Clark's Big Book of Bargains (31 page)

• Tips on Furniture •

• For the best bargains, buy used furniture or furniture that has been damaged and expertly repaired.
  

• Good furniture values also come from Costco, which has a low markup over its cost, and from large super-regional furniture stores such as Nebraska Furniture Mart.
  

• Don’t use the No-No-No (no interest, no down payment, and no payments until sometime in the future) plans to buy furniture. People often fail to pay in full before the date that the No-No-No payment holiday ends, and they end up getting clobbered—paying 20 percent or more interest, retroactive on the entire balance to the day of purchase.
  

• Consider buying one piece of furniture at a time, the way affluent people buy furniture, rather than a large set of matching furniture.
  

• Internet •

• www.galleryfurniture.com
  

• www.ikea.com
  

• www.nebraskafurnituremart.com
  

* HOME SERVICES *

I love a bargain, but when it comes to hiring someone to work in my home, I put more of a premium on the person, not the price.

I’ve used the same yard service and the same pool service since I bought my home in 1996. I’ve used the same plumber since 1998. I’ve used the same heating and air conditioning company since the early 1990s and I’ve used the same security system in all the houses I’ve lived in since 1983. That’s a long time.

I try to find service workers I think are good people, then I use them for routine jobs so I can find out if they’re reliable, dependable, and know what they’re doing. If I like the person and their work on small jobs, I know I can trust them when a major job comes up.

I never want to hire somebody when I’m in a jam, because then I’m vulnerable. The time to ask, “Which plumber should I use?” is not when there’s a geyser in your house. My co-author, Mark Meltzer, came home one Saturday evening to find water gushing into the basement apartment where his father lives. Mark knew how to turn off the main water supply inside the house, but unfortunately that didn’t stop the water. It turned out that the main water line from the street had burst, but at a point between where it entered the house and the main water valve. Mark could have stopped the water had he known how to turn off the water valve near the curb, but he didn’t. So Mark was trying to suction up the water with a carpet cleaner, but fighting a losing battle. He didn’t have a regular plumber, and it was a Saturday night, so finding one was difficult. Eventually he got someone to come to the house and shut off the water, but he called me at home before he got ripped off. The plumber wanted $1,600 to replace the broken pipe and connect a temporary water line to supply water to the house until the pipe was fixed. I told Mark to pay the guy for the service call and say, “No thanks.” Instead he got a plumber to replace the pipe for $800 and he set up a temporary water line on his own by hooking a $30 hose to a neighbor’s spigot. So he saved hundreds of dollars. Once the crisis was over, he called friends for referrals, and another plumber told him how to set up the temporary water line. So Mark dealt with the catastrophe first, then took his time to find the right quote. If something is outside your own expertise and someone is asking for real money—whether it’s a repair to your house or your car or something else—the answer is to get another estimate. The only exception to that is if you’re dealing with someone whom you trust thoroughly.

Sometimes what looks like a disaster can turn out okay. We had a water heater that started leaking and needed to be replaced, and when we put in the new water heater, our natural gas bills outside the heating season dropped so much I kept thinking there was a mistake in the bill. The new water heater, nine years ahead of the one it replaced, uses less gas to do the job. A University of Wisconsin report shows that a water heater lasts an average of thirteen years, and recommends that owners replace theirs after ten years, before it dies on its own. The water heater is the second-largest user of energy in the house, after the heating and air conditioning system, and it performs especially poorly in the last few years of its life. Plus, if you replace it before it fails, you’ll be able to shop around and not be in an emergency situation. With a water heater, it’s worth spending more for higher energy efficiency, rather than buying a cheaper one that’s less efficient.

I hear several complaints about the people who work inside your home. One is reliability—they say they’re going to come and then they don’t come. Or they start out being reliable and you think you’ve found the answer, but over time, for whatever reason, they become unreliable.

Sometimes you run into trouble because a handyman is good in one area, but not another. Maybe they’re good at carpentry but not at painting or electrical work. And they would be doing themselves and you a favor by telling you that’s not their strongest skill. Sometimes people ask me questions that are outside my area of expertise, and I have to have the judgment to tell people that I don’t know the answer.

Finding good service people is a trial-and-error process, and the best way to start is to ask friends, neighbors, and co-workers if they have someone they like. I also ask them who they used in the past that they didn’t like, so I don’t make the mistake of hiring a person or a company that someone else didn’t like. Word of mouth helps you learn from other people’s trial and error. Using someone that someone else liked doesn’t mean you’ll like them as well. But it’s the best way to begin the search. Mark used a cleaning person someone recommended that did a mediocre job, so he didn’t hire them again. And he talked with a handyman a neighbor recommended who never showed up. If that happens, you just try again.

Sometimes you can find a good service person based on a recommendation from someone at the paint store, the tile store, or the hardware store. But again, it’s not foolproof. We hired a tile company based on a recommendation from the tile store, and the people completely butchered the job. The worker quit halfway through, and the contractor had to come in and redo what he had already done. The job was in the master bathroom, and the thing was so messed up that we couldn’t live in the master bedroom for six weeks. It should have been a three-day job. The owner probably lost a lot of money on the job, so nobody was happy.

The one way you should never hire someone is from a flier in your mailbox. That’s where most of the unreliable people, and the people who are actively trying to rip you off, come from. Over the years in my TV work, when we’ve done “victim” stories, we’ve found repeatedly that the dishonest service person knocked on the victim’s door or left a flier at the mailbox. Most good people and companies are so busy that they’re not going to be dropping leaflets door by door.

Another thing you shouldn’t do is give someone money to buy materials. Most often when someone asks for money to get started, you’ll never see them again. But if you’re dealing with a contractor who doesn’t have the money to front the materials he needs, go with him to the hardware store or wherever he’s buying the materials, and buy the materials yourself. That also eliminates another danger: that you might get hit with a lien if the contractor fails to pay for the materials. I had a neighbor who put an addition on his home and did a major renovation of his kitchen, and wound up losing an additional $70,000 because of a contractor who didn’t pay his subcontractors.

I’d say getting a referral for a service worker gives you a yellow caution light to proceed, while a flier at the door is a red light. There are no green lights, although time can turn a yellow light into a green light. Each time you have a good experience with a service person, it increases the odds that the next experience also will be good.

Checking references is worthwhile if someone is doing a major job, and if a job could be dangerous, you should check to see if someone has workers’ compensation and liability insurance. For example, you may have to hire a tree service to trim trees on your property or cut one down. That’s dangerous work, and companies often do not have proper insurance. If a worker gets hurt and they don’t have proper insurance, it’s your insurance company that’s going to have to pay, because the work occurred on your property. If you need some minor tree work and it doesn’t involve a lot of climbing, make your own decision on the insurance issue. But if you’re hiring someone to take down a large tree, or remove a dead tree, and it looks like a dangerous job, make sure the company has workers’ comp and liability insurance. And don’t just believe their letter. Talk with their broker or insurance agent to make sure the insurance is current.

Hiring a housekeeper, something that’s become increasingly common with the abundance of two-income families, presents the challenge of theft. Rarely are people or companies insured or bonded, and even if they are, it doesn’t mean much unless you catch a housekeeper in the act of stealing. There’s probably no area where trust is a greater issue, because you’re inviting someone into the most intimate areas of your home. Many years ago my sister caught the cleaning lady at her house stealing. It just happened that she was walking into a room while the cleaning lady was taking something. She worked for my sister for a long, long time, and she just burst into tears when confronted over the theft. So my sister let her stay on. She worked a number of years after that and there was never another problem.

People ask if they should use an individual or a company, and it doesn’t matter as long as you find one you like and trust.

• Tips on Home Services •

• Finding good service people is a trial-and-error process. Get recommendations, then try people for routine jobs so you can find out if they’re reliable, dependable, and know what they’re doing. That’s more important than price.
  

• Try not to hire somebody when you’re in a jam, because then you’re vulnerable.
  

• Never hire someone who leaves a flier or card in your mailbox. That’s where most of the unreliable people, and the people who are actively trying to rip you off, come from.