I got a call from a neighbor of a previous customer. I could tell right away she was a cold b!tch. The conversation was mostly one way with me doing the most of the talking and alot of awkward silences. She had zero cordiality skills and mostly responded with "hm" and "okay". I think she was waiting for a sales pitch. Anyway, I went and looked at the exterior(unlike what I had been told, nobody was home), and wrote up the estimate. I later delivered the estimate and met her for the first time. I swear she looked like that witch you see in the old Hansel and Gretle stories. I was thinking, I should have charged more, because she is going to be difficult to deal with. She calls and starts backing off things...such as the shutters, and of course wants me to lower the price accordingly. I give her a new price. Although I had already told her I use top of the line products, she then asks me, "Um, well, if I am willing to pay more for materials is there a better paint that can be used...like Sears Weatherbeater(I think that was the name)" She continues, "I mean, if you were going to paint your house, what paint would you use?" Just for fun I felt like telling her, "Well I sure as hell wouldn't use that %#^& i'm gonna use on your house". But as I said, she was a cold %#&^# and didn't think she would appreciate the humor. So, she calls and accepts my estimate. I give her a start date for pressure washing and tell her she will have to be there to sign the contract and provide the down-pay check. I go to the job and start unloading. I see her at the door, so I get the contract and go to the door. She looks at the contract and says that the price seems more than we had agreed. I told her that I did not have the original estimate with me, was sure that was the price we agreed upon, and that the price on the contract was what it would cost to do the job. She says, "Well that's just not good business. You can't go back on the agreed upon price". We go round and round for a few and I finally just walk away and start loading stuff back into my van. She sees what I am doing and comes running out of the house with the original estimate. I was on the phone with my wife who had just called and my wife was imploring me to walk, "She is trouble". I was trying to get a foothold in the neighborhood so I really wanted to do the job. So the lady says that the contract looks okay and had already signed. Soooo, I signed the contract and got to work. Although the house was about 10 years overdue for paint, with lots of peeling, it was beautiful when I was done. She was especially pleased that I had sanded/primed/painted her meter bax and disconnect next to her hot tub. Since I have done about 10 jobs in the same neighborhood....and hopefully more to come.
Maybe this story...well...boring? But, I guess I showed her!
The only odd thing that happened on the job.....I told her my schedule would not allow time for me to replace some rotted wood, so she was free to get her "handy man" to do the work. This guy shows up and is some kind of Nazi or something...talking all kinds of sh!t about Jews and Blacks(N******). He did poor work and wanted to(and did) caulk his own work(caulking raw wood
). I'm sure we've all seen it...piss poor work and then trying to compensate with caulk. I had a spray can of stain killer I was using to spot prime a few areas laying in the yard. So he throws his pry-bar off the roof and it punctures the spray can, spraying white primer all across her sidewalk and driveway. I informed her who was responsible but knew that the casual on-looker would think I had done it. But I wasn't going to touch it. And didn't.