What's up with Malek?
He came by to look at our place and give us an estimate but never got back to us. I called him daily till finally his receptionist said he decided to not bid on our place. WTF?!? We have a landmark building that is in need of some serious work. Any other recommendations??
He came by to look at our place and give us an estimate but never got back to us. I called him daily till finally his receptionist said he decided to not bid on our place. WTF?!? We have a landmark building that is in need of some serious work. Any other recommendations??
I’m an architect in nyc and was working on a historic renovation in Connecticut. After some research I came across Cathedral Stone products- historic mortar and re-construction materials that are excellent for repairing old buildings.
When it came time to do brick re-pointing at my own home I contacted Cathedral Stone because I wanted to use their products. They also reccommended a handful of contractors trained to use their products; they reccommended Tri Boro Waterproofing, out of Queens. They do very little work in Brooklyn and concentrate on restoring landmark buildings in Manhattan. Before hiring them I looked at a row of brownstones they had restored in the upper west side near Amesterdam ave. Impressive.
We’ve had a working relationship now for about 3 years; they may be a little higher end but really reliable, direct, honest and very pleasant to work with. Professionals on every front.
poster at 7:00pm makes lots of sense. Contractors can play games, homeowners can play games.
When you’re following a rant remember there’s always two sides.
Neil Curry- Curry & Co. He is working on our house right now and is doing an amazing job.
http://www.ncurry.com/
Actually, that strategy sounds quite busness savvy.
For many contractors, it’s their major flaw. I sat down on a stoop one day and heard. a few discuss how to take indoor jobs in the summer with no intention of starting them till the deck and outdoor season was over. They traded stories of the bullshit lines they used. Not all trades people are business savvy.
Well, if the homeowner is a amall coop, someone takes initiative and gets a nice bid from a contractor they like, they take it to the coop board when they coop board finally meets, the others say – get some more bids, or change this and that in the work and get another bid, so the responsible person who is doing all the work (thankless job) because they want to see what needs to get done get done goes and does that. Then at the next meeting, the others (who have done nothing) say (1) make some more changes and redo the bids, (2) call some more of the contractor’s references, (3) I heard blah, blah about this, (4) let’s not do this now, (5) let’s get bids on some other project I want to do instead of this one… oh, it’s fun. Get back to the contractor? With what? They’d rather not hear from you until you’ve actually made a decision, any decision. Which, if something isn’t an emergency, can take years.
I know this is a contractor bashing conversation; however homeowners play the same silly games and go silent more often then contractors considering they often get multiple bids per project. How often do contractors provide estimates but not get a coutesy call back to say someone else was hired or a returned call when they follow up to see if a customer received the 3 page estimate, if they were hired, etc.
I used to use Malek regularly. Until he accepted a job several years ago, showed up and started it, then suddenly quit showing up to complete it. I called and called, to no avail; the secretary told me he would call back, yessed me to death every time, but he never did. The job was relatively small, involving patching the masonry on my stoop, so perhaps he had bigger jobs for his crew and just decided it wasn’t worth the aggravation. But bear in mind I was a longtime client, with a good payment history, and not a pain in the ass – I just wanted to get the job finished. Since the remaining work was minor, after no response when I called every couple of days for six weeks, I finally just finished the job myself – and haven’t heard from him on the subject to this day. The weirdest part of it was that I never even gave him a down payment, and he never sent me a bill. Not that I’m complaining about that part, but it seems like a pretty bizarre way to run a business, and I won’t call him again.
i have to say that contractors who don’t show for the appointment, who show very late, or who never submit their bid, are basically showing how extremely unprofessional they are. there really is no excuse for this kind of treatment. the problem is that good work is sometimes hard to find and if they know it then they abuse it. in an ideal world these people would get left in the dust, treated the same way that they treat potential clients.