Love Them Or Hate Them: Real-Life Good And Bad Handyman Adventures

If you’re anything like me, you do not possess expert handyman skills. I have learned how to handle basic jobs like installing ceiling fans, installing electrical outlets, and minor plumbing jobs. But anything more complicated than that, and I don’t trust my skills. Therefore, my wife and I call those national handyman services to get certain jobs done. We’ve had great experiences, and some very poor experiences.

When we have called local companies that specialize in doing specific jobs, we have had pretty good luck. However, those companies sometimes charge an arm and a leg. For that reason, we have contacted those national handyman service companies to try and get the work done.

You’ve see advertisements for the services to which I refer. To list a few, there’s Angi.com, (formerly Angie’s List), Thumbtack.com, and HomeAdvisor.com. There are many more if you do a Google search, but you get the idea. I won’t be mentioning which companies we have contacted.

First, the great handyman experience. One rarely looks at the base of one’s bathroom toilet. However, when you do, and you see brown seepage along the caulking, it is time to reset your toilet bowl. That type of job is way beyond my plumbing skill set.

The handyman assigned to our job was extremely professional and knowledgeable. He set about completing the job in a timely fashion. This gentleman was dressed appropriately, and he brought his own tools, hardware, and supplies. On this occasion, our handyman did a fantastic job which still looks great to this day.

In fact, he impressed us so much, we paid him more than we had agreed to in order to get him to do some caulking in our other bathrooms. Very impressive.

After that positive experience, we decided to go with the same company again. This time, we wanted new drywall, texturing, and painting of an area where we removed a medicine cabinet.

Needless to say, we had a different “professional” assigned for this job. He showed up late. He had no paint brushes, no paint, no supplies whatsoever. The company quoted an estimated time to complete the job of 3 hours. He ended up going almost five hours and still did not complete the job.

Worse yet, he did not know how to properly texturize the drywall. In addition, he wasn’t a good painter either. How he passed this company’s standards we’ll never know.

The handyman service charged us extra for his overtime, so we called them to tell them of our most recent experience. They sent another gentleman out at no extra charge to fix the problem. He did not do much better.

As you can imagine, we no longer trust this particular company for odd jobs around our home. All things considered, the old adage, “You get what you pay for” certainly rings true in at least one of these examples.

Today is the first official day of spring, and many of us choose this time of year to do a deep spring cleaning on our homes. It seems to be the best time to get both the indoor and outdoor portions of our homes ready for the months where we enjoy warmer temperatures.

But where to begin? After a long winter stuck indoors when we are less active, we may have put off many of our regular cleaning chores. Maybe we have let clutter build up in some of our rooms, closets, storage units, or in the garage. If you own or rent a house, those backyard patios, patio furniture, barbecue grills and driveways have been ignored for months now.

Indoors, there are always overlooked surfaces that need our attention. Light fixtures, base boards, ceiling corners, door frames - these are surfaces we most likely fail to clean on a regular basis. Spring cleaning season is a great time to pay attention to details like this. Find more info on this topic by clicking here.

I reviewed quite a few spring cleaning "to-do" lists from various publications, including one written by Jessica Bennett for Better Homes & Gardens on BHG.com. Most of them stressed that getting organized is the best way to begin the spring cleaning process. Firstly, they recommend disposing of unwanted items cluttering up your home as a great place to start. Secondly, find a good place to store those items which you will not be needing during the winter months. That includes the clothing in your wardrobe which may be cluttering up your closets. You won't be needing those winter sweaters during the dry, oven-like summers in Las Vegas.

You can find six spring cleaning chores to put on your "to-do" list this season. Don't try and do them all in one day or one weekend. Spread the work out over time. Or, if you have a lot of money, hire a cleaning company or custodial service. And if you can afford that, then I am truly envious. In any event, things are starting to look a lot better already.

Believe it or not, this is one of my favorite spring cleaning jobs around our house. We've had a pretty wet winter here in the Las Vegas Valley, so there are lots of water spots on our windows. Thank goodness we live in a one-story home or I might not enjoy this chore so much.

I think this is one of my wife's favorite spring cleaning chores. I have no idea where she stores all of her winter clothes, but what I don't see doesn't affect me, right? On the other hand, since I am on the radio and very few people ever see me in the KKLZ studio, I really don't need a lot of clothes like I would if I was on TV. So, all my stuff fits in my closet and drawers.

This is one of those chores that we always need to remind ourselves about. It is amazing to me how much cleaning the base boards around our home makes the house look so much cleaner. Dusting off light fixtures and blinds is also important, but it seems like we are always doing that and the dust just returns immediately.

I have a family member (who will go nameless) who is not a hoarder, but loves to save stuff for future use. This person has a jar of loose buttons saved up for cryin' out loud. I hate clutter, and so does my wife, so this is one chore we take care of year-round. If you don't keep up with it, the spring cleaning organization of your garage and storage areas is certainly a huge task.

Every once in a while something rolls under a sofa or under the refrigerator and we pull the vacuum out. Once we move this heavy object, we're shocked to see what kind of dust and debris has collected under that sofa or fridge. We need to put this task on our spring cleaning to-do list.

I got a head start and cleaned my grill last weekend. Gave the backyard patio a good power wash too. Next up, cleaning all the patio furniture and the cushions. We have to get things ready for our first backyard party. We'll be sick of the summer heat by August, but right now, we're looking forward to the warmer temperatures and getting outdoors more often.

Larry Martino is the long-time afternoon drive personality on 96.3 KKLZ. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of Larry Martino and not necessarily those of Beasley Media Group, LLC.

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