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The Handyman Can

Inept, Harried Owners Vie for
Fix-It Folks

Hire Based on Referrals,
Experience

•   For referrals, ask friends, neighbors, real
estate agents or a hardware store department
manager.

•   Recognize that getting licensed, bonded and
insured isn't much more difficult than getting a
driver's license, said Mark Richardson, president of
Case Handyman Services. And any reference someone offers
will be a positive one. He suggested some ways to judge
someone:

•   Does the person act professionally? Return
calls promptly? Show up on time? Have a cell phone or
e-mail?

•   Ask to talk to a customer from a project
that took a turn for the worse. How the handyman handled
the problem is more important than the fact that the
problem came up.

•   Ask how many similar jobs the handyman does.
A handyman who installs five windows a week just like
the one you want put in will be a better choice than a
handyman who looks forward to learning from your
project.

-- Lois M. Baron

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By Lois M. Baron
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, June 8, 2002; Page H01

Who has time to do the odds and ends that need doing around a home? And
who the heck knows how to do them, anyway? Some of us don't even know how
to unhook the hoods on our minivans for a security search at a parking
garage, let alone hang a cabinet or patch a hole in a wall.

That's where handymen come in. They have been around for a long time,
but suddenly it seems as if there is a steady stream of vans in the
neighborhood emblazoned with names of handyman services. Case Handyman, a
division of Case Design/Remodeling, the Washington area's largest
remodeling firm, expects to bring in more money this year for the company
(more than $14 million in revenue) than its bath and kitchen remodeling
division.

No one keeps track of how much money is sloshing around out there for
the handyman segment of the $185 billion remodeling industry, but clearly,
it is more than nickels and dimes. Walt Stoeppelwerth of Home Tech
Information, a publishing company that specializes in remodeling,
estimates that in the Washington area, $1 billion a year might be spent on
handyman services.

And exactly what are these services? "Anything -- legal -- that someone
wants done around the house," said Mark Richardson, president of Case
Handyman Services and Case Design/Remodeling.

Richardson credits the rise of the handyman to two factors:

• Consumers have less time, means and skill to do small jobs
themselves.

• Consumers have more disposable income.

Stoeppelwerth added that new homes are far more complicated than they
used to be, too. "You can't fix your own car anymore, and it's the same
with houses," he said. "Today's customer literally can't take care of
their homes."

Case started its handyman division in 1992 after seeing tremendous
client interest in hiring someone to handle small-scale jobs.

Case points out that many of the people it hires have worked for
themselves and decided that handling the business details was not worth
the hassle. "We require a minimum of 10 years' experience dedicated to
remodeling," Richardson said.

Case employees also go through an extensive security check. "We try to
assure ourselves that they're right for the organization and that we can
feel good about having them in clients' homes," Richardson said.

Andrew Korzan started One Call Handyman in Silver Spring 16 years ago
after working for a few companies. He gets calls for chores that range
from removing a dead mouse to fixing a roof. A lot of his work is
carpentry and painting.

He cautions people that not everyone in the business respects the
craft. They may charge little, he said, but do a terrible job. He has a
two-hour minimum, for which he charges $150; every hour after that costs
$65. He is always busy -- he has enough work to have four employees -- but
is always looking for new clients; he said it may take two or three weeks
for him to get to a project.

That is one of the problems with independent contractors. The better
they are, the busier they get, and the harder it can be to get on the
schedule.

A real estate agent, who requested anonymity, despaired that when she
finds a good handyman, he gets so busy from the work she refers to him
that he becomes less accessible, more expensive and something of a prima
donna. She notes that while the ones who work for large companies charge
more than the independents, part of what you get is the confidence that
someone will show up when you need him or her.

"We have deadlines in our business and often [independents] leave jobs
until the last possible moment, leaving clients biting their nails that
the work will not be completed in time for settlement," she said in an
e-mail. "And of course, that leaves no time for glitches on the job."

She concluded by saying that the work has always been excellent from
the people she has found but the logistics of getting the job done have
often been problematic.

When it comes to hiring, people are hoping for a trustworthy handyman
who will come when expected, do the job right and be easy to communicate
with. Price is often a secondary consideration.

Stoeppelwerth said a homeowner may get a quote from a handyman service
but decline to use the company because the price is too high. Then three
or four days later, the person will call again and schedule the work.

"That's after two companies never returned her call, the third said
he'd come out at 8 a.m. and she waited till noon before giving up and
going to work, and, oh, she wants to pay by credit card," he said.

Richardson pointed out that "good service" means different things to a
design-build company and to a handyman service. Clients are looking for
different things from each, he said. Remodelers measure success by how far
out they are booked with work. But being booked with work six months out
would be death to a handyman.

Case has a 24-hour emergency service and a goal of taking care of jobs
within three to six days of the client's call for service. Larger jobs
entail an appointment with a consultant and typically get taken care of in
three to four weeks. How quickly a handyman can get to you generally
depends on the size of a job, the nature of the jobs already scheduled and
whether materials have to be ordered.

Mary Beth Dye of Annapolis has used the same handyman for six years.
Before, she had used workers whose names she picked from the phone book or
were referred by friends. She got Wilbur Warren's name from a real estate
agent when she thought she wanted to sell a house and needed some
repairs.

"He works with me," Dye said. If the scope of the work changes or a
question arises about the price, she said, they manage to find a
compromise that satisfies them both. With other handymen, she never
compromised; what is different with Warren is that she trusts him. She is
comfortable having him in her home without her being there, and she does
not think he is trying to rip her off when there is a
misunderstanding.

Dye has Warren do all the repairs to a rental property she has in the
District, and he has performed a lot of work on her single-family house in
Annapolis. She ran out of money while renovating the Annapolis house, so
now he comes out and shows her how to do many jobs that she thought she
could not do herself.

Even people who can do many fixer-upper repairs sometimes need a bit of
help. Chrysa Cullather and her husband took on a house that needed a lot
of work and managed most of it themselves -- until they got to the
broken-off ceramic toothbrush holder in the bathroom.

"It wasn't big enough for a tiler to come deal with it," Cullather
said. She went on line to Home Connections (http://www.homeconnections.com/),
which matches up people with services, and got a number for Ward's
Remodeling. Ward's told Cullather how to find a match on the tile and gave
her names of tile stores. After a match was found, an appointment was
made.

"It took a little while to fit us in around other jobs," Cullather
said, "but he came out with all the right tools. Except that when he tried
to take it out, it turns out the tile was put in with heavy mud instead of
the lighter mud they use today. He went home and got a different saw but
didn't charge us any extra for it."

She said, "It cost us $150, which might sound like a lot, but we
couldn't get anyone else to come take care of it, and it looks so much
better."

Replacing one tile would fall under the "no job too small" rallying cry
of handyman services. Rosalind Taylor of Springfield, whose husband is Jim
the Handyman (http://www.jthandyman.com/), rattled
off a variety of jobs that have come her husband's way: replacing one
rotting window sill, putting new knobs on kitchen cabinets, tightening a
leg on a dining room chair, putting shelves up in a garage, installing
weatherstripping, painting the trim in two bedrooms, fixing a hole in the
wall punched by a teenager, tightening a loose doorknob.

Even changing light bulbs and doing other ordinary household tasks can
be part of the job, especially when the customers are elderly. "They have
enough money to hire someone; a 75-year-old lady isn't going to move a
fridge so she can dust the coils," Taylor said. "We don't do electrical or
plumbing," she said, but everything else is fair game.

It is not hard to find people with a bad handyman experience.

Take Barbara Mosgrave, who recently redid her home office in Falls
Church. In the process, she used two handyman services. One installed a
louvered door -- backward. He also did not drill a place for the lock.

The other, which she used for painting, crammed three days' work into
two, leaving her with furniture not moved back into place, bits of old
color showing through in some places and blotches in others. Most of the
painters' work was fine, she said, but she was left with messes in nearly
every room.

The head of the company offered to come out and touch up the work, but
Mosgrave said she had already cleaned up.

"My best wishes to anyone who can't do the work themselves," she wrote
in an e-mail. "This has been expensive and not terribly pleasant."

Lynford Morton of Largo had siding on a house in Landover repaired when
he was putting it up for sale. He selected a handyman service that he had
been happy with in the past.

Five or six strips of siding were coming off. The workman fixed them,
but in two weeks, they fell off again. When Morton called the office, he
was told no one could come out for three weeks. While he was waiting, a
storm blew off more siding.

According to Morton, the workman who came out after three weeks -- with
no ladder or tools -- said, "This is too hard; I can't fix this," and
left. When Morton called again, the woman who answered the phone offered
to schedule another workman -- at the full rate. She would not give Morton
a discount and she refused to let him speak to the manager or owner.
Morton called a roofing and siding company to do the job and filed a
complaint about the handyman service.

Trust is a huge selling point for Mary Ellen Webb, a freelance editor
in Fairfax County, who cannot praise her handywoman highly enough. She
found Jackie Lawley by way of a real estate agent. "The agent said Jackie
could add sparkle," doing such things as taking a toothbrush to the fine
details, Webb said.

Impressed with the work, Webb has handed Lawley a variety of tasks,
including moving a wall a foot and putting in shower doors. "My husband
probably could have done the doors, but who has the time? And if you're
not used to doing something, it can take so long," Webb said.

Webb said the last time Lawley came to the house, the two of them
walked from room to room, with Webb pointing and saying, " 'I want this
done and this . . . and this . . . and this. . . .' I knew she'd do it
all. It was great."

© 2002 The Washington Post Company