oh man that sucks, i only charge an extra "rush-fee" as he put it, if i have a lot on and it requires me working out of schedule through the night

I would recommend Craig's List as well. Oddly enough, you usually end up finding good people in the strangest places. Sometimes Craig's List works, sometimes it doesn't. Would be great if there was a reliable way to find reliable people, but it's pretty much hit or miss. Once you find someone good, you always want to keep them around.

we have lots of mexican immigrants where i live but they call them Thai people.

What is "absurd" prices? You do understand that they likely pay through the ass for insurance since they get on people's roofs. Not to mention they pay out of the ass for workers comp for their employees.


Oh wait, I see you said "$200".... LOL that's not absurd, you not taking into account all of his costs. If you want someone to come out and do your lights for $50 or whatever, go to Home Depot and pick up a mexican in the parking lot. If he falls off your roof and gets hurt you fucked. I aee you are in PA, not exactly nice working outside this time of year, snow on your roof? insurance and workmans comp is got to be very expensive for them.

Now, why some people run ads but don't get back to people or act unprofessional, it happens all the time especially when you deal with plumbers, electricians, grass cuters, one man or couple employee operations.

This has nothing to do with why the economy is bad btw.


Not where I live. It was Mc Donalds too. Last time I drove through it was 11pm, the guy who took the order/my money looked about mid 50s the one who handed me my food at the next window looks in his 60s. Both Men, and both were white working at McDonalds. I felt sorry for them, seemed like the type that retired, thought they had enough to live on but since the market tanked in recent years (or they didn't save enough) they had to go back to work.

More and more older people are going back to work and fast food is one of the places they are ending up.

You people posting in this thread, you think you would have an understanding of overhead and business costs. I guess not, because when you say you have companies come out and quote you "way high", but you find joe your neighbor who is an accountant by day do it for a lot cheaper... no shit. He has no overhead and no insurance, no workers comp, no warranty, etc.



Why do you people act so dumb founded by this. Come'on use a little common sense. How many of those emails went to the owner of the company who said, "oh damn, another client i don't want any more clients, let me turn him down." You think you guys would understand how this works. Most of those emails went to a $8 an hour sales rep who doesn't give a shit and is terrible with getting back to people or just simply doesn't care. Some of the emails probably went to companies that were no longer in business, closing down, or are mickey mouse operations and don't check mail often. Then there is the people "in business" who should have never tried to start a business and they wont be in business for much longer. You find everything I mentioned in every industry and it has ZERO to do with the economy, if the economy is bad, good, or great. Shit has been like that for as far back as I can remember.

+5 who doesn't understand the cost involved with running a business. How much overhead do you pay, how much do you pay for insurance, workers comp, etc... to do the work yourself.... NOTHING.

There is a reason that the companies were bidding $550 - $750 they have bills to pay. Lets see, you wanted them to tear it down, load it, transport it to the dump, and dump it (was there a charge to dump, most places do) and it was two of you. So they would have had to put two workers on this, which would have likely taken them 4 hours to go there, do all the work, loading, clean up site, go to dump, dump, clean truck, return to office. They spent money on gas, the company had to pay for vehicles, ins for vehicles, and 8 man hours, which might have cost them $150 - $200 by the time they paid they taxes, then there is workers comp tacked on, cost to dump the debris, the companies overhead... Jesus christ, do any of you own your own business are all of you just retarded ?

but why would you hire some company for a bullshit job like that and pay $500? A job like that is perfect to invite some neighbor over, pay him $50 bucks, knock it out in an hour or 2, and then spend the rest of the day watching football and drinking beer together...
at least that's how it's done around here... :thumbsup

It's important to set the price not too low and not too high. The price has to be the correct amount. More money can be charged for quicker service / rush utility / transportations / incalls (rather than outcalls).

wtf i put an ad on craigslist and had some teenager answer it and he did it for 50 bux and some lunch

I agree. You can often find people working off the clock that charge "pennies on the dollar" compared to what other businesses might charge.

Will, you claim nobody understands what running a business takes. The buyer never cares what expenses the business has, never. They don't matter to the buyer. If I can pay an off the clock guy $100 to do a job that a company wants $500 for, guess what I'm doing?

Several years ago I bought a plasma from Best Buy. They offered installation service. I thought "great, this will work out real slick." Until they told me it would cost $500. Basic installation, no hiding wires, no special setup. Drilling a couple holes in the wall and lifting it up. Yep... it took 2 guys and a 12 pack of beer... hell of a lot cheaper than $500 from the great "business with insurance."

lol i had that bullshit but they wanted to charge me $1200 to hook up everything and calibrate my tv with some special dvd and device they have blah blah blah

i told the guy he was crazy and said ill give him to do it on his off time and ofcourse he said no but his cell was written on the printed out quote

so i took the hint and called him .. $100 lol

that is neither here or there.

There is nothing wrong with doing that if you want to save money, your choice. I was responding to all of the people who think they were getting ripped off because they called a company for a quote and they thought it was too high because either they (or their neighbor) could do it cheaper. No shit, you and your neighbor don't have a business and overhead, you not claiming the money you make (save) from the job as income and paying taxes on it, etc etc etc.

Your neighbor also isn't insured. If he gets hurt you on the hook, he could sue you and cost you a ton of money, at the very least you going to be paying his medical bills. Here is one most of you are forgetting, what if he breaks something, your tools, or something on the house, etc. Who pays that, the guy giving you a hand.... 9 out of 10 times nope, you cover it. When you hire someone if they break something they own (like their own tools) it's their problem. If they break something you own, they are insured and you don't have to pay to fix it. What if he does shotty work, and you just have to hire someone a couple weeks later to come back and do it right. Your neighbor isn't likely to put a warranty on his work and come back and fix shit for free. Come on man, I can go on and and on. I just thought you people would have know all of this, obviously not.

Read what I posted above. No one cares about other people expenses, I agree with that. But that is not the problem here, people in this thread don't understand how expensive it is to run a business so they can then understand why it actually cost a good bit more to hire a COMPANY to do work for you vs you and joe the neighbor doing it yourself. The COMPANY isn't charging you a ton of money to rip you off, they doing it because they need to pay their overhead and god forbid have a little bit left over as a profit. They invest and risk a lot of their time and money to run their own business, most fail. Its a gamble they should be allowed to earn a profit as well. At leastly, the "high" price you people think they are charging you isn't because they are lazy watching tv, they need to make that much money to pay for everything.

I guess internet people just don't understand the costs involved with running offline businesses. Especially self employeed people who make money online. It's a whole lot more expensive to have an offline company. You guys obviously have no idea.

and i could get caught in a freak storm while outside and get struck by lighting

or i could go to the gas station to buy some milk and it get robbed and i could get shot in the face ...

does that mean i shouldnt do those things aswell?

come on will lol

you are such a negative person .. it amazes me

LOL I'll take my neighbors warranty over some AWOL contractor any day of the week. Period. I know where that bastard lives.

A contractor with a warranty... LOL... that's funny.

I promise if you tell will the sky is blue he will go into a 10 page rant about how it technically isnt blue and the fact that you think it is blue is really absurd and shows how stupid you are

honestly, you are a fucking idiot.

It depends on the type of work. If he is on your roof in PA putting up christmas lights do you think someone falling off a roof is as likely as getting struck by lightening? If it someone's car port that needed to be torn down and hauled to the dump so you think it is imposible for somone to bust their hand, not see the electrical wires and get zaped, etc etc. It happens a lot more than you think. Especially if you hiring some dumb teenager to do the work...

Such a negative person??? LOL It's called being resonsible mother fucker. I think things through I actually own shit and I don't roll the dice on bullshit because I am trying to penny pinch. Years back when I was younger I did that shit. Had a friend help me move, walking backwards he missed the ramp had a heavy box in his hands, broke his leg falling off the back of the moving truck. But those moving comanies they charge so much it was a rip off so I got some friends together and did it myself... lol. Who you think paid for it??? cost me a hell of a lot more with his medical bills than a moving company would have charged me to do the work. Had people break shit doing repair work for me, who you think paid to fixed it? me. Moving company has insurance. All the companies I hire have insurance. I went the cheap route when I was younger and didn't have shit, seems like half the time I still paid more trying to do something cheap then I would if I would have had it done right. Not to mention everyone these days is sue happy.

If you own stuff like a house and have things you don't want to lose, it's your choice to roll the dice. Its not being negative dumb ass. But that isn't why I even chimed in. I chimed in because of all the idiots in this thread that think companies are trying to "rip them off" by charging what they think is expensive prices because the people here have no clue how much overhead these companies have and that they have to charge that much to be able to pay the bills and still make a little profit.

you are a fucking idiot rep, of course you wouldn't understand what I am talking about, and what is involved with running a business. Get back to work spamming paxum and collecting pay checks. And keep hiring teenagers off of craigslist to do repair work for you, see how long that works out for you before it blows up in your face.

will you take your neighbors insurance if he breaks something you own?

Yes, some contractors actually give warranties, ive had people come back out and fix shit before. If you do your homework before you hire a company, then you will find the people who actually stand behind their work, but gasp... they not going to do the job at "my neighbor's" rates.


LOL, this thread is move of an example of the economy being bad because people are idiots than it is of companies charging "high prices" to do work.

Yup that's exactly what I am :1orglaugh

p.s - i didn't read your wall of text.

good i am glad you didn't read it, if you did you might have actually learned somehthing. I posted it not to help educate you but to point out to everyone else how much of an idiot you are. so thanks for not reading it :thumbsup

How did I know this post was going to have the word "idiot" in it? :helpme

I love the internet sometimes - it makes everyone a tough guy.

Congrats you are the second person on my ignore list. Go ahead and quote this and call me an idiot. A moron. A stupid rep ....I wont see it :D

You knew it was going to have "idiot" in it because you were acting like one.

An idiot is someone who hires a teenager off of craigslist to do repair work for them.
An idiot is someone who compares the chances of getting stuck by lightening with a non professional person getting hurt while tearing down part of house or installing lights on a roof.

Nothing to do with being a "tough guy" I am not threatening to beat you up, i just said you were an idiot, stupid etc. because of the comments you were making here.

You are a rep btw.

Thanks for the ignore, now you wont be educated from any future posts I make on here, not just this one. :thumbsup Please add me to ignore on ICQ as well. You drove me nuts hitting me up there trying to "set me straight" with paxum related garbage.

You are exaggerating the risks a bit, probably because you got burned because of it in the past, that's understandable... but as long as you use some common sense, the risks are actually minimal, it's probably just as likely for you to run some kid over while pulling out of the driveway or getting your foot cut off while mowing your own lawn, as it is for your neighbor to fall off the roof while installing the lights...

if you are so risk averse, just get some decent umbrella insurance policy... it will probably end up being cheaper than overpaying $450 each time for a $50 job... :2 cents:

installing christmas lights is one of the top 10 most dangerous jobs in the world. saw it on tv.

Sad part is, my City requires you to be one to hang lights. You also have to pull permits.
Huge fines if you are not certified or an electrician, or pull the permits. Then your lights can NOT annoy your neighbors, LOL

Just reasons to charge people money.

my response is that you are under estimating the risk because you haven't had something bad happen yet. It just takes one time to have something bad happen and you lose everything. Is that worth the risk because you want to save a few bucks. But like I said that part is a personal choice, personal preference. TO each his own.

However, people in this thread are missing the value of not having to take that risk, I don't need to pay for an umbrella policy and hire cheap labor. I pay a little more to hire a company that actually has their own insurance and warranties the work they doing for me. When you hire joe the neighbor to do work, sure you save money but you take on more risks. And he doesn't have to fall off the roof and die, he can accidentally break a window, drop a hammer on to the hood of your car, any "accident" can happen especially when you deal with people who really don't have a lot of experience that type of work because that is not their trade, not what they do every day. And when an accident does happen, Joe isn't going to pay for it 9 out of 10 times... you will.

When you factor in the value of hiring a company, letting them take the risks both to injury to their employees and damage to your property + me understanding that they pay insurance, workmans comp, a lot of overhead, waste, mistakes, fees like to dump stuff, using their own vehicles, gas, etc... understanding all of that I am not shocked when a company quotes me a price a good bit higher than me and a friend can do it, I certainty don't think the company is trying to rip me off because the price is more than I can do it. ALSO, people are not valuing their own time. If you do the work yourself, is there other things you could have been doing to make money ????

Im down in Windsor living... you think he'd be up for moving down here to do the job? I could give him free rent and food, we have a couple of guest rooms even without the basement finished.

Is he able to do plumbing etc too? I need a new bathroom in my basement as well as a wet bar.... if you reckon he'd be interested let me know, worth a shot. Not to mention I really don't mind helping out in anyway I can after I'm done at the office... a couple of the guys would be willing to help here and there as well I'm sure.

My point is there is a job available. Just because I'm a doctor and I charge patients $400/hr doesn't mean I'm going to charge you $400/hr to come to your house to help move your couch.

Regardless, I won't hire anyone to come on my property unless they are insured. I've had people from CL respond to a posting offering to do the job for $100 flat... not taking a chance with some idiot on my roof.

The company I talked to last, who charges $50/hr is insured to be on roofs and does roofing jobs, but this time of year is slow. Before I will even let him take the ladder off his truck, he is signing a contractor agreement with me (liability, etc.,). If he doesn't like it, I'll find someone else.

I'm not putting my well being and life at jeopardy by hiring someone "cheap" but its about hiring someone who wants to do the job and not sit around on their ass and think the world owes them a living so they will complain to me how $170/hr is fair because they WERE ONCE an electrician :2 cents:

happy holidays!

go down to home depot with your pickemup truck and find the guys standing around the entrance. you know the rest.

The problem originates in the declining work ethic of the American population as a whole.

Some people are great to work with; but, more and more workers aren't worth the paper of their application. American schools are not preparing our youth with the necessary skills and ethics to be productive members of society.

Abstinence and creationism don't make a biology class.

If you need a good worker, find a retired vet.

Just my opinion.

I guess I didn't do a very good job of explaining my situation. The first guy that talked to me tells me that he was out driving around that day looking for work that he was out of work and looking for jobs and that he would cut me a deal. When I asked him how long it would take to tear it down and haul it off he said he would have it torn down and hauled off in one afternoon. He said it might be faster if he has his son came with him otherwise it would just be him. I tell him it sounds like a reasonable time frame and he writes some stuff down and calls me later with the quote. He wanted $750 to do this. So it is just him. He works for himself as a handyman and general contractor and he wants essentially $100+ per hour to tear this thing down. Most of it was made of sheet metal and aluminum. When I hauled it off I took it to a place that buys scrap metal and got about $75 for it. I know he would have done the same.

When I tell him that his price seems pretty high he says that it's not a big deal because my insurance is paying for it. I tell him that the adjuster is so busy that it will be at least 2 weeks until he gets out to my place and then another week or longer until I get a check. I can't wait that long to get the place cleaned up so I would have to pay him out of pocket and then hope the adjuster agreed on that price. When I offered to let him do the job and bill the insurance company he said no. I got two more quotes both around $500. That still seemed high to me, but both of those were actual bigger companies that would send a crew out and have it done in a couple of hours. When I got quotes on rebuilding it both the big companies came in around $5K while that single guy came in at $9K.

I understand overhead and having to pay a crew, taxes, payroll etc.. Hell one of the bigger companies said that they were handling a couple of others on my street that collapsed so if we all got the work done around the same time they could save us a little on shipping. They seemed interested in helping me keep the cost down (and the adjuster came in with a settlement price around $5K so they were right on money). The first guy just seemed like a guy who was trying to scam me. To me it is no wonder he is having trouble getting work, his prices aren't competitive and it really felt like he just wanted me to bilk the insurance company for all I could.

i agree with what you said above. In the original post you said you were offering $200 to do the job, and sounded mad because people wouldn't do it that cheap. If someone is starving, a small company or one man operation he might do it for food if you find the right person in a bad situation. Then you find some people who don't need the money at the moment and they might quote you a little higher than the norm. But most companies you come across have lot of expenses. The job you trying to hire for involves doing work on a roof, that is the highest bracket for workman's comp. An employer will have to pay up to 50% of what they pay to their employees just to workman's company. Not saying you not going to get someone to give you a low price because they need a little more to cover the rent, etc... just that companies aren't ripping people off because their quotes seem high to some people. And for companies, they can lose money on jobs if bid it too low and have unexpected things happen. God knows I have been in that position a couple times. So it is better in some cases for companies to sit home and not do work if the price isn't right. They would rather make nothing then have work and lose money.

It sounds like you were dealing with 1 idiot handy man who was bidding too high. Some people are going to be like that. They will shoot high and sooner or later they will be in the right place at the right time (driving around like you said) and someone will hire them on the spot vs shopping it around. And you are right, if you pay too much and try to turn it in the insurance company, they don't have to pay you back 100% if they think you paid too much. Always best get them to agree/sign off on quotes and estimates before you spend a penny.

So you ended up doing the work yourself ? I thought that is what you said in the original post. Which in that one i don't believe there was a mention of insurance just that you didn't want to pay a company to do the work you and a friend could do cheaper. The insurance company isn't going to reimburse you for your time. Why didn't you hire one of the reputable companies and had them do it for $500 if the insurance company was going to sign off on it and pay for it?

The way my insurance company ended up doing it was setting a price for clean up (I think it was around $400, but it has been a few years that might not be accurate) then they set a price to have the carport replaced/rebuilt and cut me a check. So it was up to me to hire the people to do the job. I had the option of having it done and having the insurance company just pay for it, but I have had a couple of friends who had dealt with insurance on those types of things and they were a nightmare. So my brother and I tore it down and cleaned it up then we looked into what it would cost to replace it if we did the work. My brother does construction stuff for a living (although not like this it is commercial sheet metal) so we drew up some plans made some estimates and realized that I could replace it with something that was a lot higher quality and better looking for about $1000 if we did the work. So that is what we ended up doing. In the end the whole thing actually worked out well for me. My old car was under the carport when it collapsed. The damage wasn't that bad, but it was enough to total it. So I bought the car back from the insurnace as salvage and kept it as a winter car (it does well in the nasty weather and my other car sucks in the bad weather). And I got the carport rebuilt and ended up getting to keep the rest of the money.