Manny's Handyman Service

Manny was not available. I got the feeling he was trying to go into retirement. He instead sent over his son-in-law? and step daughter. They seemed polite and respectful enough. The problem was with the dishwasher. My old one stopped working and I had a new one and they swapped it out. The water didn't seem to turn off all the way during installation so they were catching it in buckets and quite a bit got on the floor. They didn't test the dishwasher before they left to make sure it worked. When I went to turn it on that night there was no power to it. I called them and left a message telling them. I kept mopping up water all night and thought it was just left from the installation. By the next day there was water covering the kitchen floor and water pouring through to the bedroom underneath the kitchen. Water was coming through the light fixture and through the heating vent. I called again and left another message. I turned off the water main for the house since that was all I knew how to do. They came by sometime in the afternoon. They fixed the electrical and I thought they fixed the leak. About an hour later my kitchen was full of water again. I called and left more messages. They called me back and said they were on a job and would come after. I called a few more times and was told the job was just taking longer than they thought. By 10 at night still no show. He sent me a text and asked if he could come in the morning. I said I really needed it taken care of that night. He didn't respond. By the next day he stopped returning my calls all together. No show, no calls. I had to find someone else to come out and fix the leak and spend another chunk of money and now my daughter's bedroom ceiling is completely destroyed by water damage and the light fixture no longer works. I am out of money and can't afford to hire someone to fix that, and I go to bed at night having visions of electrical fires from the damage.

The handyman did really well. I like him very much. He was very personable and easy to talk to. The only thing is, sometimes he can share personal family house problems and sometimes he's not able to come on time.

It's hard to remember everything he did over three years. It has ranged from mowing the lawn and taking out the trash to building a storage shed for garden equipment from scratch to taking two unusable rooms and making them into attractive and highly useful additions to the house. He is always surprising us with small gifts, usually of his own making, and we are encouraging him to get his American citizenship. He is here on a green card, which I have seen. He is always good-natured and never obnoxious or sullen in any way. We depend on him absolutely, and he has a key to our house and to our garden shed. He is totally trustworthy, and his work is artistic and creative as well as solid. Whenever something goes wrong around the house one of us says, "Oh, well, Manny can fix it."