Renovation and other Fun

The house we bought in Souse was in a bad state, being no experts we did not notice all of it straight away, yet 'Arab style', with a terrace in the middle and on top (flat roof, iron spiral staircase) had its charm. The bath tube obviously needed replacing, the free standing handbasin was nice before it had been wilfully smashed, presumable by the tenants who left with unpaid electricity and water bills. We had some difficulties finding a suitable house, people promising more than they could keep. I decided it would be easier to live among educated people - this we were told would be the case here. At the time we were not aware that the folks around this part of Town will promise you anything, they just don't care. If you fall for it, your problem! Another mistake we made, we thought it would be appreciated if we, as good neighbours, employ tradesmen from the neighbourhood. We help them and they would be reliable and try to do a good job in return. How do you find good craftsmen? On recommendation? That turned out to be our biggest mistake! The person who recommends another person takes money of him for getting him a job (which will be secretly added to your bill), whether he is any good or just hopeless, doesn't matter at all usually. Now, if you happen to employ a little Mafioso, chances are good he'll recommend more guys just like him. They'll take what they can get. If you are new here, great, wait for surcharges and all sorts of tricks! Even, straight, in the middle, if you really need such a performance, you better watch the 'craftsman' and tell him: no, that is lop-sided, too much to the left/right side, it should be in the middle, etc. The date and time you agree for the works to commence, well you can be pretty sure that nobody will turn up, no phone call and possibly no one answering the phone when you try to find out what happened! Perhaps you have even been persuaded to make an advance payment for material or because you have sympathy with the poor guy and his sad story/fairytale. If you now get worried, you need to be. Maybe you never see him again, or if you are lucky, at a much later date, following several more meaningless arrangements (rendeous-vous Arab). There is a simple reason for all this, the tradesman tries to find as many customers as possible and pretends that he is available straight away, at the desired time. Those who have given him an advance payment will be served last, where more money is yet to come is more interesting. Labour is cheap but so is the performance and if you need to get a job done three times in order to achieve a more or less acceptable result, it's not that cheap after all. - Our hot water boiler, approx. 6 months old, didn't function properly anymore. We decided to employ another expert, (not happy with the previous one) he recommended that we buy a new one and he would repair the one we got, sell it for us and then contact us. The one he fitted works okay, but he never phoned back! When we finally managed to reach him, his fairytale went like this: "It was beyond repair, some parts were not original, it exploded, but next time I'm near your place I can give you 10 Dinar (approx. 4 Euro), in the meantime, can you lend me 200 Dinar?" The cheek of it, an insult to any educated person. By the way, don't trust bills for material bought by your temporary employee. Shops often offer a rebate, or he may have used another trick so you pay too much. Honest people do exist of course, we just encountered too many of the wrong type. Very disappointing! Anyhow, with all sorts of problems, moisture in walls, ceiling, floor, plus the usual works when you renovate an old building, we employed many tradesmen, made a lot of presents, including to the kids from the neighbourhood (and I mean a lot!) and in return received stones, wilful damages to our property, either because of envy or youngsters just feeling hostile towards 'foreigners'. Such behaviour won't make them rich, but as we never see any policemen around here, for whatever reason, they can feel strong and 'on the right track'. I've come to the conclusion, if you want gratetude, love, get yourself a cat or a dog.