Tuesday, October 25, 2011

I am surprised I am allowed to own a phone

My mom has a lovely ranch house with a bay window on the front.  Over the bay window is a beautiful copper roof. 

My mom also works for a local hardware store and has the opportunity to talk to many local contractors.  Just the other week she was talking to a painter and over the course of the conversation he agreed to come paint all of mom's shutters for a fair price. 

He has since painted and collected his money.  A few short days after he was done Mom happened to notice something a little different about the front of the house.  The super nice painter was also a super duper idiot since he painted the golden copper roof...it is now solid black.

She called him and was told that he thought the house needed a little something extra and decided to really make the roof "pop".  He assured mom that he would come out and look at it....IN THE SPRING.

As mom was relaying this story to me, I told her to give me his number.  She was relunctant to do so (with good reason).  After I promised not to curse at him she relented and I called him immediately.

Me:  "Hi.  I think you did some painting for my mom..."

Idiot:  "Oh hi!  I did.  As a matter of fact I just talked to her today!"  He says this all chipper-like as if I need someone to paint my window panes for me.

Me:  "Yes, you did.  I believe you discussed the fact that you painted over her copper roof.  I would like to know how you are going to fix it."

Idiot:  "Oh yeah, I promised her I'd come out in the spring and...."

Me:  "Nope.  You are going to fix it now.  For free.  What possessed you to paint a copper roof to begin with?"

Idiot:  "It was all a misunderstanding.  See, she told me to paint her shutters and I thought she meant that part too."

Me:  "So she told you to paint the shutters only...evidently we have very different definitions of the word 'shutter'.  We both assumed that someone who painted houses for a living would understand what a shutter was.  Who in their right mind would paint over a copper roof?"

Idiot:  A lot of silence

Me:  "Let's review so that there aren't anymore so-called misunderstandings.  Mom wanted her shutters painted, you painted over a very expensive copper roof.  You messed up.  So you will be calling my mom to set up a date this week to fix the roof.  And if you can't fix it, you can pay someone else to fix it.  All repairs will be of no charge to my mom and I also suggest you learn what a shutter is."

Idiot:  "I'll call her right now."

Me:  "Good idea."

He did call my mom and is going out there tomorrow to take a look at it.  I wanted to call him back to ask him why he needed to look at it when he did the painting to begin with....but mom seemed somewhat satisfied. 

If anyone needs any recommendations for house painters in the SW Virginia area, call me.  I'll give you a very short list of 1 for you to avoid.  Unless you want your roof painted....

3 comments:

  1. What would possess someone to take liberties with somebody else's house? Amazing.

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  2. holy moley. that is insane. glad you made sure he understood the parameters that (a) did not include painting over a copper roof & (b) involved him fixing it pronto, not "in the spring". i'm wondering how they heck he'll even fix that without causing further damage.

    update please after the fact?

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  3. Mom ended up calling someone else to repair to roof since this guy's solution was a pressure washer. Turns out it required chemicals and such to remove the paint, not a fire hose. And she wouldn't let me pursue payment from the idiot. So a couple hundred of additional dollars later, mom has a very clean copper roof....

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