The whole time I was growing up, my parents constantly bitched about but put up with a marginally effective plumber/handyman named Bill Hill who spent more time talking about than fixing our septic system and their sump pump and the “mell of a hess” that mysterious underground rig was always in.
Sometimes I think I want to fire the company that has been doing my plumbing for like the last five or six years.
They:
Charge an assload, for everything. (Including $1K for the recent replacement of a sink hose.) Also recommend jobs that cost six assloads. (I can’t even bear to tell you.)
Have hold music—and this is one of my very gravest concerns—that sings to the tune of the Irish sea shanty, “What Would You Do With a Drunken Sailor,” “What would you do with a leaky faucet, what would you do with a broken toilet, pick up the phone and call [Two Syllables], day or night or morning.” I am not shitting you.
Want me to watch while they work. “This is going to be all asses and elbows!” the guy said while they put some kind of plastic liner inside my sewer pipe.
Make their plumbers ask you, at the end of a gruesome job on a rainy Monday morning, to give them a five-star review and do a selfie with them (and your dog, sometimes?) for a dogfood charity, or some shit.
***
And upcharge so obviously, every fucking time. A callback, an hour after the plumber’s gone: “We fixed your faucet. Did the leak cause some water damage we could also repair?” No, the damage was mostly financial.
I’m sure you’re telling yourself right now: Murray is an idiot. Of course he should fire that company. How hard could it be to find a less manipulative, self-regarding, marketing-driven corporate corrosion than this?
Except the problem is, Murray doesn’t know the answer to that question. For at least three years, he’s been part of the “No-Drip Club” with this plumbing enterprise, a status that guarantees him an annual check-up (otherwise known as an annual upsell opportunity) and a 10% discount on the exorbitant rates of this plumber, which will always be needed to tend to his 1911-constructed home.
Poor Murray, would be my thought. Well, that’s my thought a lot of the time, about a lot of things. Still, my experience beginning from youth tells me: Murray, this is just how life is. When my mother died, my dad needed someone to sell her stuff. He hired Bill Hill.
My thought? That’s why I’ve never tried to live in a 110-year-old home. 60 was old enough for me, and that one cost me more in plumbing problems than every other house I’ve owned combined.
That said, when I read about your love for your neighbourhood and your community, I guess sometimes you just gotta accept that this is part of the trade-off.