Helpers from Hell

As I mentioned in my last post, my brother is about to embark on the journey of serious renovating--a back-to-back kitchen and bath redo. I tried to tell him, without being a complete downer, that it would be hell. I watched as his optimistic expression dropped further and further in the direction of the floor, at which point I felt like the proverbial wet blanket at the party. I did try to salvage things by saying he'd be happy with the improvements, in the end.

Anyway, I guess I have to get the doom part out of my system because when I thought about a new renovation post to write, the first (and only) thing that came to mind was "Helpers from Hell," inspired by the lawn guys working in the neighbors' yard in back of us, who, today (the windiest day in the last six months), decided to clean the leaves up just in time to miss the curbside leaf pick up an hour beforehand.

But missing the leaf pick up wasn't the problem. The problem was that they just could not bring themselves to use rakes, which actually do the job properly, of course. Rather, they BOTH had to use leaf blowers which, imagine, simply blow the leaves around and, as luck would have it, with the help of the gale-force winds, blew those leaves over the fence and into our back garden, which we had just finished cleaning, feeding and mulching--meaning, we cannot now simply rake the leaves or all the mulch will come up; we will have to hand pick the leaves, thus giving us the long and tedious task of redoing what had already been done, except that it was a much faster clean up the first time around.

Now, I like to think of myself as a peace-loving person, but when lawn guys (or anyone) get out a sound and air polluting (not to mention functionally close to useless, except for blowing leaves and lawn clippings into someone else's yard) leaf blower, my mind conjures up putting to use devices fit for the Medieval torture museum I once saw in Europe. But I digress....

The point really is this... and I have never had a long-term renovation done without encountering it... You have things in your home or garden that are perfectly all right and satisfying just the way they are. They don't need your "helpers" intervention. Those guys are there for something else. But somehow, in their mission to do the job you hired them for, they find a way to break or otherwise mar something or other that was intact before they arrived and had no bearing on what they were supposed to be working on.

I know what you're thinking, that they're probably insured, etc. But are you going to sue them or even risk getting them miffed in the middle of your job when they have you at their mercy (your kitchen torn apart, for example) because they broke the rose off your watering can when they "borrowed" it to make plaster? And sometimes, you don't even find the problem until later (like a hand embroidered dish towel from Madeira found in the garage a month after the offender left, it having been taken from the basement laundry and used to wipe caulking).

I am not saying don't set limits, but if you heed my advice from an earlier post, you'll choose your battles, even though this "small stuff" can be VERY frustrating, irritating and discouraging when it involves things you really care about (or even simply thought were "done")--especially when you're already at the end of your rope.

So, trust me. Brace yourself, because it will "get you" and even the best guys often do at least a bit of this (either deliberately or accidentally) on a big enough/long enough job. (By the way, I won't even begin to tell you how the window in the photo got broken--and you wouldn't believe me anyway.)

Moving on... :-)

The above situation, you may notice, is related to another phenomenon, namely, "It's not my job. It's the painter's (plumber's; carpenter's; electrician's, etc.'s) job." You know, those jobs (or mishaps) that fall between the cracks but nobody takes responsibility for doing them (or owns up to causing them) but that, nonetheless, must be dealt with/fixed in order for the big job to be completed?

Anyway, enough doom and gloom. Here's the rosy part.

You will get people whom you'll want to clone. They will be so fabulous at what they do and so 'beyond the call of duty' in their application that you won't believe your luck (especially in the context of other help, such as those mentioned above). All I can say is: "Frame those moments."

Bon courage, James! :-)