Little things that irk you.. (no swearing please)

[koopatroopa90]

Ahh cool, didn't know you could do that with blackberrys, then again my only experience with them is my Mums terrible 8530...

[QualityChimp]

As if anybody is going to believe what your son says!

He was claiming the other day he plays on some console called a Neo-Geo! It must be made up!

What a fantastical imaginary world he must live in!

[EvilBoris]

It's a BlackBerry, I've blocked it myself over GPS. It's useless to anyone other than me.

I'm hoping it'll come back today as the police are going to turn up at the school and cart the boy in question off to his folks' place, and hopefully he'll get scared and either hand it over, or grass up who has it.

You can locate them via the GPS too. Why don't you pass the location on to the police. Of even better, rock up with a shotgun?

[randombs]

Maybe it'll be like that stolen iPad story where the police burst into the neighbour's flat by accident?

[fuse]

My iPhone got lifted about a month back (when I was in Casino, no less), and I spoke to the police and told them that I could see where they'd gone with it on the 'find my iPhone' app. They told me if I went into a station they were actually having quite a lot of success tracking people this way, but after 3 hours of waiting (amongst some delightful characters) they pretty much said as I wasn't threatened / couldn't identify someone they'd probably not bother.

Anyway, my irk: the process of buying a house/flat. It's been three months since I had my offer accepted and I still don't have a move date

[J0e Musashi]

You can locate them via the GPS too. Why don't you pass the location on to the police. Of even better, rock up with a shotgun?

Once I blocked it, they powered it off, so I couldn't GPS track it.

[Kieran76]

Common complaint I know, but delivery companies not delivering are winding me up no end. When you buy anything and its not delivered by Royal Mail by heart sinks. I have a load of new stuff for my cycle to work, new gloves, jacket, lights etc and it has been out for delivery all day. This is the same company that when delivering my iPad sent out all my accessories, but didn't give me my iPad until the following Monday.

[Spatial]

Builders are irking me massively at the moment. Trying to get work done is a nightmare and the way some of them act you wouldn't think times are tough out there.

In the last three months I've had:

Builder 1 - strung me along for two months and then stopped returning my calls. Gave me a lame excuse about being really ill and then passed me in the car two weeks later looking fit as the proverbial fiddle.

Builder 2 - "not my usual sort of job mate, but I'll give you a quote anyway". Came in at 50% more than the going rate and going into rip off territory. Didn't even give a proper quote or breakdown and missed things off it he was asked to price up.

Builder 3 Gave a quote which was over triple than the expected cost and was a definite rip off - charging things like ?250 to take wallpaper off a wall. Just before he knocked it through!

Builder 4 - Left a message asking him to contact me. No reply. Friend knows him so asked him to contact me. He's told that I need to email him. I do and he replies.

Three weeks later.

Only to say he'll call me on the weekend. He never did.

Builder 5 - Came and looked around. Told me the job had come at a perfect time as he was going to have to lay people off otherwise and would get a quote to me the following day.

A week later nothing heard so I contact him and he tells me he'll definately have something the following week. Not had anything since.

Builder 6 - Not even returned my call.

Additional to Builder 5 - after hearing nothing I wasn't going to bother, but having had enough of poor service, and to prove a point, I rang him up to find out was going on. "Oh I was just about to send your quote to you..." Yeah, right. Quote does eventually turn up by the end of that day and the guy is also even further up the rip off chain than the others. ?300 to take down less than half a meter of wall on a stairway. A four figure sum to turn an existing doorway into a double doorway.

And those weren't even the bigger jobs, which were priced stupidly high. And none of them included VAT.

Additional to Builder 6 - he eventually got back to me after I chased him up and is busy up until February with work, so didn't want to know.

Builder 7 - "We're too busy right now", but less friendly than Builder 6 because they didn't even want to know what the job involved. No `sorry but come back to us in a few months and we'll see if we can help`. Nice.

Builder 8 - Got in touch with them as I didn't know if they did domestic work. Blokey rings me up and says they do and he'll be around the next day. When the guy turns up as arranged it turns out he's from a completely different company

Apparently this guy is employed by several builders in the area because they can't price jobs up properly (Alarm Bell No 1!) so they get him to independently price them (so independent in fact that he made a beeline to asking about how much the house cost to try and sniff out what kind of funds I had available).

Once he's costed it all out, the builder then slaps on how much they want to make on a job after his original price (Alarm Bell No 2!), so I already know this is heading into silly quote territory.

Then comes the "ooh, this is a big job" line which sets off Alarm Bell No 3, and I can see him already booking his next all expenses paid holiday with whatever he thinks his take home is going to be from this.

I start telling him what we want in terms of structural stuff, but also that we want some sockets chased in and new ones added - then comes the showstopper;

"Ooh, we can't do that, you'll have to get the whole system checked before anyone will touch it. It's the law. Then there's the total rewire..."

WAIT, WUT?!

He skirted over the rest of that, but a long conversation short this guy is basically telling me I have to pay for the works (including making good the walls), then pay for an electrician he knows to come in an do the wiring / chasing in etc, over the brand new walls I've just paid to have done, before having them re-plastered again.



The search continues into four months long next week. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so utterly soul destroying to be messed about.

[noobish hat]

Don't worry, it's hilarious to me.

[speedlolita]

Someone needs a man plan.

[vanpeebles]

?300 to take down less than half a meter of wall on a stairway. A four figure sum to turn an existing doorway into a double doorway.

Having worked in the building industry on both sites and private homes, breaking out an internal wall is an awful job. You won't believe how much mess and rubble gets removed from just a small space.

[MonkeyJuggleDX]

Royal Fail have stopped doing Airsure to Italy, leaving me to either refund the guy, or risk being scammed. Ridiculous, as I normally get better money from Italian collectors.

[J0e Musashi]

International Signed For Andrew.

[noobish hat]

I'm pretty sure the assholes at my sorting office save up my packages before sending them out. Is it just a coincidence that 6 or 7 items all bought at different times all turn up on the same day, elastic banded together? Probably not. Workshy tossers.

[Mayhem]

Having worked in the building industry on both sites and private homes, breaking out an internal wall is an awful job. You won't believe how much mess and rubble gets removed from just a small space.

My parents had the wall between dining room and living room knocked through and turned into one room a few years after we moved into the property. I remember just how messy and dust ridden it was ever after the work was done and the walls were being decorated.