Holmes on Homes
My recent television enjoyment is Holmes on Homes, a Canadian home improvement show playing on the Discovery Home channel. The concept is: homeowners hired a contractor to do repairs or renovations and the contractor did shoddy work, sometimes even ran off with the money without completing the job. Enter Mike Holmes and his crew to fix the work with an attitude of doing it like he would do in his own home. Of course he gets to be cocky because he's coming in to fix everything and he has extra time and money to do it right (often better than right), and of course editing control, but still, an enjoyable and educational show.
I'm learning a lot about home repairs, renovations, and various installations. As he's working through an area Mike will often point out common issues and corners that get cut (at least one of which we discovered in our home on our own about a month ago.) I'm also learning that hiring a contractor is fucking scary. I already knew from personal experience that you can expect corners to be cut so they can save money (which makes sense to a certain degree) but it's amazing to see how bad it gets. Even simple things that cost very little money (caulking, taping air duct joints, etc.) get skipped resulting in leaks and other problems. Tons of bad work is hidden in walls and under floors. If you don't know anything about construction you might as well just bend over. Some of the homeowners on the program know just enough to start questioning the contractors ("Hey, shouldn't there be a vapor barrier of some sort around this shower installation?") and figuring out something is fishy before they get completely taken to the cleaners. Others end up putting out tens of thousands of dollars with no results, or the only result is a partially demolished, non-functional room in their house before the contractor runs off without paying any of his subcontractors (who could now put a lien on the homeowners property to get paid.) Whee!
As we learned in our world travels, never pay all the money up front to someone providing goods or services. Hold back a percentage until delivery.