My money is worth just as much as anyone else’s, but yet, for some reason, no one wants to take it.

Allow me to explain. In our house, we have an attic. But the only way to get in there is via a tiny entrance in a closet in one of the bedrooms. It’s not very convenient, so we want to have some attic stairs installed. The things you pull down from the ceiling, and then you can walk up. You know, something like this:

This is a pretty important job, because until it’s done, we can’t really store much stuff in the attic. And since we want to put the stairs in Baby’s room, we kind of wanted to get this job done before we start painting and getting the rest of the room ready, since there will likely be one hell of a mess created by cutting a whole in the ceiling.

I’ve never claimed to be terribly handy, and while there are some jobs I’m willing to try on my own, I’m not about to go ahead and do this one myself. This is the kind of thing I’m going to have to pay a professional for. Now, I’ve heard horror stories that take place during large renovations, when repairs go on for way too long and cost way more than originally expected. But this is a fairly simple and straightforward job, so I shouldn’t have to worry about anything like that. Right?

Well, the first thing we did was go to this website called ServiceMagic, where you put in what kind of job you need, and they pair you up with responsible, licensed contractors. Or so they claim. We got three referrals from them, and each of the 3 contractors gave us an estimate. One was way too expensive. One was suspiciously cheap. But the one in the middle was juuuuuuuuust right.

That was easy, right? Not quite.

See, this fella had his license number printed on his business card. And that made me think to myself, “You know what? You should make sure anyone who is going to work on the house is insured and licensed. This guy obviously is, since he put the number RIGHT ON HIS BUSINESS CARD, but hey, couldn’t hurt to double check, right?” And it’s so easy to check online, it’s clearly worth the small amount of effort.

Well, wouldn’t you know it – his license had expired. And the other two people, the really expensive and the suspiciously cheap guys? They were licensed and insured and ready to go. But not the guy we were planning on using. So I decided to be nice and call the guy, and let him now that his license had expired, and that just as soon as he renewed it, we’d be happy to hire him. He said he would do it right away, and then call me.

He never called. He also never renews his license, according to the online database. Being licensed must no longer be important to him, and I guess he just didn’t want my money.

So not wanting to shell out the incredibly high price of the expensive contractor, we decided to go with the guy who gave us the very low quote. Now, this decision flew in the face of people who warned us that you tend to get what you pay for with these kinds of things. And that if a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. And even if it’s cheap now, if they do a bad job, I’d just have to pay for it later. But he was licensed, and had good reviews on ServiceMagic, and we were eager to get the job done so we could keep going on Baby’s room. So we scheduled him to come by and do the job, at 1:30 on a Saturday.

That was easy, right? Not quite.

By 3:00pm, no one had shown, and I hadn’t gotten a call, so I called the contractor. He apologized, and told me that the guys were running behind on their previous job, but he swore that they would be there later that day, probably in roughly an hour.

Two hours later, without a word, I called them back, far more agitated. The man again apologized profusely, and swore that his guys would be there first thing Sunday morning, bright and early, around 8:30am.

I got up that early – on a Sunday, a day I like to sleep in – but they never showed. Apparently, these guys just didn’t want my money.

So then I decided to call Home Depot, since they refer contractors. I spoke to someone at the store first thing Monday morning, and he said that though they charge $30 for an estimate, I would be contacted by one of their people right away, and I would have my attic stairs installed the following weekend. And they actually charged my credit card for the $30; someone finally took my money, which has to be a good sign!

That was easy, right? Not quite.

The way Home Depot works is that they put you in touch with the contractors, but they insist that they’ll call you, not the other way around. I was promised that I would be getting a call later on Monday. Then on Tuesday. Then first thing Wednesday morning. I’m not going to venture a guess as to how much time I spent on hold, but needless to say I could recite the entire Home Depot “on hold” spiel by heart if I wanted to. (“I can do it. They can help!” If only someone would just HELP ME!) Finally, after yelling and insisting to be put in touch with the contractors directly, I finally got a hold of someone late Wednesday afternoon. I figured having the job done this weekend wouldn’t be possible now, since it was so late in the week, but it was worth asking. But wouldn’t you know it – these guys only work during the week! The guy actually suggested I take a day off so he could come over and do it. I told him that there were plenty of other contractors who work on the weekend (even though I don’t actually know this for a fact based on my own experiences, it seems reasonable enough.) He said he would check with his boss if someone would be available to do it on a weekend, but it might cost a little more money.

Then he calls me back with great news – not only will they do it on a Saturday for me, but they’ll do it for NO EXTRA CHARGE! Phew! What a relief!

Well, that wasn’t easy, but at least now we can get it done, right?

Not quite.

He gave me a price estimate that made my jaw drop. His lowest end estimate (which didn’t include any parts and was subject to go up based on 14 different eventualities) was crazy high – even higher than the first guy who gave me a pricey quote.

So, needless to say, I got to spend another delightful period of time on the phone with Home Depot trying to get my $30 refunded.

Sigh.

Won’t somebody PLEASE take (a reasonable amount of) my money?