On Sun, 01 May 2011 08:18:43 -0400, aemeijers wrote:

On 5/1/2011 7:29 AM, wrote:
On Apr 30, 4:03 pm, wrote:
On Sat, 30 Apr 2011 19:14:34 +0000 (UTC), (Dick

Adams) wrote:
Two carpenters and a landscapper no showed over the last
two days. This is in spite of my agreeing to pay their
bids. The first carpenter did not surprise me as he had
no showed last weekend. Expecting he'd make another
excuse, I had a back up plan, but the second carpenter
also no showed. The landscapper said he try to be here,
but never called.

The economy must be recovering!

Dick

On the bright side, you haven't spent any money.

The part that's most interesting is "This is in spite of my
agreeing to pay their bids. " I don't know what exactly
that means, but I'm assuming it means he agreed to
pay them for quotes? Did he just offer to pay them?
Around here, NJ quotes are usually free and it would
be mighty unusual to call a landscaper and two
carpenters and all 3 to say they would charge for a
quote.

But the no show part doesn't suprise me. I've engaged
with many contractors in the last couple years and
had similar experiences. You'd think in the current
economy they would be showing up, following up,
willing to negotiate, etc. Oddly, I haven't seen that.
They almost always show up to take a look, but then
I've had to chase them to get an actual quote or
follow questions they were to get back to me on,
etc. You'd think they would be calling me to try to
get the work, find out if I made a decision, etc. But
it almost never happens that way.

I've almost given up on trying to get quotes for anything around here.
Either it is a no-show (most common), or a high-pressure salesman with
slick brochures shows up, or they (eventually) send me a high-ball bid
including stuff I didn't want. I mean, I understand that my jobs are
****-ant and wouldn't make them much money, but I know how few
construction starts there have been around here in the last few years.
Did all the underemployed tradesmen starve to death or move away already?

They're "busy" for another 99 weeks.