need work done? try this

In Martin Sherman’s Bent, there is a scene where two of the main characters (gay men in a Nazi prison camp) move a huge pile of rocks to one side of the prison yard, take a three-minute break, and then move the pile back to its starting point over and over again. Sometimes I feel like that’s what landisdad and I do with the stuff in our basement, except without the pink triangles or the threat of death.

Which is a long (and melodramatic) way of saying that we’re once again living with a ton of boxes in our dining room.

Because our water heater cracked, and flooded the basement.

sigh.

Fortunately, it happened on a day we were home. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize it in time to keep 38 gallons of water from flooding our basement carpet. Which now needs replacing. And the guy who finished our basement in the first place has gotten out of the residential contracting business, and now only does commercial work.

(And let me just say what a sad day that was for residents in our area, since when I called him to find out who he subcontracted the carpet to, he called me back within 6 hours, and offered to find us someone else if we couldn’t use our original carpet guy. Best. Contractor. Ever.)

I can’t tell you how many plumbers, electricians, and other contractors we have called over the years. Many of them never called back. Some of them made appointments, and then never showed up. Some of them came and did estimates, and then never came back to do the actual work.

Enter the fine folks from Service Magic. Ever since we started using this free service to find contracting help, we have had no such contractor problems, and they didn’t fail us this time either. Two carpet guys called within a couple of hours, and both showed up for their appointments. One of them is coming tomorrow to sign a contract, and then on Saturday to install our new carpet.

We’re never using the phone book to find a contractor again.