You can't shoot builders

Along with any form of homicide it is not advisable to shoot builders, although the builder that we have been working with recently I could have quite happily throttled the S.O.B. ( as our American cousins often to refer to such low-lifes).

The reason for this out-of-character reaction was receiving the invoice for work done, such a fantastic work of fiction I don't know why he doesn't go in for the Booker Prize.  Smart-arse comments aside, the invoice was about £2-3,000 more than we had been led to believe, although let us remember that Chamberlain had been "led to believe" that Herr Hitler was a man of peace, so perhaps being "led to believe" things always ends in tears.

If, er, if (heh, heh, heh), if I'm being absolutely honest... (dropping into my mock-Ronnie Corbett mode, and yes written impressions based on famous funny men don't really work... but stay with me); if I'm being absolutely honest (heh, heh, heh) then we (well I say "we"), I am partly to blame for our, or rather my, current travails.

Getting any sort of quote from Bob (obviously not he real name and "yes we can" isn't his catch-phrase... no, I think my builder's catch-phrase is more along the lines of: "because I'm worth it").  Back to my little escapade... I didn't pin him down to an exact price for any given job, although a figure of £2,000 (ex-VAT as we now also find out) for "misc" building work, to which we had attributed a number of jobs.

For a conservatory base and dwarf wall we had been quoted £3,800 (including VAT).  When we asked if "Bob" could do the job the exact response was: "well, there'll be something wrong if we can't do it for that..." and yes, of course there is something wrong.  Because on top of the £3,800 we had to find an extra £1,000 or so to hire a man and a digger, who also needed a 5-tonne industrial size dump truck to take away the spoil from the excavations needed for aforementioned conservatory base and dwarf wall (which I am not so sure isn't a phrase that dwarves might find dwarfist in these politically correct times).

To my way of thinking, the £3,800 should really be minus the extra £1,000 that we had to find, because otherwise we would have appointed the conservatory company with their all-in-one, guaranteed price.  But we didn't.  We stayed local (this man lives about 5o paces from our front door) and put our trust in him.

We should have perhaps been warned about "Bob" because in his opinion, when we first discussed with him what needed to be done to refurbish the property (our tentative first steps into development), he advised that it would be quicker to remove all the plaster from the walls and ceilings in order to put in a damp-proof course that (as a builder of 30 years) had failed to observe (until all the plaster has been removed), than it would be to chop out the standard 1-metre of plaster removal normally required for damp-proof courses.

I know that damp can rise, but I've never heard of damp ceilings, unless someone runs a bath and forgets about it.

Having bare walls and no ceiling made it easier for the electrician and the plumber but at what price?  200 bags of rubble and two skips later... no "Bob", that was poor advice.

So, back to the matter of the invoice.  Rather than itemising each job and putting in a price, we get just four lines of data: number of hours for labour, materials, VAT and total.

We asked for a break-down of the figures, which we expected to discuss in a professional and adult manner and all we get is that he has never, in all his years ever been asked to provide a break-down, and then he simply walked away from the conversation.

So, we end this entry with a Shakespearian dilemma: to pay or not to pay, that is the question.