Rat and Mouse Proofing - (Grey Handyman London)

Job described as 'Change washing machine connection'; arrived at the customer's address, a converted church hall; customer took me through a labrynth to reach his laundry room, on the way describing how his cleaner thought rats had chewed through the outlet duct from the tumble drier. As we neared the laundry room the smell started to hit us - seemed like an animal smell, and very strong.

In the laundry room, the tumble drier was stacked on a washing machine and the extract duct - a flexible plastic pipe - led through a couple of partitions then along a one of three shelves about 3 metres long. The shelves were stacked mainly with laundered towels and sheets, all in plastic bags. On the duct shelf some of these packages showed signs of rat droppings and damage caused by rats chewing them.

The customer said that he wanted the duct replaced with a metal one, and the area cleared out.So I started moving the laundry packages off the shelves and separating them into undamaged and damaged piles. Then - yuch, I found the body! A large rat, well decomposed, with maggots crawling over it, laying on the severely damaged duct under laundry packages.

It had obviously been living in the area (I later found the nest in the wall cavity where the duct led outside) and had died from the poison put down by the customer. The rat's body joined the pile of damaged (and badly contaminated) laundry in a couple of rubbish bags which ended up in the bins outside. The customer's vacuum cleaner then had a work out cleaning the remaining debris from the shelves, wall cavity and floor, before a new aluminium duct could be installed.

End result - cleaned out laundry area; new rat-proof duct but...still a very strong smell! I wonder how long it will take to disperse?

Handyman Services, The Credit Crunch & Falling Property Prices

It seems that you can’t watch the news or open a paper these days without hearing about the ‘credit crunch’ and the related fall in property prices. But are households feeling the pinch just yet or is it only mortgage lenders and estate agents who are struggling, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7385195.stm?

There is no doubt that when property prices are on the rise, homeowners, landlords and developers are all too happy to pour money into their properties. Most companies that are in the property or property services industry have benefitted from a decade of rising property prices and a long period of economic growth. But now that the boom appears to be turning to gloom will London homeowners begin to tighten their belts? Will they still be willing to fork out the best part of £100 an hour for a London plumber or electrician?

Well the answer is that they don’t have to and haven’t had to for about the last seven years. What a lot of people are starting to realise is that they don’t need a specialist plumber to fix a dripping tap or replace a toilet flush, it doesn’t take a qualified electrician to replace a light switch or ceiling rose, why get a carpenter to plane a door? All these small jobs, the kind a good DIY-er would tackle themselves, can be done by a specialist handyman. There are a number of London handyman services, most charge about half the hourly rate of a specialist tradesman.

The only worry about getting a handyman to do the work that is typically associated with specialist trades is over quality of workmanship. There are a lot of handyman services out there, but very few can offer consistently good handymen. Silver Saints only employ handymen with a professional background with a minimum of three years experience within the handyman industry. This means that they can guarantee you will get a handyman that is polite, communicates well and has a wide range of experience and knowledge every time you book.

So as the upside of owning a property becomes less of a sure thing, I think a lot of people are going to start realising the value of handyman services over specialist tradesmen to get all those small plumbing, electrical and carpentry jobs done.

Silver Saints - The Beginning

After 6 years of preparation and training and 8 weeks of development, Silver Saints is about to go live. All the support I've received over the last few weeks from my friends and family has been very flattering and I thank them all.

When I started working for Redjacks six years ago, we wanted to revolutionise the handyman industry by offering a flexible, cost effective and friendly service. As we grew bigger these goals started to be pushed aside. When the company, now trading as 0800handyman, was sold in December 2007 these goals seemed to be forgotten by its new owners. They saw value in the brand that we had created and it seems that their goal was now to use that brand to franchise the service to other major UK cities.

As General Manager of 0800handyman when it was sold, I was forced to reflect on my current position in the Company and what direction I wanted the Company move in. It was clear that my vision and that of the new owners were not even close to being aligned. Thus I decided to leave 0800handyman and start my own London Handyman Service.

Learning from all the mistakes we had made in starting and growing Redjacks. I have set up a new handyman service called Silver Saints whose operations and policies are based on our original goals of providing flexible, cost effective and friendly service.

As with any small and growing company, we rely heavily on referrals and word of mouth. So please do tell all your friends and colleagues about our service, become our facebook friend and read our company blog regularly (readers are encouraged to leave comments on the blog)

Trading begins on 5th May 2008!

Seamus

Managing Director