Live and Learn

Did you ever hire a contractor and it turned into a nightmare? Me too.

I hate to admit it but I actually have done it three times in my life before I got smart and really starting looking into who I was hiring.

I’m a homeowner and I’m a cleaning contractor and yes I should know better but on those three occasions I was in a hurry to get a project done and went with my gut feeling instead of researching the contractor before I hired him.

On one occasion it came down to price and I got what I paid for and really got burned.

I’ve since come up with a way to make great hires. It takes a little effort but it’s worth it in the end.

Just follow these simple steps and you’ll be headache free and a happy camper.

• Forget about money. You get what you pay for, every time.
• Get their insurance certificate for workers compensation and liability directly from their insurance agent. They can fake a certificate really easy so the only place you can be sure the certificate is real is from their agent. Make sure the certificate says they have workers compensation. If they don’t and if someone gets injured they will be suing you and your homeowners insurance.
• Ask for references of the last three jobs they did. If they do good work they will have that information readily available and be happy to give it to you.
• Read their Google reviews, especially lower rated ones to see how they respond to problems. If they don’t have any recent reviews and they are all several months old that should raise a warning flag.
• Go to the New Jersey Department of Consumer Affairs website and look up the contractor.
• Go on Facebook and look up the contractor s business and personal profiles. You can tell a lot about a person by what the post on social media.
• Google the contractor business and their name like Joe White and see what comes up.

In this modern day world of instant information all these steps will take under an hour and will really help you make an informed decision and make you more likely to hire a true professional who will do the job right the first time and hassle free.