It’s 89 degrees at 11am, harsh bright sun, in the middle of November. Days like this make me long for a classic, cool Fall day in the east.

(Update at 1pm – 91 degrees. Damn. Another all-time high for this date.)

We have a ton of projects we’re trying to get done before Christmas guests, but getting anyone to work on home improvement projects these days – companies or individuals – is almost impossible. The few people we can convince to come out and give us a bid on a project (door replacements, plumbing, irrigation work, window shades, etc.) show up once and we never hear from them again. If/when I track them down again, I get the “we’re just very busy” excuse and “we’ll get to you when we can”. The media is all up in arms about inflation, but I’m more frustrated by the sheer difficulty in getting anything done these days.

Pre-COVID I took for granted that there was always someone I could pay to do a job. I might not love the price, but there was always someone ready/willing and parts/supplies were never an issue. Seems like a completely different world and economy now.

Remote product and repair services, it’s a different story completely. For example, I’m getting great and fast service on a broken camera, and great products with rapid delivery from Leatherology (gifts for an event I’m hosting). And Amazon orders continue to flow in normally, so far. It’s the tier of small, come-to-your-home service providers and installers that seems to be broken in Socal, maybe all over the US. What happened?