COWBOYS
Posted: 27 Jan 2012, 18:31
You can forget "Hi Ho Silver, John Wayne, and all the rest of the gunslinger Wild West Brigade, this has nowt to do with them at all. There are many able and conscientious tradesmen in our area, and I know most of the best. Yet there are even more, who pass themselves off as "Highly Qualified" Established Since" and "Time Served" that's a good one, Where? Armley, Strangeways? There was a time when an apprenticeship took seven years, now it can be two. So why does this make me angry? Nearly four years ago we were given the chance to move into this bungalow by the lady I work for occasionally, it had been Her Mothers home for about five years until She had to go into care. When we first saw it, it was ideal, the kitchen was almost new, and it shone. She was a lovely Woman, very tiny and frail, and I met her several times when called in to rectify small problems, She didn't do a lot of cooking and the kitchen looked well, We do a lot of cooking and the kitchen is heavily used, this started to highlight the faults about two years ago, a lot of filler had been used, this starts off white, but yellows rapidly, much use had been made of "liquid nails" this again turns yellow when exposed to cooking fumes. I could go on at length about the flaws that this brought to light, and shortly I will post some pics showing just how bad it was. A previous owner was what was known as "tight" or "near" as it is sometimes called locally, if he could do it himself he would, even worse, he offered his services to the neighbours, "Oh he was a lovely Man, always willing to help"! I have never in all my time come across a nicely built house with so many paint splashes on the stonework, the paths etc, or motor body filler used as a substitute for pointing or exhaust repair tape for mending the roof!! This house was originally built by Mr Briggs of "Briggs and Duxbury for himself in 1936 and the one next door for his Sister. It has seen many changes over the years, all the earlier work being carried out by proper tradesmen, but now it has to be put right in wake of Cowboys, do a bits and an assorted bunch of tossers who never owned a spirit level or probably didn't understand or care that sometime someone would come along who did . Even worse, I now know that the last lot were paid "up front". I have just spent the last three days removing all of the offensive efforts of these people with a four pound lump hammer and a bolster chisel, I will describe later some of the horrors that I have found. The bottom line here is "If you can do it right, then fine, if you cannot, then be careful who does it for you". The pics will appear as, "before, during, and after". Time now to start cooking again!