This post will be full of anger, frustration more anger and what other emotions i can’t suppress at time of writing this.
I think i need to walk away from my house in France and it’s quite simply due to the French and their inability to actually achieve anything and today was the final straw for me and i just don’t need to stress that the house is causing.
So this mornings tipping point comes when the builder who was supposed to start on the house didn’t turn up. A call to his wife reveals he’s suddenly gone in for a liver transplant. Now I’m going to hold off raining hell fire on anyones health issues but I call total and utter BS on the whole poxy situation.
This is the guy who came highly recommended from the Marie, the guy who never turned up 4 weeks ago to do a job, the guy who screwed up the first quote on the house and had to come round 3 weeks later to do it again, this is the guy who said he’d love to do all the work on the house and didn’t take plans and who turned up 4 days late for a meeting… I’m done!
This unfortunately of course isn’t a one off. Lets not forget the 1st time we got a quote for shutters the “professional” miscounted the number of windows in the house , quoted for doors that didn’t need doing and took 4 months to do it, he too came “highly recommended” .
Then there is the Irish architect living in Paris who after being paid to do some of the work also became invisible, this whole process is just pushing water up hill with a poxy sieve. It appears that no one actually wants either work or to do the work it’s obviously something in the water and i think it’s time to call it quits.
The issues are my inability to speak French which means my wife inability to be strong with builders, suppliers etc etc. I can’t do this on my own and it feels like that’s what I’m doing. Just pouring money into fees, plans, materials and the only ever time anything gets done is when my Dad gives up his time to go out there and do something, however there is only so much he can do before we need to call in the “professionals” and they seem to be very lacking in our region of France.
So that’s it… Right now i just can’t be arsed to fight it any more, things shouldn’t be this hard.
I’m off to think…
You can’t give up yet!! There must be someone out there who can help……….. :-/
All the help youll ever need….right here!
it seems to me that maybe you are not cut out for such an ambitious project when quite clearly you have neither the patience or skills needed to achieve the “masterplan”!!
Hi Ross,
I think the issue is far less to do with “skill sets” than it is expectations with suppliers, however lack of patience you may be right. I’m not one to be willing to be lied to, mislead or just generally dicked around by people whom I’m paying for a service.
However there is some good news and he comes by the name of Ian and he’s a very English builder we’ll be using to help us move this forward.
I only have so much time or patience for a “local” tradesman when they prove not up to the job then it’s time to become unpopular and bring in outside help to achieve what the locals fail constantly to be able to even start, the French seems not to understand market forces and the fact that they’ll get paid if they do the work.
Example : There is up to a years wait for a plasterer to be available to do a job of this size, even then at €250 a day and no set amount of days who knows what the cost will be. Solution was to spend £350 and train as a plasterer that way the skill set is gained and 1000′s of € saved.
Patience will not get this house built, but it seems not using French labour will!