This was originally posted on 1/14/23 on Tumblr, after I had to do some clean up work after a contractor I hired messed up my home to a shocking degree. I had hired the contractor because I have a degenerative condition and can’t really do it easily anymore due to this.
I got the sink seated on my counters and sealed with silicone despite the contractor’s assurances that nobody seals their kitchen sink anymore. Each job was one panic attack at a time. Then I realized the plumbing under the sink was insane. Like the Three Stooges image above, every time I tried to tighten something, another part leaked or fell apart.
So my wife hired Beacon Plumbing and TL/DR, $722 later, we are good.
The longer version is my wife called and set it up, and the plumber, Jimmy, was here within 1.5 hours, but I didn’t actually correct him when he assumed I was my wife. She has a masculine voice and a gender-neutral name. She is also visibly transgender and hid in the back room because she was in her PJs and had no makeup on and didn’t want to shave and look cis presentable to a stranger.
While I was happy to roll the dice with the plumber and hope he wasn’t a bigot, my wife was just not up to it after dealing with the contractor. This is what happens when you are visibly trans. You just don’t know how someone will react to you and if it’s something super important? You might opt to obscure the fact that you are trans.
Jimmy was a conservative, but “Not like those crazy bastards!” per our conversations, but my wife just didn’t want to chance it. After the contractor and the issue with him? She was exhausted. I just don’t blame her, so I put on my cis-passing mannerisms, and acted as straight as I could. I think Jimmy would have been fine, but we were exhausted.
Jimmy was a plumbing fucking hero, though. I will definitely call him for anything else. I can’t believe how great he was.
Of note, he took pictures of the plumbing and posted them to a boomer-aged FB group for plumbing fails. In the 1.5 hours he was here fixing things, it kept binging on his phone with snarky boomer-aged plumbers just taking the piss out of how bad it was. Apparently, it was quite popular.
I have a picture diagram:
Basically, it was so bad it never would have drained properly and probably fallen apart with use. Jimmy tightened everything up and fixed things so they would work. As a bonus, my drains now actually drain instead of slowly swirling forever like the contractor left them. Nice.
I paid the man $722 to fix this. I already paid the nightmare contractor $5000ish. This is so far over our budget that it’s insane. Thank god we have a VISA. Otherwise, this would have been critically fucked for our house.
Another side effect of all this is I am sore as fuck. The reason I hired someone was that I am not physically able to do this shit anymore. I have a disability. Yet, there I was, panic-fixing the sink, reinstalling the dishwasher, and sanding and fixing the counter joins as best as could be done. It’s just nuts. I think I still have to shim the counter where the sink is, so there is no flex. Like WTF?! This contractor was a moron and I can’t believe he thinks this is okay.
I can’t help but wonder if my contractor felt fucking us over was permissible becuase we are trans and queer? I mean, he’s a grifter, that is for sure, but we presented as a trans couple, and while not actively an issue, he was shocked to find out I was trans. I think he screws everyone over, but again, in this political climate? It’s hard not to wonder.
He also would not acknowledge or speak to my wife, and we could not tell if he was a sexist jackass or if it was because she was trans. Being visibly transgender means that it is always a question for her.
My wife heard of a local contractor company that was run by lesbians. First, lesbians get shit done in the world on an epic level, and second, we’d feel more comfortable working with someone from our own LGBTQ community. It would feel safer.
We will look into that in the future so my wife doesn’t feel like she will have to hide in a back room while I pretend to be her.
Still, Jimmy was a goddammed hero.
I don’t think we will ever even find this asshole to recoup losses, but since I found him on Angi’s List, I will call them and let them know what happened. I can at least put an effort into preventing him from fleecing someone else off there.
Garden Rat 