Wow , is it hard to find a handyman?

[fastfredracing]

First guy, is a dumbass, and breaks the front door , and cannot fix the plumbing leak in the basement. Total fumble fingers mess of a dude . I already have one of those .
Second guy tells me how good he is , always on time, bla bla bla. Supposed to be there yesterday. As of this morning , no show, no return call , or fb message .
Gonna try a third tonite.
Im going to tell my son to forgo college, and become a handyman, seems , you could name your price if you showed up, and actually did what was asked of you .

[asphaltgambler]

Fred - been all through it. I'm not looking for the cheapest, just good work quality at a fair price. After going through word-of-mouth with various painters, carpenters, drywall guys - I gave up.

Went through Angie's List ( no affiliation ) and can't say enough good things about the service providers I chose. They are rated by performance and price overall, usually offering deals on specific work / price / time.

If I can't do it myself, that's my go to, never any drama.

[fastfredracing]

I just did the angies list thing. Got a guy who is supposed to stop in tonight, and shake our hands, look us in the eye, and try to establish a relationship.
He seemed like he is worried about getting paid. I assured him , that we will never string him out for payment. We are both working guys also
Like you, I am willing to pay , just show , sometime, and do what is asked, and I will dance the jig while I hand you a check.

[Rick Lee]

Depends on the size of the job. Plenty of those guys won't get out of bed for anything smaller than $500. I needed a tiny piece of drywall replaced and painted in my rental long ago. It was in VA while I was in AZ. My handyman said he could do it for $75, but wasn't going to interrupt his $4k kitchen remodel job for it. And, of course, better-paying jobs kept popping up before he could get to me. I had to pay the HOA's contractor $150 to deal with it on a day they were already in the neighborhood.

[fastfredracing]

Gotta be guy willing to go out there and do 3 or 4 $150.00 jobs a day. Seems like a dude could make a decent wage with some hand tools, a van, and a little work ethic.
I hate being jerked around. They get one chance .. one.

[Dantilla]

I know a painter on So California who has built his business on a simple, unwavering principle:

-We show up when we say we will show up,
-We will have the job completed by the date promised.

Word of mouth reputation has treated him well. The radius of which he is willing to travel for work keeps shrinking. Turns down lots of requests.

[scottmandue]

20+ years ago I separated from my dad's HVAC business (much to his consternation) and went back to school to get a AA in electronics. Dad would get calls for small jobs (add a vent, cut in a wall heater, etc.) and he would refer them to me. I just showed up on time, did a good job, and cleaned up after myself. By the time I graduated school I was turning down jobs

[cabmandone]

It's funny how when times are good and work is plentiful how people forget the importance of customer communication.

[Evans, Marv]

My impression is sub contractors in general are a lazy bunch. When I was looking for someone to install my wood flooring - which was standard 1 1/2" x 3/4" oak flooring - I talked to three guys in the beginning showing each it was 1 1/2". Each said, "Oh, I'm used to doing 5 or 6 inch plank." One guy assured me three times he was coming to talk to me but never showed up. But I kept trying and finally found an independent company that did a great job for a very reasonable price. I learned if a guy gave me the smallest bit of run around, I kicked him off my list and looked elsewhere. If most of them were this way about doing a complete job, I can imagine how hard it would be to get somebody to do a small job. That's one reason I do all I can myself.

[fastfredracing]

Originally Posted by cabmando

It's funny how when times are good and work is plentiful how people forget the importance of customer communication.

Being a small busniess , I get this also. Sometimes ( most of the time ) I am overwhelmed with work. And it is hard to cross every t, and dot every i.
It is hard to call back and bid new work, when you are burried up to your eyeballs in projects already.
I just try to be honest and tell them my time frame and situation .

[GH85Carrera]

I have a scissor lift in my garage. I wanted to drop it into a shallow pit, and be able to cover it with plywood when not in use. As an official grey hair geezer with very limited knowledge of concrete work I did not want to attack it on my own. It was really hard to find anyone willing to do it. I finally talked to a home builder buddy and asked if he knew someone qualified to do it.
A guy and a crew of hard working Mexicans showed up on time. They cut the concrete, and removed the dirt, and poured 3,000 PSI concrete on top of the rebar reinforced floor. It was neat watching just how they built the forms, and made the pit look right. I would have never figured it out.



The sheet of plywood fits right over it, so it is totally out of the way when not in use. I love it.

It took a team of hard 5 hard working guys most of a day to dig it, and pour the concrete, and haul the dirt and broken concrete away. I was very very happy I did not have to attempt it myself.

And for those that want to know. It is a BendPak MD6XP that lifts 48 inches. The El Camino can't go to full extension because it would hit the light fixture on the ceiling. The 911 car go to full extension. The pump is mounted on the wall.

[asphaltgambler]

In Northern Va - there's always opportunity if you want to work. There is lots of competition even for small jobs - I'm telling you that if any nonsense occurs, they won't be on AL for long. They pay to be on there.

Now the custom painter I've been using for years ( car/ truck /motorcycle ) with whom I've never had an issue is suddenly fallen off of the edge of the earth regarding my John Deere hood respray that he's had since Christmas. I'm going there tomorrow to have a 'discussion', retrieve it and take to guy #2 that I use.........

[ckelly78z]

My wife is a project manager for a large home building company, and has one hell of a time finding/keeping contractors for doing every aspect of the building process. The really sketchy ones are painters, and drywall guys, who all SEEM to drink more than they work, and don't return calls, or show up on time, or at all.

[Dantilla]

Originally Posted by Dantilla

I know a painter on So California who has built his business on a simple, unwavering principle:

-We show up when we say we will show up,
.

Originally Posted by ckelly78z

... The really sketchy ones are painters, and drywall guys, who all SEEM to drink more than they work, and don't return calls, or show up on time, or at all.

This is what makes it so easy for the guy who shows up- The competition is no competition.

[Bugsinrugs]

Originally Posted by Dantilla

I know a painter on So California who has built his business on a simple, unwavering principle:

-We show up when we say we will show up,
-We will have the job completed by the date promised.

Word of mouth reputation has treated him well. The radius of which he is willing to travel for work keeps shrinking. Turns down lots of requests.

I turned down many “I’ll pay you whatever you want” jobs in San Francisco. Four hours driving time to and from the job. No parking within a reasonable distance to the home. Most likely a $85-100 parking ticket. So not worth it.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by fastfredracing

Gotta be guy willing to go out there and do 3 or 4 $150.00 jobs a day. Seems like a dude could make a decent wage with some hand tools, a van, and a little work ethic.
I hate being jerked around. They get one chance .. one.

Originally Posted by Bugsinrugs

I turned down many “I’ll pay you whatever you want” jobs in San Francisco. Four hours driving time to and from the job. No parking within a reasonable distance to the home. Most likely a $85-100 parking ticket. So not worth it.

This.^^^

In a city, it's absolutely impossible that someone could do two jobs at different locations in one day unless absolutely everything they needed to complete the jobs was present in both places and nothing required more than one trip to the location the next day, i.e. removing masking, sanding plaster that was cured from the day before, etc... The reality of this type of work is that you ALWAYS need something you don't have and have to make a run for it, which eats time.

I know that a lot of the posters here live out in the sticks but that makes it even worse in terms of distance needed to travel for a small item or supply needed to complete a job. The only way being a handy man or taking small jobs would work where I live is to be very restrictive about the scope of said jobs, have a minimum price and a van or truck that is a hardware store on wheels.

One of my best friends, a master cabinet maker and builder, used to work in NYC. He had a van that was a store on wheels so he never had to leave the site and budgeted $150 a day into the job for the parking ticket he would get parking illegally to be near the job. This was for jobs that bid @ 5-figures and up, doing little piss ant jobs fixing people's toilets would never work. He would have had to have a $1000 minimum to change a fuse.

There is a matter of scale to the economics of contracting anything. I've never done tiny jobs for anyone unless it's a favor for a loved one, etc...

[fastfredracing]

Been doin it for 15 years . Run down to the city, repair a faucet at one home, go over to the other, replace a door handle, maybe take a look at the loose step at the other place, and make a note of what supplies to purchase .
This is after working a 10 hour day at the shop
The guy I tried yesterday, lives 4 miles from all our houses, and home depot, and lowes is 10 minutes away. Plus hardware stores .
Where there is a will, there is a way.

[fintstone]

I can't find anyone to do handyman projects. Even big jobs, they never show up. Only a few do, and those bid about 3-5 times as much as they should cost (but I guess if you are the only one to show up, you have no competition).

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by Dantilla

I know a painter on So California who has built his business on a simple, unwavering principle:

-We show up when we say we will show up,
-We will have the job completed by the date promised.

Word of mouth reputation has treated him well. The radius of which he is willing to travel for work keeps shrinking. Turns down lots of requests.

Despite living in a very small rural town my father in law typically has a 16 month+ backlog for this reason.

[livi]

Looking for a handyman? Go to pornhub.