Unfinished Business

As I pulled up in my driveway tonight, the strange uneven bent of the Grevillea tree caught my eye. It is leaning dangerously close to the power line to the house, a remnant branch from a poorly finished job of tree lopping done over 12 months ago.

Which of course leads me straight into the flyaway thoughts of 'why me?' "why do I have these bodgy tradies come here who don't finish work?" "Why do I always end up 'making do' with someone else's incompetence, that I have paid for?"

The very first answer is that I rely on my husband. I do not take sole responsibility, and yes, though he perhaps ought to be able to manage this kind of thing, the fact is, if he can't or won't, that's the point at which *I* end up dealing with the consequences.

Now I know this.  And therefore why do I continue to leave things in his hands, when I really should have learnt by now? Habit? Perhaps so. But no doubt there is something in me or him that motivates me to accept pathetically low standards.

Is his fear of confrontation so strong that he resorts to dishonestly tricking me into trusting him to deal with it? Possibly it is, however again, by now, you'd think I'd learn.

In fact as I write, I begin to wonder if there isn't some way for me to improve my future record by somehow going back into the past and doing something to right the wrongs.  These are not small things, for the most part, and off the top of my head, I can list the following areas where I've been done over by folk I've paid for 'helping' me.

1. Many years ago we got cleaners in to help us for 2 hours. They swept dirt out the front door and onto the ornamental rocks immediately outside the door, making the garden dirty.
2. Last year when doing pest control, the pest control agency dug up flowers in the same garden and did not replace them.
3. we once had our car 'detailed' with instructions about not using perfumes. The car still stinks today and this happened over 2 years ago.
4. We had about 7 trees lopped for safety at a cost of over $1000. The trees at the front of the property were left lop-sided and not tidy
5. Recently we had a laundry converted to a bathroom. The builder left the room in a mess, did not reinstall curtains, grab rails in the toilet for my elderly father or a number of other things.
6. A long list of dodgy plumbing capers; including leaving ceramic sewage pipe fragments in the backyard, messy pipework, poor joining of old and new work.
7. We had our entire roof replaced at a cost of $25,000. You'd expect this to go well but no. We did not have a contract, and work that was told to us would be completed never was, including the raising of a section of floor & walls to the same height as the remainder of the house, and the levelling of the ceiling. They also installed insulation over existing insulation, rendering all insulation useless as there is no roof cavity for air circulation.

What can I do to a. prevent this in the future and b. make myself feel better about what has already come to pass?

It occurs to me tonight that to write a simple letter to these businesses outlining the problem and the lack of response to our complaint (we have always pointed out the problem at the time, but only once and never followed through), and that we would welcome whatever form of amends they wish to make would be warmly welcomed.

In the future how to prevent this? I am not sure. I know that when it comes to my father's health and care, I have learnt a very great deal about negotiation, and about getting what you want from people, with persistence and careful advocacy.  I know it is tiring, and that it is much easier with the motivation of advocating to keep someone alive and with dignity than it is to negotiate for a job site to be tidied up, when it is about things not health, I find it more difficult to advocate, both for my Dad and for myself.   It is certainly easier for me to advocate for him, as a third person, than I manage to advocate for my own self-interest.  Self-advocacy is certainly the topic I believe I need to strengthen.