#247 In which our hero continues a woeful saga

So last weekend rolls around, and a decent-sized crew shows up at my house around 10am. This is very encouraging, and I'm hopeful that these five or six guys can blow out the rest of the work. And since it's just Saturday, we have an entire day left in the weekend. Good news all.

Since last they were here we had a little rain so, not surprisingly, there's some standing water in my backyard.


But nothing to get excited about. Especially not with half a dozen guys ready to work, right? Well, nearly as soon as they arrived, the majority of those guys, including the main contractor we're dealing with, got back into his truck and drove away. They left two young guys.

To be fair, I know next to nothing about landscaping or laying pipe (heh) and maybe it is a long, complicated process... but man, it sure doesn't seem that way. The trench had been cut, all that remained was to dump some gravel in the bottom, assemble the pipe, and back-fill it, right?

Well, these two dullards spent a long time standing around looking at the trench. Then spent even more time standing in the trench. I mean, it's only 30' or so of perforated pipe, and the pipe is sitting right there on my lawn, so stick it together in the hole already, huh?

At one point The Scientist wandered out to check on the progress. Seeing the two lackeys in the hole with mostly completed pipe she casually asked, "you're still going to put in that clean-out, right?" To which they both enthusiastically said yes. Half and hour later, I came out to find they down on their hands and knees in the trench with a hack saw taking out a chunk of the pipe. "Is that were the clear-out is going?" I asked. "Oh yeah," the head flunky answered. "It'll be great to have this here. Keep you from getting clogged." Right. I'm not a complete idiot, hack saw. I see you forgot about it and are retro-fitting it now.

After the nap The Scientist and I packed up the girls to get them out of the house. When we finally returned, the site was empty but, despite all earlier indications, it seems like a fair amount of work was done.

The big trench between the house and the neighbors was mostly filled in.


And there's the clean-out! A little high, maybe? The cap is only pressure-fitted on, I assume it will be cut down to a more reasonable length later. By me, if no-one else.


The giant pile of material on my front drive is finally dwindling.


These jokers did manage to trash the neighbor's flower bed a bit. Not horribly, but I was hoping to maintain good neighbor relations through the process.

But this was all done on Saturday, leaving all day Sunday to finish up. Hurrah!

Then... Sunday morning came. Then it was 10am. Then it was 11am. Then it was 11:30 and I finally called the guy. Are you coming over to my property today? My contractor apologized and said he wasn't trying to leave us high and dry, but he had a big job that had to get started today, and he was consumed with that... but he would send over a crew later. And are you still planning on finishing this up today? I hope to, he said.

By 3:30pm when still no-one had arrived, I got pissed. I called again, to basically say what the hell?

More apologies, more assurances that the work would get done. The five minute conversation went from "I'll try to get a crew out there still today" to "Well, I'm probably not going to be able to get anyone over there today" to "I'll definitely have someone over there tomorrow." He told me that the job he was on today was bigger than he anticipated, to which I reminded him that I didn't really give a shit about any job other than my own. "I'm trying," he replied.

So anyway, some work was done on Monday. There's lots to do yet, and starting today it looks like the rain in rolling in to stay for several days.

Hope these guys don't mind getting wet.

More to come.

###