Fatally Flawed

16 hours after my last post and we have made precisely NO progress with the whole "laying the carpets" thing.

Ok, that's not quite true. We've got our old fridge out of the kitchen in readiness and done some other bits of tidying up. But that's about it.

The fitter eventually turned up at about 9.45. Just 45 minutes late, then. We first suspected there was a problem from the discouraging way he said "oh" when he saw that there was still furniture in the room. He didn't realise that we'd paid good money for him and his trained monkey to shift the furniture and started tutting at us about this. So we shifted some stuff, they shifted other stuff.

Then the real fun began. The whole walking-around-shaking-his-head bit started just after that and he got really worried as it dawned on him that he'd have to lay a floor, rather than stand around drinking tea all day.

So the excuses started rolling in. The floor was too uneven. It had too many lumps. And hollow bits. And ridges too. In fact it was generally lacking in flat bits. And the planks of laminate were too big to fit in the cloakroom. And he didn't have enough sugar in his tea.

Apparently, laying a plywood subfloor on some parts of it and a concrete screed to level the other areas somehow wouldn't work and we'd end up with a floor that moved around more than a plate of spaghetti and bounced more than a springboard and he just wasn't prepared to do it. Instead, he recommended we have a completely different, and much more expensive, type of floor.

I was getting a bit stressed by this. I already knew that Paul the Builder had left the floor in a bit of a mess, but we'd been promised that this could be sorted, now it seems it could not. "Ugh!" I joked to the fitter, "I think I need a valium." He shot back with "I've got some in the van, if you like" and the room fell silent. After another awkward minute, he felt compelled to clarify "It's not because I'm mad or nothing, I've just got a bad back."

OK, thanks for that.

So, he put us in such a downer that he decided to go back to the warehouse and talk to his boss to see what could be done for us.

A while later, we get a phonecall from the boss. We talk through the problem. He can't understand what the fitter is talking about; he and I agree what we're expecting and can't see why the fitter had a problem. I ask him to talk to the fitter some more and let us know what our options are.

He calls back saying that he's found the problem. Apparently the fitter has turned into a workshy prima donna and has been sacked. He'll get the other guy to fit the kitchen and then do our carpets later in the week.

Bloody typical.

Poop poop, said Thomas!

Well, the carpet fitting process is now merely hours away from commencement. I should be in bed, really. But no, instead I thought I'd post a few more harrowing details of life to keep you all occupied. It's partly a communications tool, partly a communications avoidance mechanism. I post it here once and that means I need to have 5 fewer conversations with friends about the whole subject. Actually, I'm not so sure this will stop me ranting in person, but at least I get to sort out where to put the pauses for breath.

As you may have gathered, the carpet bloke recovered from his bout of whatever-it-was. He arrives in 8.5 hours to start on the kitchen, by evening out the lumpy floor, before actually laying our floor of choice. Then - apparently - the rest of the house gets carpeted in the blink of an eye, almost. Believe it when it's done, frankly, but either way, I have to help getting all the bookshelves emptied into boxes before I can start on the really tedious job of dismantling the entire hifi / TV system and my computer network. Again. Wireless networks were meant to make the whole process easier, but tell that to the people who make USB devices. One day they'll actually make their cables long enough.

But enough digression, time's a wastin' and I need sleep.

Anyway, we wrote to Paul the Builder advising of the few little, shall we say, lapses in concentration of which he was guilty and respectfully asking him to come fix them (Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 and all that, eh). Instead of the contrite and friendly response, we get some shirty letter from him blaming us for everything that's gone wrong. Well, I can see his point, he clearly has no control over most of his workforce, so maybe it is our fault that his carpenter (turned window fitter, it seems) tightened the screws on one window so tightly that he cracked the glass. Not entirely sure from where he got the idea that we supplied the kitchen, given that he did it himself, *ahem* from his preferred supplier *ahem*, but apparently it's our fault that the sink is poor quality. Yes, I remember the day I made it well. It was quite sunny outside and I wanted to go and sit in the park so I hurried the job. Riiiight.

However, I have a suspicion that I'm going to have to start being a little careful about what I say about this now, because it has the whiff of a situation which is going to end up in court.

The coup de grace of his shirty letter was a demand for £5K to be paid before he fixed anything, for a bunch of extras that he was apparently too busy to include in his previous "final invoice". Or maybe he's just forgotten that he has no contract to support the idea that the work would cost more, and has completely forgotten the basis of a fixed price contract.

Methinks he's trying to do it to frighten us off.

Methinks he has chosen the wrong people with whom to mess.

Methinks he can turn up and fix it all and pay us for all the stuff he's broken.

Time will tell.