I am weary. Exhausted. Worn down by people I pay good money to do things for us, to fix things, but those things turn out to not be fixed or done so I have to track them down and try to get the work done, again. And again. The list of things in this category is long.

There’s the horrifically expensive fire prevention system that never got finished, as my contractor there went crazy. Pretty much literally. Once she and I began arguing over details, she packed up, left and never showed up again. I went to a lawyer and quickly learned that I’d spend more on a lawsuit than I spent on the system.

The extensive pool repairs that we paid for last summer – some pool deck cracks have come back, so I have to track them down and coerce them to come back and make it right. I’ve called them, they said they’d return my call promptly several days ago. So I have to keep trying.

The big driveway project from last month – I’ve had to call them back to fix obvious flaws. In their defense, the contractor showed up as promised and we have a plan to (re)fix the work at no further cost. We’ll see.

Our outdoor maintenance guy – he says he’ll show up to cut weeds, trim trees, maintain the property, but half the time he doesn’t show. I need to try to find someone reliable, but 90% of the property maintenance types have disappeared here in Socal, hiding from ICE.

Our Spectrum Internet service has been unreliable and getting them to admit it or fix it was impossible, so I installed new wireless Internet access from T-Mobile. So far (about a month) that’s worked well, and within another few weeks I’ll have enough confidence in the T-Mobile solution to drop the Spectrum. Meanwhile, we have two Internet access methods.

And now our pool/spa heater doesn’t work, after paying to get it fixed a couple of weeks ago. I’m not going back to the guy I called the first time on this one – he took forever to do the work, the “fix” (whatever it was) lasted a very short time. So on to plan B.

Am I just terrible at selecting contractors, or is this just the state of our US “service economy”? I don’t always choose the lowest bidder, so that’s not the problem. This doesn’t bode well for the big basement remodel job I have in mind for the KY place.

This is pretty much a first world problem, but still. Several of these projects are five figure expenses – not cheap. You’d think for that kind of money that people would provide good, reliable service. But that’s not my experience lately.