Do you leave workmen alone in your house?

CarlaAndJames · October 2009

We just hired a handyman, we were referred to him by our MIL's handyman that she knows really well.

This is the first time we've worked with him, got a great vibe from him, but I googled around and found one good review and nothing else good or bad.

Would you leave him a key and let him do his thing? Or make sure one of us is there? (this could be difficult)

purplegirl_2008 · October 2009

Hmmmm, it depends on how flexible your jobs are. If it is possible I would be there, at least on the first few jobs just so you know him and feel a level of trust. We just had some drywall work done on our house yesterday and we definitely didn't leave the guys alone in the house. The builder provided the guys and we didn't know them from Adam so there was no trust and our jobs are flexible enough that it wasn't a strain for either of us.

daveshell1 · October 2009

Our builder was doing some work to our house (fixing some stuff) so I left them while I went to pick up dd from school, but they are through the builder. Is he licensed?

samk213 · October 2009

I've left a bonded painter in our house before. I felt weird about it, nothing happened, but not sure I'd do it again.

Gipper'sGirl · October 2009

I would stay home with him, at least for the first job and see how it goes.

LadyBird9 · October 2009

I would probably prefer to have someone there. But because it was a good referral... I would be okay leaving him alone in the house if there were no other options.

Eriksgal · October 2009

I have several times. As long as I have met them personally I have no problem with leaving them a key. Nothing bad has happened yet!

CarlaAndJames · October 2009

I just asked to work from home for tomorrow. That way I can at least be there for the first day of the job. He seems like a great guy, but since I can't find any information on his website about a license, and he's not listed with the BBB that I can find, I'll think I'll feel better if I can hang around.

Thanks yall!

Kerrsgal · October 2009

Yeah I was going to suggest seeing if you could work from home for the first time. I have left people before but after they had already done something first.

eniclaird · October 2009

When we had our entire house re-painted on the inside. We left and stayed at a hotel. But we came back by several times a day to check on everything and make sure all was well and they left everyday by 5.

I def. don't trust anyone in my house if I am not around which is why we came and checked in several times in the 4 days they were here painting our house.

dondraandluis · October 2009

We did a couple of times when the guy was working on our floors. We didn't really have a choice at the time and it was only after he had been there a couple of days while we were there. Nothing happened, but I prefer to have one of us there.