Scouzer
Lifer
Ugh. I've been president of our association for about 6 months now and all I can say is independent contractors and garbage companies are the worst, most expensive people to deal with in the universe.
Like most associations our largest contracts are for garbage, snow removal and landscaping.
We have two garbage dumpsters and two cardboard dumpsters dumped once a week. $800/mo. These guys often miss pickup days--and blame me for not calling to complain sooner. Want to cancel? Forget about it--it's an auto renewing 3 year contract with no notice of renewal. If we want to get out of it we either pay 6 months of "lost revenue"--ie, $4,800 or we must provide written notice by registered letter not more than 120 days before the end of our contract but not less than 60 days. Really charming.
Our snow removal rates, ugh. We pay $50/hour to have someone shovel the sidewalks by hand (and they double the amount of hours it actually takes), $80/hr for a bobcat and $70/hr on top of the bobcat rate if we want it removed offsite. Again, they bill for double the time it actually takes so we are paying about $300/hr for offsite snow removal.
But the real cake is landscaping. What a nightmare. We don't really have all that much grass--it'd probably take 3 hours a week with a push mower and maybe an hour to weed whack. They promise to fertilize the grass, clean up garbage, fix problem spots, etc. but they don't actually do any of that. They just cut the grass. Oh and they don't do a great job of that either--the grass is typically knee high by the time they show up. $2000/mo. This is even his REDUCED rate! He initially quoted us $3300/mo, ugh.
Other fun things: To get the area around the dumpsters cleaned when assholes dump things like couches: $100/hr. We get someone to clean common areas once every two weeks. It takes her about an hour. $200/hr.
We need to get our parking lot cleaned and repainted. They estimate it will take 3 guys one day to do this. $2700.
My least favourite part of all of this is all of these guys act like they are doing you a god damn favour by showing up and doing their job. Getting a bloody quote from them often takes months--we waited 3 months just to get somebody out to quote for the lot sweep. They promised they'd be able to do the work a month ago and they are nowhere in sight.
Before you reprimand us for not getting enough quotes and competition--trust me, I am the biggest cheap ass and I've done a LOT of contractor searching. These are the better rates I've achieved, we used to pay more!
Like most associations our largest contracts are for garbage, snow removal and landscaping.
We have two garbage dumpsters and two cardboard dumpsters dumped once a week. $800/mo. These guys often miss pickup days--and blame me for not calling to complain sooner. Want to cancel? Forget about it--it's an auto renewing 3 year contract with no notice of renewal. If we want to get out of it we either pay 6 months of "lost revenue"--ie, $4,800 or we must provide written notice by registered letter not more than 120 days before the end of our contract but not less than 60 days. Really charming.
Our snow removal rates, ugh. We pay $50/hour to have someone shovel the sidewalks by hand (and they double the amount of hours it actually takes), $80/hr for a bobcat and $70/hr on top of the bobcat rate if we want it removed offsite. Again, they bill for double the time it actually takes so we are paying about $300/hr for offsite snow removal.
But the real cake is landscaping. What a nightmare. We don't really have all that much grass--it'd probably take 3 hours a week with a push mower and maybe an hour to weed whack. They promise to fertilize the grass, clean up garbage, fix problem spots, etc. but they don't actually do any of that. They just cut the grass. Oh and they don't do a great job of that either--the grass is typically knee high by the time they show up. $2000/mo. This is even his REDUCED rate! He initially quoted us $3300/mo, ugh.
Other fun things: To get the area around the dumpsters cleaned when assholes dump things like couches: $100/hr. We get someone to clean common areas once every two weeks. It takes her about an hour. $200/hr.
We need to get our parking lot cleaned and repainted. They estimate it will take 3 guys one day to do this. $2700.
My least favourite part of all of this is all of these guys act like they are doing you a god damn favour by showing up and doing their job. Getting a bloody quote from them often takes months--we waited 3 months just to get somebody out to quote for the lot sweep. They promised they'd be able to do the work a month ago and they are nowhere in sight.
Before you reprimand us for not getting enough quotes and competition--trust me, I am the biggest cheap ass and I've done a LOT of contractor searching. These are the better rates I've achieved, we used to pay more!
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