Proactive Home Maintenance Service

OK good luck. I can tell you’ve never been involved in the trades / construction. :slight_smile:

:+1: On one of my first projects, I was faced with 2200 sq ft of crap crown molding. I tore it all off. Once you tear it all off, you realize that there is a TON of mudding work required to mud the ceiling/wallboard interface — ostensibly crown molding is there to make quick work of covering up that unsightly interface.

I spent 2 months of my spare time mudding the wallboard / ceiling inside corner. Hot mud 90, joint tape, let dry, knock it down, Hot mud 60, knock it down, topping, knock it down, topping again, quick sand, prime, and paint.

I got so good at mudding that now my contractor buddy uses my work as a reference for his guys (who are generalists admittedly - not pro sheetrock guys).

Sure you didn’t let other paid you to experiment?

I only work for myself. :slight_smile:

Do you realize nowadays skilled workers/ professionals including developers make the customers paid for their learning & exploration process? Don’t agree? Consider that you have paid for the apps and then have to pay maintenance i.e. bug fixing, and then for features that you have asked initially but not delivered as software enhancements/ features. Now they have gone even bolder, insist that you paid for their continual learning and exploration via subscription!

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HAhahahahahahahahaha. Great perspective. subscriptions - :nauseated_face:

Businesses like this one are my favorite clients. They understand the process of using Other People’s money by leveraging their expenses as premiums and then putting aside a small amount of $.

Mortgages, money spent on rents, anything related to housing is used by my thingy. Gee! anything I do is related to housing. :laughing::laughing:

By the way, the OP landed in a wrong forum. :joy:

Nobody here is going to spend a penny on something they do every time to save a penny. :joy:

I didn’t say they are cheap, but…sort of. :sweat_smile:

He didn’t explain how his service is better than a handyman :slight_smile: or the odd job guy loitering in Home Depot or an annual home maintenance program

First time somebody tells me what I have told so many times, crown molding is not that so much of a “heroic” and beautiful thing but a way to cover defects. I’ve seen 4 inch crack at the top you think what the hell they were doing…:smile:

One thing I wouldn’t engage after a house is full, people living in is mud and sanding over it one, twice and many times. No way Jose! :scream:

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Crown molding is so 1980.

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I think the average tradesman is smarter than the average sales consultant.

Could be.

The hardest thing for me is the trust issue. I have a hard time figuring out how to find providers that I like and trust. I was in a rental for the last 10 years, so i got to see a bunch of different providers, and some I clicked with, and some I wouldn’t rehire. Right now, I’ve got an electrician I’d be comfortable calling, an older guy who fixes ovens who I adore (and he’s really inexpensive too!!!), and I liked the guy who did the water heater but I doubt I could call and get him again–not sure I have his name, and the guy who fixed our garage door (again, not sure I know his name, but if I did, I’d ask for him again.) The guy we got to do our heater was eh. Works fine now, but he lost our phone # and then we went on vacation for Christmas. His tech apparently drove by trying to ring our doorbell, but the gate was closed. I’m sure he wasn’t thrilled with us either.

I need a plumber. I went to yelp and nextdoor, found someone who’s highly recommended and turns out they don’t do plumbing, they do fixtures. I think i saw 4 different plumbers in our time in the rental, and all were meh.

And I have a tip for a gardener, but I forget who gave it to me. I hate our previous gardener and would never call them again. Rude, unprofessional and good at killing trees.

We need a structural engineer who is going to be good at dealing with difficult neighbors.

As a woman, I’ve never had a provider who made me uncomfortable, but I know it happens, so this is an issue too. not only do they have to be ok with me asking questions (I’m an engineer after all), but I have to feel comfortable being home alone with them.

BTW: I think you’d have a better niche market if you offered to take someone’s disclosures and go though and fix everything. You’d be getting people at a time when they are trying to pack up and move, and if someone would just deal for a lump-sum, they’d be grateful.

I know that I still need to go through that list and do a bunch of stuff. But I didn’t get to any of it except the tenting before we moved in.

[EDIT: Maybe I should say this would be a great way to get your foot in the door for people. If you pull through at buying time, they’ll be more likely to seek your services for the future.]

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I think the idea is that he’s offering to vet the people for you.

I’ve seen those odd guys loitering at home Depot. I sure as heck am not going to hire them to do anything other than move dirt.

Thanks for the Mr. Handyman link. Sounds like same idea.

BBB is already doing that.

BBB isn’t trustworthy.

Not just about gutters, but literally a list of everything to do for home maintenance and how often. EVERYTHING.

Like if you hire a maid service, they have a checklist for what has to be cleaned which includes things that you don’t think about like the top of the fridge.

Also, sounds like he wants to make it easier for you to book the person online. Kind of like tripadvisor or AirBNB make it easier for you to book a room/house without having to call each individual host. Given how busy people are out here, that could be very helpful. If half of the electricians are booked though May, it’d be nice to see a list of ones who are simply available and their availability.

I’m actually liking this idea.

But I would like to have a choice of providers. Don’t just send someone, give me faces, bios, and allow me to save my “favorites.”

I think Terri should run the company. Although it sounds a lot like Angie’s list. I would enjoy vetting the trades people. I don’t think a sales consultant is capable of doing it. I have screened and hired hundreds of subs and handymen. A large percentage are not that good. There is a shortage of trained people as Boomers retire.

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Terri, thanks so much for all of your helpful feedback and commentary.

Our business is similar to the Mr. Handyman concept only taking it a step further and making it even easier to book any type of reputable, trusted service. We’re investing a lot into vetting service providers - similar to what Amazon and Google are doing.

Interesting note about actually being able to select a service provider. We assumed that it would be better if we actually selected the best person for the job for you. Do you want to select so that you know more about the person and feel that you can trust them? What would you think if we selected the provider for you, gave you all of the background/bio/photo and then let you confirm you’d like to work with that person?

Thanks for the compliment :slight_smile:

Another niche market, and good luck with this one, is finding female handy(wo)men. Especially for women who live alone, it helps with their comfort level having work done. I know two women who won’t have work done on their house because they’re uncomfortable with men in the house. One was very petite, lives in Menlo Park, and had real issues when doing renovations. After that she said rather move with all that it costs than do renovations again.

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