Services in Tenerife can be hard to find. Well they used to be, until the team at bptenerife.com appeared. There was a time on the island that you had to rely on the local barman to source a number for you. If you needed a plumber, jack the lad would turn up and rip half your bath out to replace a washer on your tap. I have had so many builders round at my house to do work, that turned out to be unskilled laborers, electricians that were qualified for fitting plugs. Bearing in mind its only a two plug here, three pin plugs would defiantly stump them. It has always puzzled me why the English market are the ones always trying to scam you? the Spanish just go about their daily business, and offer realistic quotes with jobs being completed to high standards. Thats not to say that all the English speaking work force are bad, just the ones you get off the barman. Everyone here is on commission, commission for houses, cars, what ever can be sold you can get commision for. Thats another scary area, never ask someone for a number, he will find it, but not until he's agreed his commision terms with the tradesman, or retailer. It makes you feel at times like shouting "Look, I haven't got any money left, leave me alone!"
That was before bptenerife.com arrived, now thanks to them, you can find a number for every service, every product on the island. But we still can not trust everyone simply because they advertise, lets face it, if you offer bptenerife the money, they will advertise your business. So its important we get some sort of references from people before we commit to exchanging cash. You can ask for some testimonials, or see some pictures of other work they have done. One thing I found was to trust your instincts, living in the jungle makes our senses more aware. If the person who is knocking our door looks shady, he probably is, and is related to the local bar man you originally asked. Who in fact isn't a barman and has never pulled a pint, but is looking after the local bar on behalf of his friend. It never seems to amaze me any more, you may have the sun, but it comes hand in hand with burning your fingers.
it takes me back to the time I had builders around my house, they had brought along on old guy, who apparently was the painter? but I was actually having some paving laid? It turned out he was also a dab hand at replacing coping stones on my wall, Ok I thought, there the builders.
I went upto the bathroom that over looks my drive, and looked out the window to watch the "Painter" drag one of my garden chairs through my garden on to my drive and place it were he had a view. He then lit up a cigarette, casually pulled off one of my loose coping stones, took a seat and begin to pick off the compo, with his fingers. I wonder if he learned all of this on his city and guilds diploma course? oh and then not forgetting where he threw his cigarette! and ground it into my drive. As you can imagine, he was not sitting on my chair for very long, in fact he was not sitting on my drive but at the end of it waiting to be collected along with his tools. This type of tradesman ship is not unusual. Whilst I was watching him, I didn't realize the "paver" was laying my floor tiles on a carefully leveled plastic board to save time on digging out the ground, its lasted quite well!
The strange thing I find about this is when they expect you to pay them, and they look at you with cap in hand telling you the job is complete. Is this just Tenerife though, or do we tend to blame it on Tenerife, but really its the same as the UK, now there's a thought.
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