First time I've ever had to leave a customers house.

[joemach]

Schemes like flat rate bilk people daily.
Not that FR couldn't be made fair, it's just many see it as a way to hide over pricing. Hustlers.

Never looked at it that way, but if I think about it, you are correct.

[slctech]

The company prior to where I am at now, the owner would pick up a new PM account or rental property account on occasions and send me to an apartment or rental property, and many times I would take a step into one of those properties and just say GOODBYE. Call the owner back and say, we have better accounts to manage, this new one you are toying with is just going to sink you. He'd always listen to me and trusted my intuitions. We stayed plenty busy with good decent property management companies and filtered out the turds. If I am crawling over diapers, fighting off bed bugs, and flicking roaches off of me, I am getting the f^ck out and some fly by night scab company can pick up the scraps of garbage management companies.

Residential rental properties are usually the worst and I would say I have walked out of many of them for one or another reason. Sometimes the tenants were just too weird or strung out on something. Had one that I left immediatley and called the police and the Department of Child Services. I knocked on the door, and nothing, used a key box on the premises and entered to find a fat naked chick drunk asleep on the floor and a baby in a high chair just covered in feces, food, and those dirt streaks down the kids face from it sticking to his/her tears. Food and pizza boxes just strung around...I was enraged. I waited in that parking lot until the police arrived for a welfare check on fatty. And DCFS ended up being brought in and took the kid. I was more than happy to give my information to them.....some folks just need to be dragged out to the desert and have a single .22 shot to the back of their skulls.

As for homeowners, I had a few that could go f^ck themselves. It always seemed the richer neighborhoods would beat you up and bock over a bill, where in the poorer areas, those folks would offer you a glass of water, pay the bill happily, and even try to tip you. There was a guy with a pool house that was busting my balls on a pool heater he had installed. It was a sh!t install and half rotted out, he was such a prick that I just loaded up my tools, walk by him, across his yard, through the gate, into my truck, and drove off. I so wanted to punch him in the throat.

[BBeerme]

Makes me want to go sh!t in a neighbors yard. Just can't figure out which neighbor . . . ?

The company prior to where I am at now, the owner would pick up a new PM account or rental property account on occasions and send me to an apartment or rental property, and many times I would take a step into one of those properties and just say GOODBYE. Call the owner back and say, we have better accounts to manage, this new one you are toying with is just going to sink you. He'd always listen to me and trusted my intuitions. We stayed plenty busy with good decent property management companies and filtered out the turds. If I am crawling over diapers, fighting off bed bugs, and flicking roaches off of me, I am getting the f^ck out and some fly by night scab company can pick up the scraps of garbage management companies.

Residential rental properties are usually the worst and I would say I have walked out of many of them for one or another reason. Sometimes the tenants were just too weird or strung out on something. Had one that I left immediatley and called the police and the Department of Child Services. I knocked on the door, and nothing, used a key box on the premises and entered to find a fat naked chick drunk asleep on the floor and a baby in a high chair just covered in feces, food, and those dirt streaks down the kids face from it sticking to his/her tears. Food and pizza boxes just strung around...I was enraged. I waited in that parking lot until the police arrived for a welfare check on fatty. And DCFS ended up being brought in and took the kid. I was more than happy to give my information to them.....some folks just need to be dragged out to the desert and have a single .22 shot to the back of their skulls.

As for homeowners, I had a few that could go f^ck themselves. It always seemed the richer neighborhoods would beat you up and bock over a bill, where in the poorer areas, those folks would offer you a glass of water, pay the bill happily, and even try to tip you. There was a guy with a pool house that was busting my balls on a pool heater he had installed. It was a sh!t install and half rotted out, he was such a prick that I just loaded up my tools, walk by him, across his yard, through the gate, into my truck, and drove off. I so wanted to punch him in the throat.

[JayMan7]

Ultimately I got out of residential because of a situation like that. I had a lot of customers that absolutely loved me but then there was always 1 out a 100 that was a total ****ing ass hat. The problem was I wasn’t going to sit there and take it. Well the company I worked for wanted me to eliminate all conflict so I thought to myself ok it’s time to go commercial then. I’ve been way happier and have pretty much eliminated all conflict.

My buddy who’s still in residential told me recently that you realize why the world is so screwed up when you start going into peoples homes.

I think some people are really great at doing residential, like my buddy. But my personality and people skills just weren’t suited to it. I’m much happier now that I mostly just deal with machines and not people.

[BBeerme]

You remind me of a saying I came up with.

All I do is drive around and make people happy.

[jacob-k]

Ultimately I got out of residential because of a situation like that. I had a lot of customers that absolutely loved me but then there was always 1 out a 100 that was a total ****ing ass hat. The problem was I wasn’t going to sit there and take it. Well the company I worked for wanted me to eliminate all conflict so I thought to myself ok it’s time to go commercial then. I’ve been way happier and have pretty much eliminated all conflict.

My buddy who’s still in residential told me recently that you realize why the world is so screwed up when you start going into peoples homes.

I think some people are really great at doing residential, like my buddy. But my personality and people skills just weren’t suited to it. I’m much happier now that I mostly just deal with machines and not people.

We have very few rental properties here. I cringe when they come in. Honestly if I lived in the city I would probably migrate to commercial. or leave the trade all together...

[BVdog]

Hvacker... this is one of the best post on this site.

[Snapperhead]

I have a few gas stations that are ofcourse .... Indian owned , and they always tell their Indian friends about me.

One day I get a call " My friend Raja told me you do good work , please come"

I show up at this Rental house where Im the only White guy around , open my truck door , and I hear what sounds like a leaf back pack blower but cannot see anybody

Hmm , thats odd , the sound seems to be coming from Inside the house

Im like .... ??

I enter , and I see 2 mattresses on the livingroom floor with piles of Clothes , Pizza boxes , Mc Donalds , Beer cans , you know the typical Poor peoples life style

I hear the sound of blower getting closer , its coming down the hall , and I now see millions of little brown specs flying and spinning through the air , and Im thinking ... hmm .... must be doing some sort of badass construction back there ...

Dude now comes into sight and he turns off the blower to greet me

"Oh Hey you must be the AC guy ! "

Yep , thats me

"Sorry about the mess , but there were millions of cocka roaches everywhere and I wanted to clean them up before you got here"

insert long uncomfortable pause with my eyes big as golf balls ....

Ok , well let me grab some things from the truck

"Ok Great Im almost finished "

insert sounds of screetching tires ...

[BNME8EZ]

I have a few gas stations that are ofcourse .... Indian owned , and they always tell their Indian friends about me.

One day I get a call " My friend Raja told me you do good work , please come"

I show up at this Rental house where Im the only White guy around , open my truck door , and I hear what sounds like a leaf back pack blower but cannot see anybody

Hmm , thats odd , the sound seems to be coming from Inside the house

Im like .... ??

I enter , and I see 2 mattresses on the livingroom floor with piles of Clothes , Pizza boxes , Mc Donalds , Beer cans , you know the typical Poor peoples life style

I hear the sound of blower getting closer , its coming down the hall , and I now see millions of little brown specs flying and spinning through the air , and Im thinking ... hmm .... must be doing some sort of badass construction back there ...

Dude now comes into sight and he turns off the blower to greet me

"Oh Hey you must be the AC guy ! "

Yep , thats me

"Sorry about the mess , but there were millions of cocka roaches everywhere and I wanted to clean them up before you got here"

insert long uncomfortable pause with my eyes big as golf balls ....

Ok , well let me grab some things from the truck

"Ok Great Im almost finished "

insert sounds of screetching tires ...

[My_Name_Is_Mud]

A somewhat similar situation like this has happened to me before. It was many years back with an old employer. We did work for a homeless shelter. One day I get sent over there to repair one of the ancient broke down condensers. It was pouring down rain that day. No big deal right? Well, said condenser's disconnect had no breaker inside and was straight wired with wire nuts. There were 6 different panels to the building and I was by myself that day. I explained to the office manager that I would have to come back at a later time with someone to help track down which breaker went to that particular disconnect so that one I could install the proper breaker back in place and two replace the capacitor that went out. About an hour later I get a phone call from my boss informing me that the office manager felt like I just didn't want to repair the unit because I was prejudice against poor people. I told my boss I'll never step foot in that place again. I shouldn't have had to explain anything, but I told my former boss that if that's how they truly felt and couldn't realize I wasn't up for trying to kill myself that day then I had no business repairing any future problems there. I'm not that type of person. I've literally given customers free parts and lost out on my personal pay because they couldn't afford anything and had a 6 month old baby in the house. Now that I'm working for myself, if I'm ever in a situation like you were in, Ill be doing the same. Let the other companies deal with that headache of a customer.

[Snapperhead]

My Name Is Mud

Your name reminded me of this video .... skip to about the 7:40 minute mark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsrMqnNxy1o

[My_Name_Is_Mud]

I just mixed a little kid rock and primus together and poof I have a catchy name on here lol

[BBeerme]

Hope you post more! We like mental stimulation.

I just mixed a little kid rock and primus together and poof I have a catchy name on here lol

[Adlerberts-Protege]

It is a pretty similar encounter we have all dealt with.

[jacob-k]

My Name Is Mud

Your name reminded me of this video .... skip to about the 7:40 minute mark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsrMqnNxy1o

only thing I remembered from that video was boobs

[ga-hvac-tech]

I wonder...

Should this thread be moved to PRO Residential???

This is an open forum...

[slctech]

I wonder...

Should this thread be moved to PRO Residential???

This is an open forum...

IMO, I do not think so, if someone searched the Googler for, "why did my hvac technician run from my home?" and they were directed to this thread.....well they can take a sobering look in the mirror and have some self reflection on the hell we all must endure sometimes to feed our families.

I usually stay out of talking about personal experiences in the public arena, but when this thread first popped up, I felt it was important that the public see a side to our jobs that is out there. And we have a right to "refuse service" for certain reasons.....for me it is SAFETY and HEALTH (mental and physical).

I think if this went political or religious where someone was refusing to service a home/property because the tenants were open gay, or there was a TRUMP or BIDEN sign on the lawn, there was Muslim/Christian tenants renting a property...then that would be much different. There are the stereotypes we have to be careful of, such as Asian restaurants, Arab convience stores, their culture of bartering, is often misunderstood but infamous in all trades.

I think we are all sharing pretty valid reasons why we decided to refuse service to a customer. And the public should see that.

What are your thoughts on this GA? Not arguing, just my opinion.

[ga-hvac-tech]

IMO, I do not think so, if someone searched the Googler for, "why did my hvac technician run from my home?" and they were directed to this thread.....well they can take a sobering look in the mirror and have some self reflection on the hell we all must endure sometimes to feed our families.

I usually stay out of talking about personal experiences in the public arena, but when this thread first popped up, I felt it was important that the public see a side to our jobs that is out there. And we have a right to "refuse service" for certain reasons.....for me it is SAFETY and HEALTH (mental and physical).

I think if this went political or religious where someone was refusing to service a home/property because the tenants were open gay, or there was a TRUMP or BIDEN sign on the lawn, there was Muslim/Christian tenants renting a property...then that would be much different. There are the stereotypes we have to be careful of, such as Asian restaurants, Arab convience stores, their culture of bartering, is often misunderstood but infamous in all trades.

I think we are all sharing pretty valid reasons why we decided to refuse service to a customer. And the public should see that.

What are your thoughts on this GA? Not arguing, just my opinion.

I see what you are saying... it makes sense...

My thoughts were; if the thread was in the PRO are (not public)...
Folks may tell more stores.

But then... I am a privacy nut... go figure...

[rkevins]

years ago I did appliance work, we had one customer that had been banned from every appliance store in town and was told we would never do business with him again. He needed mental help but would not get it, he had written his own version of the Bible, lived in a rundown trailer park, finely he called in a bomb threat to a local nuclear power plant and the cops showed up quick and he was sent to the state hospital. About a year latter he had straightened up or we thought he had, sold him a refrigerator he called a week latter and it wasn't working, I go over and before I get out of the truck he was cussing like a drunk sailor, I told him to stop or I would leave and call every repair shop in town and tell them not to come over there. He stopped and told me the only thing in his trailer that worked was the AC, no lights or anything 110, So I show him there was no neutral and he needed to call the power company. I went back to the shop and told the boss I would walk out before going back to that guy's house again, I go in one morning and there was a service ticket on the board for him, I put my keys on the desk reset and walked out to my personal truck to leave. The store manager drove up as I was leaving, he apologized it was a joke, the man had been found dead electrocuted in the main power box.

[BBeerme]

Well, no more mental problems!

years ago I did appliance work, we had one customer that had been banned from every appliance store in town and was told we would never do business with him again. He needed mental help but would not get it, he had written his own version of the Bible, lived in a rundown trailer park, finely he called in a bomb threat to a local nuclear power plant and the cops showed up quick and he was sent to the state hospital. About a year latter he had straightened up or we thought he had, sold him a refrigerator he called a week latter and it wasn't working, I go over and before I get out of the truck he was cussing like a drunk sailor, I told him to stop or I would leave and call every repair shop in town and tell them not to come over there. He stopped and told me the only thing in his trailer that worked was the AC, no lights or anything 110, So I show him there was no neutral and he needed to call the power company. I went back to the shop and told the boss I would walk out before going back to that guy's house again, I go in one morning and there was a service ticket on the board for him, I put my keys on the desk reset and walked out to my personal truck to leave. The store manager drove up as I was leaving, he apologized it was a joke, the man had been found dead electrocuted in the main power box.