Talking Property: Tempted by home improvements? Well prepare yourself for the culture shock of having the builders around, writes Michael Parsons
Feeling flush as your SSIA matures and fancy having a new bathroom installed? The showrooms are full of exquisite tubs and tiles but where to find a builder?
Your children have been complaining that the bathroom is "so last century". You think it is perfectly adequate - though, admittedly, the temperature control on the old Triton is rather unpredictable. But sure what harm did a bit of cold water ever do anybody?
However, the papers and magazines are full of "inspirational bathrooms" and you are gradually seduced by the prospect of soaking away the day's aches and pains in a Villeroy & Boch Squaro bathtub lit by Jo Malone "Nectarine Blossom & Honey" scented candles. Or tempted by the vision of a gleaming, marble-tiled wet-room with a shower head big enough to irrigate Chad.
You are not alone. Yellow skips, resembling D-Day landing craft, invade streets and roads across Ireland as perfectly good houses are pulled asunder.
It's a terrible waste, you think, but your SSIA is maturing and maybe it would be all right to treat yourself. Just this once.
When you tell friends that you're going to "get a little job done on the bathroom" they look at you with bewilderment and pity and ask: "Have you got a builder?"
Now finding someone that way inclined who isn't up to his eyes, booked more solidly than Brian Kennedy, or of the "to be honest with you, a job like that wouldn't be worth my while" school of tradesmen is as difficult as hiring an experienced cocktail barman in Kandahar.
"Oh, yes," you reply smugly, "he's going to start next week." You try to sound blasé but thank your lucky stars that you spoke to that very nice woman from Cabinteely at the bridge club who gave you the prized phone number and said he'd done a "marvellous" job for her.
On Monday morning a white van arrives outside your house. It has the words "O'Toole Building Solutions" and a "mobile" number stencilled on the side. Behind a mud-spattered windscreen you glimpse a folded newspaper with the headline "Jordan's Fury" and, briefly, contemplate small-talk about Middle East politics.
Alas, what you haven't seen is the story beneath - "Guess who was a right cow to me at Elton's?" - accompanied by a picture of a semi-clad "glamour model" who shares her name with the Hashemite Kingdom. You will become rather familiar with tabloid gossip in the days ahead.
"Howya" says a cheeky chappie called Damien with the slogan "Ireland Forever" above a tricolour tattooed on his forearm, wearing a "Man U top" and what appears to be a gold bicycle chain wrapped like a noose about a very thick neck. He's sizing you up and half-way up the stairs says: "I'd say this place is worth a few bob, what?" having noticed your plump Irish Times property supplement on the hall table.
He thinks you're loaded and don't have a clue about the price of plumbing fixtures. He's right on the last point. He introduces a tall blond assistant called Jay (whom you later discover is Jaroslaw, who's from Wroclaw and has an MA in linguistics).
Before you can ask about the works schedule your bathroom is covered in paint-stained "dust-sheets" and "Damo" has ripped your sink off the wall. His reaction to the fretwork of 1950s piping thus revealed causes his face to crumple into the kind of disgusted frown which President Bush adopts while perusing telegrams from the US Embassy in Paris. A sudden geyser of rust-coloured water elicits a string of profanities and you note, with dismay, that your best white bath towel is used to staunch the leak. He is about to make the first of many disappearances.
When a builder says he's "off for a pipe" he's not nipping out for a meerschaum of old St Bruno but rather hopping into his Hiace and roaring off down to the builders' providers. The place is teeming with big burly fellows called Vinny or Pat or Leo and, er, Algimantas, Marek and Krzysstof. They wear a uniform of yellow fluorescent jacket, "tracky bottoms" and tan boots with steel toe-caps. And look like a group of likely lads on their way to a gay disco - though you mightn't want to say that out loud.
After shopping, it's time for refuelling at Statoil where the best-selling item is the "breakfast roll" - not of the dainty nancy-boy Continental petit-déjeuner variety - but a wedge of dough as long and fat as a Dachshund crammed full of rasher, sausage and black-pudding. Behind the counter, Agnieszka, the cheerful assistant asks customers: "Do you want some sauce on that?"
You are expected to put the kettle on when they return. Gosh, is it that time already? They're as fussy about their tea as Fortnum & Mason buyers are builders.
And, goodness, don't they use a lot of sugar! Don't skimp on the biscuits. Builders can sniff out a Lidl "counterfeit" fig roll the way a French perfumier can detect a hint of bergamot at 50 yards. Since you don't want them to think you're "stingy", it is advisable to have a stock of chunky Kit Kat and Taxi bars.
By 3pm you are alarmed to discover that they are "tidying up". Apparently, they "have to let that stuff dry off". Nothing much seems to have been done and you note, with pursed lips, that the mirror - which you had hoped to retain - is badly cracked. They'll be back "first thing" tomorrow and the job "should be finished in about 10 days".
Damo, stuck in traffic on the M50, fields a call from a very irate lady in Cabinteely who is most upset that "a leak behind the bath is pouring into the sittingroom". He promises to be there "first thing in the morning". But Jaroslaw wonders how they can be in two places at once.
