthy extract vent, and the grime really occur within this period? OP assures us it did but I have never seen such rapid deterioration.

Doozergirl

Furts wrote: »

I have already said I cannot work this out, and I remain puzzled. OP took on a labour only quote, which is unusual for a bathroom refit, and supplied all materials yet never saw the work being done. How did OP know what was required?

The material quality, in general, is poor - my shower screen alone cost more than all the material expenditure on OP's bathroom. Add this to the cheap labour bill and the end result is not going to be top notch.


With completion on 20 Feb, and an inspection within two weeks there remains another odd element which also puzzles me. Did all the yellowing of the window, the broken glass, the mould, the yellowing silicone, the filthy extract vent, and the grime really occur within this period? OP assures us it did but I have never seen such rapid deterioration.

There's another post that mentions re-using the shower screen but putting in a new tray, so I think a lot of stuff has been re-cycled. It must have been pretty grotty to start with. I also think that the black grout has been smeared into the silicon and white grout, which adds to the effect.

Why would you tile into a window recess when your window looks like that? It's like putting lipstick on a pig.

I just could not bring myself to ever accept a job like the one presented. It's not just the guy that did the work that lacks integrity.

Aylesbury_Duck

Furts wrote: »

I have already said I cannot work this out, and I remain puzzled. OP took on a labour only quote, which is unusual for a bathroom refit, and supplied all materials yet never saw the work being done. How did OP know what was required?

The material quality, in general, is poor - my shower screen alone cost more than all the material expenditure on OP's bathroom. Add this to the cheap labour bill and the end result is not going to be top notch.


With completion on 20 Feb, and an inspection within two weeks there remains another odd element which also puzzles me. Did all the yellowing of the window, the broken glass, the mould, the yellowing silicone, the filthy extract vent, and the grime really occur within this period? OP assures us it did but I have never seen such rapid deterioration.

I think you're onto the source of the very cheap quotes for labour and materials. I wonder whether the fitter used second-hand or recycled/reclaimed materials where he could, perhaps for things like the plumbing fittings and the extractor. That would explain why they appear old/dirty. I also wonder whether the OP specified or created the impression that this should be a job done at absolute minimum cost, given that it's "only" for a tenant's use. That would mean ripping off old tiles and tiling up to the old silicone, window frame, bath, ceiling and door threshold rather than doing it all properly from scratch? That would explain why the tiling and grouting, despite being badly done, does appear new, whilst lots of things on the periphery such as silicone, are clearly original and yellowed/stained. The flexi-pipe on the cistern feed is badly pinched, so I bet that toilet takes ages to fill!

Furts

As a decent human being who believes in decent standards of housing, decent standards of building and has worked on site to produce numerous decent Housing Association and Council homes ... threads like this almost drive me to despair.

Twisting the advertising strap line from 20 years ago "The Future Is Not Bright". It certainly is not "Orange". It is grim and worrying for many in the private rented sector.

Television programmes like "Landlords From Hell" spring to mind.