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Let's be honest

12K views 57 replies 36 participants last post by  retired rooter 
#1 ·
I know I'm guilty of this, anyone else? Anyone charge more for a job when you get crap on you by accident, get bonked on the head and you're pissed off because you have a knot the size of a silver dollar on your noggin? The toilet is coverd with urine. Or maybe the customer won't leave you alone, or the dog won't stop barking, or the house stinks etc. etc.? LOL.. come on, tell the truth.:whistling2:
 
#3 ·
It would be hard to do that while flat rate. Well, if its gonna be too bad, can present the price with the difficult access fee tacked in there. But never had to go that route. Usually deal with it and move on.

In Christ,

Song Dog
 
#4 ·
Never, but.....



I've been so mad at jobs I walked away and charged nothing. I tried to repair a delta kitchen faucet, went to a hardware store three times for parts, and the faucet still leaked. I was so mad I installed a Moen single lever faucet and walked out without charging a penny.

I was walking up stairs, on a job, and one of those aluminum windows that opens out was opened over the center of the stairway. I put a huge gash in the top of my head. The customer told me people hurt themselves on that window all the time and did not seem apologetic for his part of the ignorance. I was so mad I picked up my tools and told them to get someone else to finish the job.
 
#6 ·
Not with flat rate . However ,,, the NEXT time i charge more just for the hassle that so many customers bring on just because they are inconsiderate of us . I.E ,, leak under kit sink and ALL THEIR CRAP is still there when you get there . - Bad sump pump and you have to crawl over YEARS of crap to get to it . Those types of things makes me charge more .

Cal
 
#7 ·
I don't charge more but as cal said if they are so inconsiderate and leave all thier junk under the sink or have to move all kinds of stuff to get to a clean out I do take my good ole time moving it out of the way. If people would take the time to do this and to put plastic or drop cloths down for us before we get there they would save alot of money.
 
#8 ·
Nah. It all works out at the end of the month.

I like to see stuff under the sink or other signs of laziness. The lazier the customer, the better chance that its not a DIYer.
 
#46 · (Edited)
They Also Get To Vote




I quote a job higher if I know the area where I have to go is dangerous and mean...

if it is filthy, I have politely told the slobs to clean it up and I will return later that day to do the work.....:yes::yes: of course I never go back....
they have called me 30 minutes later
and I have said that it cant be clean enough yet...keep scrubbing.



as you stated that its unfortuante that they are allowed to breed,


but dont forget that they are also allowed to vote themselves benefits,


and they are breeding much, much faster
than the clean decent hard working folks are...

what does that tell you about the future of our country??..
 
#13 ·
I once charged a $100 fee on a gas line for the ladies dog that kept biting me on the heels.:furious: I asked her a couple of times real nice to put the dog away but she refused. Finally I stuffed the dog in the furnace closet:thumbup: The lady was running all around outside looking for her little poopsie.:whistling2: She was upset by the extra charge till I showed her the bite marks on my ankle and told her it was cheaper than a lawsuit. I always tell customers too that if they flush while I am installing a cleanout there is a $50 dollar extra charge per flush. That seems to get their attention
 
#36 ·
That is funny!

I once charged a $100 fee on a gas line for the ladies dog that kept biting me on the heels.:furious: I asked her a couple of times real nice to put the dog away but she refused. Finally I stuffed the dog in the furnace closet:thumbup: The lady was running all around outside looking for her little poopsie.:whistling2: She was upset by the extra charge till I showed her the bite marks on my ankle and told her it was cheaper than a lawsuit. I always tell customers too that if they flush while I am installing a cleanout there is a $50 dollar extra charge per flush. That seems to get their attention
I have to laugh at putting the dog in the closet and I am going to remember to do that on the next job.
 
#20 ·
I walked out of a house for the first time in my plumbing career about 2 weeks ago. Absolute filth, barely a path to walk through. Decomposed rat carcasses lying on the floor. I told them "clean it up and I'll come back, that will be $59.00".
I worked in an apt in s e wash dc when I first started plumbing. It was about 5 degrees outside very cold for washington when we walked in the apt they had about 6 space heaters going all four burners and the oven on the stove and the thermostat was turned all the way up to 90 degrees. It must have been 120 in there. well the tenant guided dave the plumber i was working with and showed him the way to the bathroom. I was right behind him. when he opened that door he actually fell back into my arms. The toilet bowl was stopped up and full they had removed the tank lid and filled it up. the bathtub was full to the rim the sink was completely full and they had 4 five gallon buckets all full to the very top. (i guess when they ran out of buckets they decided to call) we turned around and told them to clean it up and we would be back to clear the stoppage. Later that day we went back and the funny thing about all this is that all it took was one push with the plunger to clear the stoppage. some People are so ignorant it is unbelievable
 
#15 ·
I went to an apartment that my in-laws own in a very urban area. Picked up a new dishwasher for the tenant. Got over there and started to disconnect the old one and the damn thing was slap full of dishes. So, since it was for my in laws, i took it out anyways and set it by the road with the dishes still in it. I just hope that all the glass didn't break when I rolled it on its side. I think the tenants where too stoned to notice, judging by the smell of the place. It felt very gratifying.
 
#21 ·
My husband worked in Baltimore too. He had a story very close to yours. The tenants said something along the lines of 'look what you got to clean up.' He walked out too. Same situation, they used the bathtub. I cannot believe people choose to live this way. Poverty is one thing, filth is another.

If the tenant thought they were exerting a little control over another person, they were sadly mistaken and learned a valuable lesson. Your crap all over your bathroom and live like an animal, you will clean your own crap up.
 
#23 ·
:thumbup:
My husband worked in Baltimore too. He had a story very close to yours. The tenants said something along the lines of 'look what you got to clean up.' He walked out too. Same situation, they used the bathtub. I cannot believe people choose to live this way. Poverty is one thing, filth is another.

If the tenant thought they were exerting a little control over another person, they were sadly mistaken and learned a valuable lesson. Your crap all over your bathroom and live like an animal, you will clean your own crap up.
just because you are poor does not mean you have to be filthy and irresponsible
 
#22 ·
What makes that even worse with storys like that, and like the one smellslikemoney posted is when children are in the home. I had a call simmilar to yours smells, only this was little chiuwawa feices and piss everywhere, roaches everywhere, paths through garbage and dirty clothes. The odor alone was like a landfill. I walked out the door as soon as I walked in it, as this lady began to blame everything on her kids, her kids don't listen she said.
Children and family services got an anonymus call that afternoon.
 
#24 ·
What makes that even worse with storys like that, and like the one smellslikemoney posted is when children are in the home. I had a call simmilar to yours smells, only this was little chiuwawa feices and piss everywhere, roaches everywhere, paths through garbage and dirty clothes. The odor alone was like a landfill. I walked out the door as soon as I walked in it, as this lady began to blame everything on her kids, her kids don't listen she said.
Children and family services got an anonymus call that afternoon.
what was even more upsetting the kids had rags for clothes and using old sheets and towels for diapers and the old man is running around in a three peice suit and driving a cadillac I did ask the lady why she let the place go like that and she said that she called the apt complex super and he just kept putting her off. I told her the next time it happened to call the health dept or human services. but you know as well as I do that she won't do it. it would require lifting a finger to dial the phone,
 
#26 ·
I clean the kitchen or bathroom after I finish. I wipe things down, clean the floor, clean the toilet inside and out, and polish chrome fixtures even if they were not part of the service call. When I'm done, the customer is shocked at how clean every thing is. I have techniques for really cleaning chrome fixtures (calsites, carbonates, minerals) so that they look almost new. I've frequently been told I am the cleanest service person they have ever seen. And, I actually don't mind cleaning. That being said, I am one of the most inexpensive, licensed journeyman plumbers I know and, as such, if a job site is disgusting, my quote will reflect market prices (vs my typically low price), but I will not over charge. I do have what I call a "skin" charge. If I see a job where I will clearly be "leaving some skin on this one," I add approximately $100. to the job. For example, I did a repair under a house (far away from the entrance-2 ft high) where the owner did a self pour and the entire ground under the houses was comprised of jagged chunks of over-pour concrete/giant globs of razor-like moon rock. It was a very painful crawl. I could clearly anticipate leaving some skin under that house (and I did). A $100. job can become a $200. job upon inspection based on a "skin" charge. After 20 years in this trade, I can look at a job and know "We're gonna get bloody on this one, Rog." (Lethal Weapon). Do you know what I mean?
 
#28 ·
I had a call come in a while back. Lady wanted a new toilet seat. Sounds easy enough.... The house was in a nice part of town. I get there and when I walked inside I could tell she hadn't cleaned since the day she moved in. She walked with me to the bathroom and as soon as I walked in I could smell piss. She actually told me she wanted the seat changed because she didn't feel like cleaning it. I turned the box over and showed her the directions on how to install it, and told her to have a nice day.
 
#30 ·
Thats right, just because you are poor is no excuse for filth. I built a government home for these people who were poor. They had rags stuffed in the top of the doors to keep the cold out, no inside water, no bathroom, they used an out house, roof falling in, cardboard up to the windows, looks like this house should have been condemned from the outside. But on the inside, I would be glad to sit and have a meal with these people any day. They did not have much, but they took damn good care of what they had. It was all they had. Tiles missing from the floor, but always moped, counter tops with some of the laminate missing, but never full of day old dish's. They really did appreciate the fact they had a roof over their head, even though it was not much. But then again, I been into homes where you slip and slide on the floor because of grease, had roach's try to walk away with my tools, had to watch out for land mines.
 
#33 ·
I worked in a house in lorton va. one time that was immaculate on the outside. At the time it would have been a 200,000 dollar these days probably close to a million. When I walked in the smell of animal urine was horrendous. As we were walking to the kitchen she kept apologizing for the house being dirty and kept blaming the kids. When we got to the kitchen there was open cans of food with mold growing out of it dishes piled almost to the ceiling, plates of leftover food that you could tell had been there for weeks. i asked her how old her kids were and she said 2 and 4.:blink: I was there to fix a drip in the faucet hell you couldn't even see the faucet but you could hear it. The reason it wouldn't turn off was because she had to much crap in the sink and the lever wouldn.t come down all the way. I had her give me watever the price of a service call was back then and told her to clean her house and walked out. When i got back to the shop the boss told me that she had called to complain about me. I just laughed at him told him the gory details and told him to put the house on our don't go there list.:laughing:
 
#32 ·
I heard a story of a plumber being called over by this guy. He unclogged the toilet and pulled out a huge wad of condoms. Needless to say the guy was "happily" married but worked away from home a lot.

Moral of the story, if your going to cheat on your husband while he is out of town, don't flush the evidence down the toilet. There's a good chance it will come back to haunt you.

J.
 
#34 ·
I heard a story of a plumber being called over by this guy. He unclogged the toilet and pulled out a huge wad of condoms. Needless to say the guy was "happily" married but worked away from home a lot.

Moral of the story, if your going to cheat on your husband while he is out of town, don't flush the evidence down the toilet. There's a good chance it will come back to haunt you.

J.
:laughing::laughing::laughing: blame it on the kids. When I was a kid me and my brother found our dads stash of condoms/balloons in his closet. We took them and blew them up and went outside to play with them with our friends. Needless to say we got into a little trouble over that one.:laughing::laughing:
 
#38 ·
I had a customer like that. The house was a plain old ranch house with a full basement. The woman was so large she could barely get out of a chair. There were stacks of newspapers three feet high, piles of everything everywhere. Smell. Cats. Cats shredding the newspapers, and nothing cleaned. Horrible-smelling cat boxes.

But she was nice and she paid.

Some people have problems. What the woman needs is full-time care until she gets it together. She was not stupid. Anxiety, disease, I didn't ask. But sometimes, perfectly normal people become afflicted and in this richest country in the world, health care is simply unavailable to many people, particularly that kind of health care over a long period.

I've worked for her more than once and I can't figure out how she can live functionally at all.

In fact, I had another similar customer, but he was male. Not quite as bad, but no cleaning going on. Same deal: I fix what needs fixed, collect, and leave. These people are never antagonistic or rude and I suspect they have not always been the way they are now.
 
#40 ·
Walked into potential clients home and the place was piled from floor to ceiling w/ books in ALL ROOMS, smelt of cat chit. Two old dikes only had enough room for 2 chairs in the living room, I dared not look in the bedroom. The toilet was literally falling thru the floor and at a 20 degree angle, floor rotted out, single story conventional floor. The toilet had not been used for years. It was a one bathroom house! I didn't ask... The window in the bathroom was stuck shut. The crawl hole was RIGHT there, outside the home under the toilet. I didn't want the job. "Mrs. Jones, your looking at 25 hundred bucks to patch the floor, supply and set a competitive wc and an angle stop ONLY. You can hire in a floor guy after I leave. They said OK...
(Next day w/ materials in truck) I walked into the bathroom w/ a hammer, fully prepared to bust out the window, I slammed it first of course w/ my palms and she popped open, yanked the crap, did all deeds and was done in 5 hours. This was about 6 years ago.

On another job there wasn't enough money for me to do it, as soon as I walked in and saw they used the living room couch for a toilet from time to time. I walked out. Maybe 7 years ago

On another job, the gas was shut off. A flat roofed home, no attic space at all. The floor joists were only 8" if that above dirt level. It needed a complete gas repipe, via crawl and tunneling. I didn't want the job, the people didn't appear to have a dime, I gave a price that would surely make them say no, over 5K, they said yes, I did it, got an inspection and went to the bank. Maybe 10 years ago.

Only in L.A. :rolleyes:
 
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