Repairs to Your Possessions or Your Body

Now for the horror of hiring the wrong companies or people to fix something or remodel your home. Years ago, I needed a plumber. I was young and had only moved into my home about two years ago. I picked one from the telephone book. Yes, there were telephone books in those days and it was pre internet. All he had to do was install a shower kit in my upstairs bathroom. I left him to his work. I decided some time later to see what he was doing and to my horror I saw he ran a pipe by cutting out almost all of a support beam in the floor instead of cutting a pipe size hole through it. That was my first lesson with hiring workers. It was a lesson well learned and I never made that mistake again. Others have made even worse mistakes when hiring people for jobs.

Unfortunately, remodeling disasters are quite common. One couple hired an architect they heard advertised on the radio. They figured a famous one would be more trouble free. One of things to check into is does the company you are hiring have operated under other names in the past to hide the fact they had complaints. This was the case here. When the plans were finally approved it was months later because the city kept kicking back the plans for errors. The next problem companies who saw the plans for the construction refused to bid because the plans were so bad. Finally, one contractor accepted the job and violates the plans and an inspector notes that. The construction had put the family in danger in the home due to violations. When the addition was finished it violated the city codes. The problems went on for months with construction crews not showing up, there were no supervisors when they did and members of the family were getting sick from fumes. The problems in the final construction took years to fix.

I remember one story where no construction was requested and when a family came home, their home was gone. Apparently, what happened was a demolition crew was hired to take down a house on the block and they took down the wrong one. When they checked to make sure no one was in the house they started the demolition. Never mind the fact the house was fully furnished and it was obvious people were living in it.

People who have home repair or remodel businesses are not the only ones who can cause you heartache. Auto dealers are another group of businesses which can DRIVE you crazy when you take your car back for a repair. A person I know has a famous brand Korean car. All was fine until one day he couldn’t get his car into gear. The shifter would not move. He was told even though the car had a 100,000 mile 10 year gear train warranty, his bumper to bumper warranty had expired and he would have to pay. He said he would. The work was done and they said they had to replace a module. When he got home, he noticed his trunk wouldn’t open. It was one of those trunks which has no key. It wouldn’t even open with the release button below the dash. He needed the car to take his three kids to baseball and other sports with all their equipment, so he called the dealer and was told there were no open appointments for a couple of weeks. He had to lower the rear seats and pull a latch he had to crawl to every time he wanted to load and unload the trunk. When the appointment came up the dealer’s rep said he could find nothing wrong. He then took it to his own mechanic who diagnosed the problem as being the computer program in the car was not updated to recognize the new module. He went back to the dealer, showed them the report and they quickly said they can’t go by that and wanted him to pay to have his shifter torn down again.

When I was a young man, I had a car which had a problem but was under warranty. I called the dealer and they told me I would have to drop it off, which I did. For weeks I kept getting the run around. Finally, about a month later they called and said the car was ready. I picked it up and it still had the same problem. They hadn’t done anything to it. Another time I had a new Ford Mustang and the transmission went out in under a year. That dealer told me to leave the car and again I did. After the car had been at the dealer for six weeks, I complained to the Ford company representative and finally got the car fixed. Dealers don’t like to do warranty work because they get less money.

Even repairs to ourselves can be a problem if we go to the wrong doctor or dentist. I had a mole on the side of my head when I was 20 and it turned a funny color so I went to a surgeon and he said he would have to operate. He was an older man and when I got to the hospital, he wanted to give me general anesthesia but I refused and said I wanted a local. He argued with me but finally gave me it. As he worked on the mole, I noticed he had the shakes. I was in the middle of the operation so all I could do was hope for the best. He worked out but my right ear became so full of blood I couldn’t hear in that hear for three weeks.

Lastly, I had gone to the dentist when I was about 20 and I had used him before without a problem. He extracted a tooth and said he would have to charge me more because the tooth had extra roots and he was charging by the root. I paid but never went back. It turned out he had a gambling problem and needed more money.