Question re cleaning up after a new bathroom being fitted.
Apparently my bathroom is nearly done. (I'm thousands of miles away so just get updates on the phone and the occasional video/pic when I push for it.)
My boyfriend keeps saying that the entire flat is a mess and covered in dust and he is trying to get a professional cleaner in for several days but can't find anyone. The outside area (which is small) is full of the old bathroom stuff. It's making me feel anxious although there's nothing I can do from here. This can all be cleaned up, can't it?
It can all be cleaned up, but this is why it's probably advisable to be around when you're having work done, so you can make sure the builders close all the internal doors (and maybe cover things with dust sheets) when doing messy, dirty work, so you don't get so much dust in all the other rooms and all over everything.
My experience with contractors to date, both council/housing association (my flat was stock-transferred and then I bought it) and also ones I've paid myself is that they will always take short-cuts and bodge jobs, they will lie to you saying 'It has to be done like X' when you know it's a load of bollocks and they just don't want to do it like Y, which you've asked them to do, because it's harder and will take longer than X. And if you're a woman, you'll be patronised and talked down to, the relationship of the tradesmen doing the work that's being asked of them by their client and which they're being paid to do is strangely askew when the client happens to be a woman.
I've had holes knocked in walls (then filled back up with damp, scrunched up bog roll), cracks caused, plumbing for my kitchen sink fucked up when the guy I'd paid to remove a pantry cupboard and also the work unit under the kitchen sink, who must've figured I was paying him the day rate, so he'd be quids in if he could just quickly yank the unit out from under the sink (instead of taking the time, care and attention to unscrew it and dismantle it), except he fucked up the plumbing. I've had a hole burned in a carpet when someone came to fix a leaking radiator and he used a blowtorch on the radiator valve/pipe, without putting down any fireproof blanket to protect my new-ish carpet. Then there was the painter who put paint pots on top of my immaculate condition vintage teak dresser and left ring marks on it and also broke the handles when moving it. All those things happened because I didn't keep a very close eye on things, just trusted them to get on with their jobs and do them to a decent standard and be respectful of me and my home.
I've probably got more horror stories about shitty builders and other tradespeople... Oh! Yeah, the carpenter who asked me for £200 for materials to do a job and then was never seen again.
Personally, I wouldn't trust a builder as far as I could throw them. I wouldn't be able to trust that if I'd eg asked for type A taps for the bath and basin, they wouldn't substitute types B and C without first checking with me, because the others were 'out of stock' or more likely they were using ones left over from another job or that they got cheaply. Or at least this is what I'm now scared might happen with my bathroom renovation after all the other nightmares.