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Stupidest Thing You've Been Asked to do For Free

17K views 111 replies 57 participants last post by  Kowboy 
#1 ·
A while back I took over a remodel-gone-wrong on a 100 year old house. Job was to demo and replace the existing inside walls and subfloor. After the demo was done, HO asked if I could install new floor joists on the 2nd floor (balloon framed house). My answer, of course.

When I told him it would require a change order, he looked at me like I was from another planet. Apparently I was quite unreasonable for expected to get paid for rejoisting the floor :whistling.

So what's the craziest thing you've been asked to do for free?
 
#12 ·
Set up a home entertainment system onto of a electric fireplace mantle that I put together. The home entertainment system and the cable box was more important to get into place then getting the fireplace installed. Apparently it's part of the installation of the fireplace, I'm pretty sure they seen it somewhere in the manual lol.

Throw away a metal gazebo structure that I demolished for a client that didn't want it anymore. Apparently I was supposed to sell it and get big money for it according to the homeowner.

Probably the best one is today. One company I sub for send me a work order: Paint bedroom, install 2 rows of tiles I'm shower surround, caulk shower surround, bolt exterior stair case into house, remove manufacture weatherstripping and install new on exterior door. Ok no problem I can take care of this easy. Get there customer put some additions on to this. List of additions: 2 x kitchen backsplash, bathroom backsplash, tile the tub surround and ceiling, paint the closet of the bedroom. Customer wanted all this done in one day with one man for practically nothing. I painted the bedroom including closet pink and purple, tiled the tub surround and bathroom backsplash and bolted the stairs and the customer feels ripped off. Customer paid 10 hours labor to the guy I get the work order from, so that 300 dollars plus tax and I get 25 of that per hour. I know this customer got a lot for free especially! As we all know what he paid for the everything I did today only really covered the painting portion and not even the painting portion. On top of that he complained and I got the talking down too. I know it's not a free thing but it's pretty much for free. Ps I was also talking to the homeowner and he wanted to remove a landing to take a couch in the basement and I told him if you wanna do it tell the company you wanna add it on your getting a good price and he's starts questioning me like if I'm serious. Told him straight up what he paid didn't cover everything if he called anyone else I'm and he didn't even believe it.
Ps I know I gotta find better companies to sub for, cause this is the second one that it's all lonely bins
 
#15 ·
Inner10 said:
Me: "Get your own f*($ing generator. Take one more step, and I'm calling the law."
Him: "But, I need this to keep the food in my fridge from spoiling. You're an electrician, aren't you?"
He probably walked away thinking to himself, "What's wrong with that guy? All I needed was his generator. I don't see why he needs one being that he's an electrician and all..."


I don't know where to start either.. but I will list the last 3 most obscene things-

#1. Being asked to help someone move (for free) but none of their stuff was packed. To add insult to injury, they could have afforded professional movers but their excuse was that the Christmas holidays were coming up and money was tight.

#2. Being asked to laminate a countertop, to buy a router from home depot to trim the edges, and then to take it back after I was finished so that they wouldn't be stuck with something that they would never use again.

#3. Being asked to remove a malfunctioning TV from someone's wall and shipping it back to the manufacturer under my authorized vendor credentials because it was still under warranty and the hack that originally sold it to them was nowhere to be found. Their logic- "If we bought the TV from your company, you would have had to do this for free ANYWAY. I don't see how that makes any difference."
 
#16 ·
I sold a lady a new house and she called back about a month later to report that the furnace vent under the kitchen sink was blowing like crazy. She said if you put a crumpled piece of paper in front of it, the paper will blow across the kitchen! (And it was a big kitchen!) I decided to check it out before calling my HVAC guy.

Come to find out, the homeowner bought a bunch of those filters you put in furnace vents and put one in EVERY SINGLE VENT in the house!!! (Except for the vent under the kitchen sink, of course!) So I fixed it, for free, 'cause I'm nice like that. . .
 
#39 ·
You should have told him that you would set it up for him, but he'd have to get rid of it. Take out the video camera and make yourself $10K by posting it on America's Funniest Videos.
 
#21 · (Edited)
Let's see...

Customer wanted to save $$ on a special order toilet THEY ordered, but didn't want to pay extra shipping and asked if I would go pick it up (free) from the supply house 30 minutes out of the way. Oh, and when I go, could I return the other one they bought since they decided they didn't like the look.

Assembled and installed a ceiling fan in a cathedral ceiling. They decided they didn't like it and asked if I would pack it back up and install another one (no extra charge).

Same for lighting.

Large basement packed to the gills. They asked for a quote to paint walls and floor....expected me to move everything.
 
#22 ·
I was pouring a large driveway, radius with parking areas, and took about 2 weeks. In the middle, the neighbor (who owns a contracting business, but doesn't have large equipment) comes over and asks if I could help him out. I take a break, walk over to his property and he shows me where he would like some dirt added and asked if I could bring over extra that I was hauling out.

I figure ok, save me dumping trips, just drive across road and dump. Win for both of us. Then he shows me the numerous sprinkler lines and heads to miss, then explains how he would like it leveled. I explain that we are swamped, he will have to pay for machine time used and he gives me his brochure. Proceeds to explain that he will refer work to me and we can handle big jobs together as he doesn't do concrete work.

In talking to him, I can tell he is a cheap azz, big time and wants more and more for free. I explain that I need bobcat on the next job ASAP and can just dump in his yard and he is furious at me for not doing this for free? WTF?

I take out numerous loads of sand and dirt on my job, never putting any in his yard, I can see the writting on the wall. Never understoof the nerve of some people.
 
#29 ·
The 45 year old version of me would have taken non of that BS the minute he tried to tell me that the previous owner gave him permission. I would have said no problem. Installed the fence, and then on the property line installed sprinkler extensions to a separate zone to run at 11pm and hit his windows at the 6'-9' height over the new fence.
 
#30 ·
We bought a cabin with a good well from the 4th owners. Around here some lots have water; some don't. One of the neighbors who was not connected to our well came over to say he had paid the first owner for half of cost of the well. He knew we would want to do the right thing and put his name on the deed. Funny how lots of times "the right thing" in not right.
 
#36 ·
We poured a concrete sidewalk for a home owner - stamped, stained, sealed with a 'wet look' (aka slippery as hell in the rain but our customer knew that ahead of time).

She sold the house and the new owners call us up wanting us to fix the sealer for free because "it was dangerous and they didn't feel they had to pay for it because they just spent a lot of money on the house".

Not my problem......
 
#38 · (Edited)
Yep some real doozies here. I was lucky enough to catch on quick and early when working with people to respond with costs to do these things. But for good customers, I actually will walk their dog for a few minutes.

This probably deserves a new thread, but the things that you get blamed for AFTER you've closed the job (even for a couple years) that they want for free is what I deal with often. Trying to blame a completely unrelated item years later on someone.
 
#42 ·
Did you ask if you could just push it down the stairs?
 
#45 ·
The most common for me is to go on a service call for an issue after another contractor has performed work there and will no longer return the call for a problem with their work. Then after showing up, assessing the problem they get angry of why i am charging them for the diagnoses. They give me attitude that they already paid for the work done and just want it to work. A couple times i have walked away in fear of not getting paid if i did the repair and left them to their misery. Sorry about your bad luck!

Most recently i have been back to turning wrench on the side "been busy but taking on more work to pay for another divorce" and i had a customer complain i somehow damaged their headlights when i pulled the codes for their SES light. Now these folks stood there and watched me plug in the scan tool, read/write down the codes and check live data to verify the issue of the code in question. Their complaint now is the headlights flicker at night and go dim when stepping on the brake. Now the code was for a bad O2 sensor so it had nothing to do with the headlights. I replaced the O2 after inspecting the harness and inspecting the old O2. In no way did i touch the headlights, the fuses/relays or the switch. As of now we are arguing over my responsibility of diagnosing/repairing the headlights. The issue the car came in originally for has been fixed and working properly. I will be damned if i am working on this issue for free. Good luck!!!!
 
#47 ·
I've had several people ask me if they can ad stuff to the dumpster in the driveway on a job site.
That's a tough situation. Unless you can have the dumpster delivered and pulled the next morning, you might as well get one big enough for the entire neighborhood because if you tell them "no" they are going to use it anyway. If you fence it off, they'll just pile their trash in front of the fence. :no:

But as it relates to some of the stupidest things I've been asked to do for free, hauling other people's trash is one of them.

When I moved into my house, the previous owner tried to save a few bucks by having the movers only do the furniture and he would move the small stuff in his car. It sounded good in theory but it was a total disaster when he realized how much "small stuff" he really had. No problem- I was already into another month on my apartment lease so I wasn't in a hurry.

A week later the guy gives me the all-clear to move in. We open the garage and we find a pile of stuff that's waist-high taking up more than half of the garage. :blink: I call the guy to tell him, "Hey man! You still have stuff over here!" He says, "Oh, don't worry about it. It's just trash. You can do whatever you want with it. I don't need it."

NOOOOO! :censored: In retrospect, I should have sued the guy. My movers were kind enough to carry it all away as a courtesy. I asked them to send me a bill but I never got one.
 
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