#contractor disaster

So I might have mentioned by the skin of our teeth we finally in our early 50s got our own house.

It needed a dishwasher because we cook a lot from scratch and you just can't live without one in my opinion.

This led me to hire a contractor to do the following:

Move a roof vent.

Install Dishwasher electrical socket.

Install plumbing for dishwasher.

Install Dishwasher.

Install new counters because the old ones had to be ripped out for the dishwasher. I chose butcher block because I can work with wood and could fix any issues. (Prophetic at this point.)

Install new sink, because why not, the old one was some sort of plastic.

Install a garbage disposal because why not if the whole thing is coming out.

Install an instant hot water for tea because again, why not if it's all ripped out.

I fired the guy yesterday.

So far, I have had to fix the countertops because "there are irregularities in the wood, so he could not match the corner join in the counters, and every backsplash piece was cut 1/4 inch short of the counters and 1/8 inch space between. It's bad. I sanded down the join, added the wood glue, and fixed things. I will have to rip out the backsplash when I have time and scribe them, and cut them so that they actually don't have gaps.

The dishwasher? He lost the counter clips and used wood screws then screwed them into the side, causing the door to bind and the screws to rip out with one use. he lost the blanket insulation that goes with it. I have to order spare parts and will finish that installation tomorrow.

The sink? the corners are 1/8 (or more!) up, and he never laid down any silicone sealant. Like none. I have to pull that all out, reseal it, and try to get it to lay flat. Like, who installs a sink with no sealant. He tried to tell me that's how sinks work.

He also kept no-calling, no-showing. I have pets I have to secure work-from-home arrangements to make. That was terrible.

He said he was going to use biscuits to join the counters and then used iron repair brackets. I can't even fix that unless I want to rip it off the cabinets.

I work in the dining room, so the electrical was fine as I watched, but the entire underside of my sink is strung with electrical cords. I have to move things around, so that's even a usable space.

Every shortcut you could take, he did. Like my dishwasher is a free-floating tippy mess. I paid $600 for it. It's literally the best appliance I have ever bought.

Even worse, we paid for a side cabinet that he never installed. At this point, we said to keep the money, and I texted him not to come back. He never responded to even ask about things. Basically, I paid a ransom to keep him from fucking up my house any further.

So I, a physically disabled person with diminishing physical capacity, will now have to repair this all and make sure it works.

My wife has a line on a lesbian-run contractor work group, and we are going to go there. I don't know if its' because we are both queer trans folks, but I can't take cis white straight shit anymore. I'd rather pay my own community anyways.

If it hadn't needed electrical outlets, I'd have done it myself anyways. I just thought it would be nice not to hurt myself for once, and get things set up, so we didn't have to have me flat on my back for weeks after trying to put in countertops.

I've been writing about my contractor nightmare and my new home.

Last week I had to fix all of his work in some capacity or another, and I thought I'd relate a story of my own panic.

After fixing the sink, and getting silicone sealant in my hair from laying under the sink and trying to tackle the issue of the contractor making too big a sink hole by sealing it from underneath and having it fall on me, I decided to shower up when I was done.

I had to use rubbing alcohol to loosen the sealant from my hair, and got it mostly out. Conditioner took the rest, and I settle in to clean the rest of me.

I figured while I was there, I might as well do a little manscaping, and decided to shave my down-below.

As I reached down to feel I felt something already there. A long, tubular, skinny mass that was sandwiched close to my asshole. I yanked my hand back becuase it was warm and rubbery feeling, like a worm.

My first thought, was OMG, I have a tapeworm and it's leaving my anus! Completely mental chaos ensued.

I froze trying to figure out what I should do and reviewed everything I knew about human parasites from my old nursing days in my head.

I reached down, and grasped the end of it and gave it a gentle tug. It pulled at me when I tugged it. I thought, "Oh no. I really do have a tapeworm!"

I cringed and braced myself and carefully traced it. This is when I realized it was not coming from inside me but was trapping hair. I am a hairy fucking guy, and I manscape because my hair, like Samson, cannot be contained, mostly between my ass and my front.

I carefully work the "worm" loose, and pull it free to inspect it. It's literally a chunk of clear silicone. Somehow while laying under the sink and getting silicone everywhere, I managed to get some down the back of my jeans. Where it kept traveling down until it made a home in my hairy ass crack.

I hadn't shaved for a couple months between the move and all the work on the house I'd been too overwhelmed to even consider it. Hell, my beard was already overgrown at this point too.

Why would I immediately think I had a tapeworm? I don't know. Ask my brain? It's been throwing worst-case scenarios at me for 51 years.

So I am going to blame my shit contractor that messed up my house for that panic attack.

I got the sink seated on my counters and sealed with silicone. One panic attack at a time. Then I realized the plumbing under the sink was insane. Like the Three Stooges image above, every time I tried to tighten something, another part leaked or fell apart.

So my wife hired Beacon Plumbing and TLDR, $722 later, we are good.

The longer version is my wife called and set it up, and the plumber, Jimmy, was here within 1.5 hours, but I didn't actually correct him when he assumed I was my wife. She has a masculine voice and a gender-neutral name. She is also visibly transgender and hid in the back room because she was in her PJs and had no makeup on.

While I was happy to roll the dice with the plumber and hope he wasn't a bigot, my wife was just not up to it. This is what happens when you are visibly trans. You just don't know how someone will react to you and if it's something super important? You might opt to obscure that fact.

Jimmy was a conservative, but "Not like those crazy bastards!" per our conversation, but my wife just didn't want to chance it. After the contractor and the issue with him?

Jimmy was a plumbing fucking hero, though. I will definitely call him for anything else.

Of note, he took pictures of the plumbing and posted them to a boomer-aged FB group for plumbing fails. In the 1.5 hours he was here fixing things, it kept binging on his phone with snarky boomer plumbers just taking the piss out of how bad it was. Apparently, it was quite popular.

I have a picture diagram:

Basically, it was so bad it never would have drained properly and probably fallen apart with use. Jimmy tightened everything up and fixed things so they would work. As a bonus, my drains now actually drain instead of slowly swirling forever. Nice.

I paid the man $722 to fix this. I already paid the nightmare contractor $3000ish. This is so far over our budget that it's insane. Thank god we have a VISA. Otherwise, this would have been critically fucked for our house.

Another side effect of all this is I am sore as fuck. The reason I hired someone was that I am not physically able to do this shit anymore. I have a disability. Yet, there I was, panic-fixing the sink, reinstalling the dishwasher, and sanding and fixing the counter joins as best as could be done. It's just nuts. I think I still have to shim the counter where the sink is, so there is no flex. Like WTF.

I can't help but wonder if my wife and I being queer inadvertently gave the contractor the in to just fuck us over completely. I mean, he's a grifter, that is for sure, but we presented as a trans couple, and while not actively an issue, he was shocked to find out I was trans. He was in our house for days, and my wife and I were chatting.

He also would not acknowledge or speak to my wife, and we could not tell if he was a sexist jackass or if it was because she was trans. Being visibly transgender means that it is always a question for her.

My wife heard of a local contractor company that was run by lesbians. First, lesbians get shit done in the world on an epic level, and second, we'd feel more comfortable working with someone from our own LGBTQ community. It would feel safer.

So for future work, so my wife doesn't have to hide in a back room while I pretend to be her, we are going to look for that.

Still, Jimmy was a goddammed hero.