Citizen Wausau

Contracting Disease

by Jim Sisko on October 1st, 2007

Why is it so darn difficult to find a contractor in this town? Notice I didn’t say “professional” contractor, or  “reliable” contractor, or even “good” contractor. I mean any contractor. Finding a reliable contractor in the Wausau area is akin to pulling the proverbial teeth.

I always dread it when something in my home needs a repair that’s beyond my level of expertise and I have to begin the search to find a “professional” to do the work for me. The experts on HGTV and the Discovery Home channel always tell you to get at least three estimates for any home improvement job. I always end up calling at least 10 companies before I can get those three.

When I need to find a contractor I surf the internet, scan the classifieds, search the phone book and most often rely on recommendations from friends to find a person who can do the job I need done. This usually leads to a rash of unanswered phone calls, unreturned phone messages and worst of all, failure to show up when they finally do make an appointment to come over to do an estimate (or coming to check out the job and never coming back with the estimate).

Maybe it’s just me, but isn’t this what these people do for a living? I don’t understand how they can have such as casual attitude about missing out on potential business. I realize some of these people are very busy, but why don’t they just tell me that? I would rather them tell me they are too busy at this time and will contact me later. This means they are in demand because they do good work. I’m O.K. with that.

The worst are the ones who come over and tell you it’s too small a job, not worth their time. Guess what buddy, you won’t get the potential “big job” I will probably need down the road either. These are the reasons I started doing home improvement on my own, I couldn’t find anybody else who was willing to do it! I feel sorry for people who don’t have the skills or the inclination to do their own home repairs, the struggle to find a repair person must be relentless.

So, to all you contractors out there, answer your phone, reply to your messages and most importantly, SHOW UP on time when you make an appointment. The best free advertising you can get is word-of-mouth, but that can be both positive and negative. Many of you have told me that you count on referrals, but that’s a two way street as well. I have precious few names on my referral list, but there’s lot of names on my crap [edit] list.