Time for a New Kitchen no 7.

At last the joiner is working in my kitchen. I should be pleased, I should be well on my way to a new kitchen, things should be moving along nicely by now………….unfortunately the reality is a little different.
This experience has really, really put me off ever having any one in the house to do any thing ever again.
It is now almost 10 pm, my house is freezing cold because the front door has been open most of the evening, there is a hole in my kitchen wall where the joiner removed the extraction fan on Sunday (today is Tuesday!!), I still have no kitchen unit or sink, my water is disconnected, the joiner is in the kitchen still using power tools and I am getting very afraid one of my neighbours will knock the door to complain about the noise so late at night. Remember, I live in an upstairs apartment with young children directly below me. I would love to tell the joiner to go home but with no water, no sink and no way to flush the toilet, have a bath or even make a hot drink I am at his mercy until he at least reconnects the water supply. This man is a friend of a friend, I thought I would be doing the right thing by employing a local self-employed man, sounds good in theory. The original plan was that he could give me three whole days, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, which should have been enough to break the back of the job. Turns out he had other commitments during the day and he asked if he could do a couple of hours in the morning and a few hours every evening. SO……….what could I say??
 I agreed because I want my kitchen done. I have been getting out of my bed every morning at 6 to get ready for him arriving at 7, he leaves to work in a shop at about the same time as I go to my work and then he reappears at tea time, after the shop is closed for the evening. He has been here until almost midnight Sunday and Monday and it looks as if he will be late again tonight. Yesterday I had to ask him to stop using power tools after 9pm because I was worried about the children trying to sleep in the apartment underneith mine. Tonight I have had to let him carry on because I need the water sorted out. Tonight he casually said he would need me to help him outside with the new work surfaces so he could cut them. Obviously it didn’t occur to him that he would need assistance for this part of the job and when he asked I didn’t feel as if I had much choice, I need this sorted out, so……..despite the fact my arthritis makes lifting and stairs  difficult , I stupidly agreed. I helped him carry a 3 meter length of heavy work surface down my stairs and out into the garden. Then I had to go outside and hold the torch and steady the work surface while he used his power tools to cut it IN THE DARK!!!!!!!. Yes, I know…………this story gets more and more bizarre. Once it was cut and carried back indoors he noticed damage to the edge, actually I wasn’t surprised, but he was!! He insisted I contact the supplier to complain and ask for a replacement. Which of course I did, only to be told they could not replace it because it had already been cut. I can’t help thinking that if he didn’t damage it, if the damage was already there, he would probably have noticed if he had been doing this work in daylight and at a reasonable hour like any sane work man. And of course the chances of him causing the damage himself would have been much less in daylight.
So …………..now it’s 10.30 pm, my knees are very sore, I badly need a long hot soak followed by bed, my temper is frayed, my patience is exhausted and still ……….I HAVE NO WATER.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Oh yes…………….the final insult, he wouldn’t even give me a quote for the whole job, he said he charges by the hour so it looks like this whole fiasco is going to cost me a fortune. And all because I thought I was doing the right thing by giving work to a local self employed joiner.