Whiny Bitches and No-Shows
Ahhh, life in the South.
We've lived in this house for four years now. When we looked at the house originally, it was a tad shocking to find that our master-bathroom shower has a sliding glass door in it. No, not in place of a shower curtain...in place of the exterior wall! Outside that door is what probably could be best described as either a poor man's sauna (not my description), or a grow room (also not mine). It's a "feature" that almost put us off buying the house at all.
Since then, I've made numerous phone calls to numerous handy men and contractors seeking an estimate of what it's going to take to restore sanity to our shower. But this is the South, and we do live in a real-estate boom town. The result? In four years, we've only had two guys even show up at all, and not a single estimate. I'd actually given up on finding someone interested in doing the work, and planned to just do my best and fix it myself. Then yesterday, I had so much luck getting people to call me back for guttering estimates that when I came across a handyman on a job in our neighborhood while walking the dog this morning, I couldn't resist. I approached.
In retrospect, I guess his look of utter confusion at my description should have been a tip-off.
"You mean you have a glass shower door?"
"No, this is a sliding glass door to the outside. It's on the exterior wall of my house."
"..."
"I was hoping to get it framed in with a small window at the top. Do you do that kind of work?"
"So, you can be taking a shower, and just, like, open the door and walk outside?"
"No, there is a small enclosure. It's like a small room. I know this is weird."
"...Well, I'll be taking a break..." [from staring at the back of a caulk tube...tip-off #2 right there] "...for lunch in a few minutes. Can I stop by and take a look?"
The upshot is, the guy wanted $30 an hour for an unspecified number of hours, plus materials...not bad, if you know about how long it'll take. I mean, I have a budget to work with here. Not only that, but he doesn't do tile...he has "a guy" that does that (remember, he's a handyman, not a general contractor, and I started the conversation above with "I have a shower..."). Oh, AND he doesn't want to touch it until October, because it's too hot. I'll repeat that in case you didn't catch it: It's too friggin' hot. In the South. Where this guy lives, and has decided to become a handyman.
To hell with it, I'll do it myself.