Fell out with a neighbour

[Sir Ramic]

Replying to another post regarding tile on tile has reminded me of something that has happened over the last 2 months.
When i moved into this house i befriended one of the neighbours and have done lots of little jobs for him as he has confessed he is a DIY disaster zone.
A job he has been asking me to do is retile his bathroom which is fully tiled and then over the years has been painted over the tiles. Further more there is a shower over the bath and the bath is at leat 10mm away from the tiles. To overcome this the previous owner or whoever fitted the bath/tiles placed a piece of timber ontop of the edge of the bath and up to the tiles. Of course over the years this has been a source of leaks and now the wood is saturated.
He keeps asking for me to reseal the area, i have told him it wont cure it and said it all needs to come out but he has been told "by his mate...who is a truck driver" that it can be done. So over the years he has tried to do it himself and "the mate" has tried and still it leaks !
Anyway i noticed before xmas that he was unusually quiet with me...almost avoiding me. So last week i was tidying the garage and he pulled up, so i made the effort to get him to talk to me.
It seems he is miffed with me because i wouldnt do what he asked..(tile over tiles that had been painted) and now over the xmas period a section of ceiling had collapsed due to the leak. This is made worse due to the fact that the ceiling had just been skimmed to get rid of artex.
So he is blaming me for all of this by ignoring me .
I explained that i told him it needed doing properly and a full refit was needed, he could have reused the bathroom suite but he wouldnt have it.
So he now has a hole in his ceiling in the corner of the room ! So what does he do ? He has his "mate" around and he has screwed a piece of ply into the hole and about 3 buckets of ready mixed filler over that. In the bathroom about 4 tubes (by the look of it) of silicone has been daubed everywhere.........He proudly sticks his chest out and says " No water will get through that"....i turned around and went back to tidying the garage

[kilty55]

hahaha classic neale,he sounds a bit loopy

[simhopper]

Never work for Friends, Family or Neighbours

When you have done a hard shift you dont need neighbours tapping on your door!

[doug boardley]

yep, they all know better than the pro's

[CDS]

Brilliant mate - Why is some people always think they know best, they ask for advise / help and when its given they just will not listen!

Must be something in the air at the moment - I've had 3 requests for tile over tile in bathrooms in the last month.... And they just look at you as if you're stupid when you explain why you won't do it!

Hey ho keep smiling

[Rob Z]

Wow Neale that is a whopper.

I just had a similar one this past week...our customer wants us to do some work and I detailed what we could do...so he says "Let me go over this with my wife". He calls back to say "My wife isn't comfortable with that.....she told the people in her office and they say that won't work". I said "OK, I'm not going to argue by phone with some people I don't know that work in an office...we can talk later once you've decided what you want".

What a ******.

[ricmrc]

ha ha ha, classic. every customer seems to have a mate who knows what they're talking about. if they were all so clued up on everything why don't they do everything themselves.
sorry you've fallen out with your neighbour over it all, but at least you know you're in the right

[Diamond Pool Finishers]

whot a plonker of a neighbour, it'll go wrong again

[mikethetile]

i would love to meet family friend aka a freind of the family

i would like some marketing advice from him as everywhere i go he got to the job before me

and despite lashing the job up big time he still gets loadsa work as lo and behold a month or so later i will follow him on yet another job

i will by him a pint for his marketing secret and another for creating a big job out of a simple job and keeping me out of mischief

[Sir Ramic]

Yeah it always amazes me how people will listen to advice given from someone not qualified for that job

[albyshellshear]

thats why i dont befriend neighbours just hello & goodbye and maybe a wave, lived in my house 10 yrs they have never been in mine nor me theirs, where i used to live many moons ago two familys who were best freinds fell out it ended in war, smashing each others cars, trick calls and finaly a petrol bomb thrown at a back wall rediculouse, tell the idiot to get a quote of another reputable tiler when he comes up with the same theory as you. Result

[user123]

wow.. the mind boggles... I had someone proudly show me their decorating work once, too, pain everywhere, I thought there had been an accident of sorts!! Some people maybe would be better of living in a cave...

[whitebeam]

Some will never learn or even listen to a proffesionals advise.

[Opus Ceramic]

just like my next door my neighbour. and he paid me 10 pound short. never again

[faithhealer]

Re fitted and tiled the walls of a neighbours bathroom. Didn't do the floor because he wanted vinyl! I'm getting the blame two years later for making the floorboards squeak!

Another neighbour, whom I just reattached an outside vent or something, told her she owed me a pint. True to her word she came out with a four pack of co-op 'best' bitter!, split the pack, gave me one and took the other three back in the house!! stunned!

[CJ]

Some people just will not listen.............then get wot they deserve

[Bolter]

Just lost a job after the customer said to me "the jobs yours, I accept your quote" and a week later he tells me he no longer wants to pay to straighten the walls as his builder mate said it was ok to tile onto, and you dont need to sort out the floorboards as you can chipboard it and tile it.

I laughed, bid him good luck, and placed the phone down. One wall needed dry-lining, the other 3 were ok. The floor needed fixing, overboarding properly, and I priced up some ditra matting at cost as he has Marble floor tiles. All this prep wont be done, I know it. Can you imagine the mess?

Hopefully I get a sheepish phone call in a few weeks

edit: and I might just be tempted to laugh really hard, and put the phone down

Part 2, gave a friend of mine a quote before xmas, was told I was going to be too much money and that they would be going with a bathroom firm that deals with everything. So this firm ripped everything out, sorted out the walls (did they Mind your language!) and re-tiled. Yes, they fitted the electric shower and cut round it, yes that is black grout instead of silicone sealing it in The bath has been sealed with grout also lol!

[davy_G]

Takes a truck drivers advice, then blames you for not listening to what you said.

Never mind water leaking, think there is air getting in!!

[Terry Cottar]

Yeah it always amazes me how people will listen to advice given from someone not qualified for that job

Because it costs nothing

tel

[Sir Ramic]

[B]

Because it costs nothing

tel

I give free advice though

[Terry Cottar]

I give free advice though

You certailnly do but they know it will cost them to foillow it! What they don't realise is it will cost more in the long run not to

tel

[Sir Ramic]

You certailnly do but they know it will cost them to foillow it! What they don't realise is it will cost more in the long run not to

tel

As long as it doesnt cost me, let them carry on , eeeejits