17 Handymen Who Have a Story to Tell About Their Job

If plumbers, electricians and builders could leave customer reviews, they’d obviously have a lot to write about. We found a whole bunch of stories on the Internet about what happened to handymen on call. Some of these stories made us laugh, while the heroes of other stories genuinely deserve compassion.

• A few years ago we did an installation in a large London house, belonging to an extremely wealthy person. We asked him why he was having the bedroom soundproofed. He replied, “My wife has the room below, and she gets upset when she hears me sleeping with my girlfriend.” That has to be a pretty odd relationship! © Jason V / Quora
• My dad told me about fixing pipes at a friend’s house once. He told them not to turn on the water yet. Unscrewed everything there, is working on it.
  Suddenly, a stream of hot water gushed out at him. He barely screwed everything back, and ran to ask the elderly owner if he had opened the water. The man said, “Yes, I decided to see if it’s there.” © Overheard / Ideer

• I often fix friends’ computers, laptops and mobile phones. There is a girl with whom we practically don’t communicate, for some reason. But every month at my request she brings her old laptop for diagnostics, as it often glitches.
  We have a nice chat over a cup of tea, she tells me that she will soon buy a new laptop. I wish she knew how much I don’t want that. © Overheard / Ideer
• I’ve come across situations where the number of the house or flat was mixed up in work requests. No one was waiting for techs at the wrong addresses, but they were happy to let them in to repair their Internet. The error would be discovered only when the real client was tired of waiting and called to clarify the situation.
  I personally was in a situation like this once, when in a new building (it wasn’t clear how many flats there were on the floor, the doors had no numbers) we arrived at the approximate floor, on which someone immediately opened the door. We went in and fixed the cable that had been bitten by the cat. And only when we were leaving the place, we received a call from the office asking why we had been in the building for 10 minutes and had not reached the client yet. © gasgettum / Pikabu
• Cleaning crew. We arrive at the house, the owners are gone. We get to cleaning. We notice they have a lot of seagull memorabilia around the house.
  We are then told that the owners have a pet seagull. Every day at 3 p.m., they come home and feed a single seagull a hot dog they cook just for it. And apparently they’ve been doing this for years. So sure enough, we looked for the seagull but couldn’t find one.
  3 p.m. comes around, and the owners come home. Right as we are leaving, one lone seagull swoops down, perched on their porch, and they started cooking its hot dog. That was interesting, to say the least. © emf3rd31495 / Reddit
• I used to work as a handyman. One day I was called to fix a creaking sofa. The owner complains, “We bought it recently in a fashionable salon.” I carefully remove the upholstery and exclaim, “This is a bonus!”
  Instead of the usual filler I found a whole bunch of tights, underwear, socks and other underwear clearly secondhand inside. We were all surprised. By the way, the creaking was eliminated and had nothing to do with the filler. © Podsushano / VK

• Used to work in residential construction. Refitting bathrooms, finishing basements, etc. small crew of us guys. Working 10+ hour shifts usually to meet deadlines sometimes, so we were usually there from early in the morning well into the evening.
  This one house I’ll never forget. They cooked the same meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Every single time, every single day. The exact same meal.
  Not one change. No, they weren’t poor. I still to this day don’t understand. © MG_72 / Reddit
• I worked as a boat repairman. Lived right on the dock. Then one day the docks were temporarily closed, and I was there alone, eating fish I caught. It was the best 8 months on my own. © Overheard / VK
• I’ve been working for a few months now in a service center, repairing mobile phones in the technical control department. This is the department that checks the work of technicians and the rest of the vital functions of the phone, plus gives a warranty on the work.
  I’ve seen a lot of things. If naked photos already leave me indifferent, then shots of bank cards from both sides make me marvel at people’s stupidity. Please don’t take pictures of your cards! © Podsushano / VK
• One story came to mind. The customer was a wealthy businessman. He didn’t argue about prices, gave money for materials. He said, take everything you need, just show me the receipts later. But he promised to check the quality strictly.
  He appeared only at the end of our work. He came in and immediately dived under the low window sill. We cleaned off the “snot” from plasterers, beat a clear line with the help of scotch tape. The customer stands up and says, “No questions.” We’re like, “Maybe walk around and look at the rooms?” But he just gave us the money and left.
  So, why am I telling this? Recently we were at the site. They asked us to redo the work of our “colleagues.” We refused. For some reason, people think that redoing should be cheaper, not more expensive. I looked under the window sill and this is what I saw: © KorbenCactus / Pikabu

• I come to work in the morning, there are installers and field engineers, one of them tells me, “Yesterday, we went to a repair request, did everything we needed to do, and went to another one. But suddenly a man calls me from the previous address, ’When will you fix it?’ And I said, ’Eh, we’ve just finished with your place.’
  I also remember that there was a girl and a guy at home. I ask who’s calling me. The caller says he’s actually the husband. And then I blurted out, ’Husband? Who did we give the technical instructions to then?’ The person on the other end, ’Well, I’m going home now!’ And hung up.” © Unknown author / Pikabu
• We shipped the plumbing equipment to the client. A day later he calls, “Excuse me, one mixer tap didn’t fit, can I return it?” I ask for his card number, say that I will transfer the money for it and pick up the mixer tap later. I paid him back.
  In the evening he calls again, “I’m sorry, but I found the use for the mixer tap, can you send me the card number so I can transfer the money back to you?” That’s great, I think. He paid me back.
  In the morning, I got a call from him, “I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but I was charged commission for the transfer, I think it’s unfair, can you return the money to me? I found the use for the mixer tap myself and saved you a trip to get it.” I gave it a thought and sent him a little more than I should have. Let him suffer. © Unknown author / Pikabu
• I’m a maid for a franchise company. We’re small, still, and take what we can get. A lady calls us and asks for our service. She fired her last cleaners and no one has been in there for a month. 2 cats who roam free in the house. Pretty standard stuff.
  When we were inquiring about why she fired her last crew, she mentioned it was because they kept breaking things. Okay, fair. She mentioned she had a lot of knickknacks that she worried about, so just dust around them. We clocked this in as a 9-hour clean.
  I entered and gasped. Shelves filled with antiques. Tables everywhere, stacked with books, and you guessed it, fragile items. Glass, china, etc. My favorite was the stair rail to the upstairs. At the base, there was a cherub lamp precariously balancing. I almost knocked it over 5 times while I was there.
  There was a pedestal in her “library” room that was probably 7 feet in the air, wobbly, with a huge china vase wiggling on top of it. Things like that all over the house. The cats were running everywhere, avoiding me and my partner.
  It took us 14 hours to dust this house without breaking anything. Honestly, it was probably the cat’s fault. There was shattered glass everywhere. © RosehPerson / Reddit
• I’ve seen plenty of weird artwork or cringe inducing family photos, but the strangest was when I worked for a small carpet cleaning company. We got a call from a guy who wanted us to take a look at his basement to see if we could help him with some “stains.” I could smell the mold before I even got close to the stairs leading down to the basement.
  I walk down there to find out that the stains are actually several fungi that have grown completely through the underpad and carpet. Mold spots were very visible in most of the dry wall too. He apparently thought we were going to be able to clean out 3 months of water damage and fungi growth with a steamer. © BrianBoyFranzo / Reddit

• An old fiend calls, “Hi! I need your help. I moved into a house in the summer, now I have a problem. There’s a wet wall inside the house, a spot is about 3 feet in diameter. Can you come have a look?”
  I have to say, this guy is a great guy, but has some quirks. If he is wrong about something, but he gets “carried away,” he doesn’t accept reasonable explanations and argues till the end to prove that he is right.
  I arrive at his house. Sunny November morning, negative air temperature. The house is warm, but on its inner wall there is a big spot of wet plaster. I ask, “Tell me honestly, were there any conflicts with the builders?” The friend hesitates.
  Then it turned out that the crew completed their work in full, but they were not satisfied with the payment. In short, I open the plaster and find that the offended workers left the so-called “cold bridge” to my friend. That’s where the spot came from. © Mixail7 / Pikabu
• I work as an electrician. I’ve always been surprised by the behavior of small children passing by my stepladder while I’m working on some light fixture. They start shouting and pointing their fingers at me as if they see an astronaut. It’s nice that at least someone sees me as a hero. © Overheard / VK
• We had a customer back in 1988 when we had a small painting and remodeling company that had us paint 3 rooms in his large house. (He was a dentist with 5 kids). He and his wife liked our work and the fact that we were so neat, clean, and professional, so they had us paint the rest of the interior a few months later.
  The next spring, they had us paint the exterior of their large house. The following year, we gutted their large kitchen and completely renovated and redesigned it with top quality cabinets and appliances. The man was an elder at their synagogue and referred us to several other people.
  Today, 30 years later, our company in Detroit employs 8 full-time people to do carpentry and painting work just for the people of that synagogue. That is the power of word of mouth referrals! © Thomas Nixa / Quora

And here’s another bunch of curious stories from handymen. Check them out.