Finish Carpenter

to what resident2 is saying,

i am sure many good carpenters live in the bronx, but even if they live there, you may not find them working there (resident2 does not say if he/she found the people he is referring to working on a job there or if he found them working on a job in Brooklyn). the kind of work you are looking to have done may not be done enough in your area to allow you to walk down the street and find a crew working there. for instance, i work on doors and live in middle village queens. but the people over here would rather rip out their old wood tudor round tops and install new fiberglass doors – so i do not do any work here and rarely make it known what i really do because the time talking to the people here is not worth the effort. you may encounter some of that, even though a really good crew is living a few blocks away.

No matter how you proceed, you will have to do your due diligence with any contractor you choose and it might take some experience to learn how to choose them. Fake web search reviews are always a risk but REALLY good contr actors do not have to make up fake reviews which is why i find it troubling that resident2 cast everyone who is on the web into this category without trying to offer some advice on how to spot a fake review (i cannot help there either). the plus about people who put themselves out on the web is, they are willing to take the risk of having someone say something bad about them and they are probably operating very legitimately and following more laws than the people Resident2 mentions who do not want their name posted on a blog. something is wrong if someone does not see the benefit of a positive web review and does not want their name posted and it raises a lot of questions in my mind as to why:

in general, people should be looking for people who are licensed and insured. start there with that and if they do not have a license, do not go any further (not to say that maybe you want to talk to chris petri’s guy above; a retiree who spent a lifetime doing this might be a good choice and is probably at a level that he would not want to screw his retirement up doing something that leads to a lawsuit). it is not the idea that they are meeting the letter of the law, we all think some of the laws in this city are BS, but by carrying a license and insurance, a contractor is saying “here i am” to everyone including all sorts of government agencies and as far as the insurance, that protects them, you want contractors who take that step of protecting themselves – because if contractors are not willing to protect themselves – i would venture to say they are less likely to care about protecting the customer.

There is something i have been condemning on this board for a while and there is a reason why it is important to select people who put themselves forth as legitimate companies and are willing to put their names out there. a lot of people think that misclassifying an employee as a “contractor” and paying them (paying adults) $25 an hour off the books is a generous and fair wage. there is a reason they do this and that is to circumvent all of the progressive labor protections that our great grandfathers and grandfathers fought for and that employers are required to provide to employees (ethically and legally) and those protections cost a lot of money. since resident2 brought up national origin, i will say this: there is an element of racism in the hiring process for these jobs in that the people doing the hiring will only choose certain groups because they know they are desperate enough to accept these jobs under those terms. this free market neo liberal (read conservative) approach to things does not work for those at the bottom. we all need all the protection that the law can give us. i can say this, as a white person, if i walked onto one of these jobs sites looking for a job at 25 an hour (which i consider a good wage when it comes with the protections of the law) they would not give me a second look because they know i would demand to be treated to all of the worker protections a worker at that level should be given (it is racism at best and it makes my skin crawl; i realize that resident2 may not be aware of how prevalent this behavior is with certain classes of contractors and i also realize that a license and insurance is no guarantee that it is not happening – but the better established a contractor is, the less likely they are going to commit abuses and if they are operating in the open as a company with a license, it is easier for some underpaid employee to complain about it when it happens; the dca is also tasked with ensuring workers are treated fairly in this city).

since i have begun writing about this topic on this board two people in brooklyn have contacted me and added to what i have been saying. one stated that a lot of people on these jobs are being paid as little as $10 an hour off the books and another said this kind of behavior leads to child labor law abuse (i have not been witness to that). since these comments have been made to me, i began asking some workers about their pay on the guise of hiring them. one (american born and much younger than me) was getting $15 an hour off the books. another, doing the same job on the same location was getting 10 an hour. his english was poor and he had not been born here and he was much older than i and should be looking at retirement. these conditions are worker abuse and that the immigrant was getting 5 an hour less to do the same job with the same employer smacked of racism. both of these men felt lucky to have a job and seemed to have respect for their employer – so walking on a job site may not tell you much if someone has duped the employees into believing that 10, 15 or 25 an hour off the books is a good wage. since resident2 brought up ethnicity here, i will say it: all groups are guilty of these practices, not just us bad old white people.

in so far as mentioning people by race on this board. even if someone is saying something good about the group, and i have met some highly talented jamaican carpenters so i know what resident2 means, it does not feel right as it seems that doing so is saying some groups are better than others. but on the other hand, it opens the door for people to say “those groups do this wrong” and in truth, all of the “painters” i have complained about on here, who tell me they “do not stir paint” or “do not use primer”, are of a certain ethnic origin and i have never felt the need to identify their ethnicity on this board.

i realize that not all contractors working under the radar are guilty of what i am saying above, but having spent many years working in this trade, i can tell you that worker wage abuse is rampant and the more we can support people operating in the open, the better chance we can push back against this abuse and create a fair work place for all. and there should be nothing wrong with any of us supporting that on this board and pushing back against statements or activities that lend to that kind of behavior. this is far worse than any of us realize and it betrays everything that twentieth century progressive reformists have fought against and it is wrong to all of us who toil with our hands.

if people would not mention race or national origin or prop up people who wish to remain under the radar for any reason, i would not be writing what i just said here.

You live in the Bronx and cannot find a carpenter?! There are many excellent carpenters there!. Mostly Jamaican or central American, but they are most definitely there. In fact a few years ago, I hired a crew of Jamaican carpenters that had just come back from England after being recruited to work on a historic building there… They are now too busy, but they still live in the Bronx . They do not want me to put their info on an open blog.
I originally found them like I did most of my skilled trades people; walking the streets & walking into construction sites that look interesting. You see first hand how they work… a mess or clean & organised ? Organised with a respect for their crew leader? and the job that they are currently working on etc. Ads & fake web search reviews is not the way to do it.

Terrance Dugan
516-978-6340
He is not a handyman for reference. He is an older contractor that closed his company and takes on solo refined work now. I have seen him turn run down whole Brownstones in Brooklyn into beautiful homes and perform amazing small finish work in a $32 Million Dollar Soho Penthouse.

i meant to say something like this “if they are less familiar with the area and you are in a less city like area yourselves, let them know that….”

with all the youth in OP’s area, we should have people willing to go into this line of work to serve that area. something is wrong.

see if you can engage the contractors into longer conversations. see if you can sell your job to them by letting them know you are realistic about pricing and if you have off street parking tell them that (parking may be the issue). if they are less familiar with the area and you are in a less city like area themselves, let them know this so you can let them know their tools will be safe. also shop for someone located up north a little as opposed to someone like me here in queens as my focus is brooklyn and it is a lot easier for guys like me to focus in one area and not pay tolls to cross bridges. also, people up north may cost a little less and it might take less to entice them into an area they are less familiar with (though some people outside the city will not come in for anything).

I know it is awful to say and i feel bad for customers when they try to do it to me as i know they are stuck, but you will have to sell your job to them.

Not sure what the work is but if it’s molding then it’s hard to find someone to make and install.