B&Q bathroom installation update

B&Q are such tossers. I’ve never met such a bunch of incompetent fuckwits. Here’s a run down of the events so far.

Day 1
Bathroom installation man (I’ll call him Danny. Because that’s his name) turns up as arranged (although it is the second arrangement as they were supposed to have been here three weeks previous) and says today’s work is going to entail stripping everything out but leaving me with a working toilet. He also says he needs to get Big Al round soon to get rid of the rubbish. I get home and find he’s true to his word and didn’t slope off after removing a couple of tiles and relieving me of my stock of PG Tips. I have a room with a toilet, no sink, no bath, no floor and no tiles. I am impressed by Danny’s work and he’s even hoovered the stairs for me and everything’s nice and tidy and Big Al has indeed been round and got rid of the old suite and tiles. I think to myself, hurrah, everything’s going to be ok after all. Although he did leave a teabag in the sink. Why can’t people put teabags in the bin?

Before and after pics of the toilet:

Day 2
Danny’s here bright and early at 8ish. He asks to use my phone to get his office to ring him back on his mobile.  He says the sink’s going in today which is going to take a long time as the pipes have to go in the wall. He says a carpenter may be here too as some of my floorboards are horrendous and need replacing. I get home and half the sink is on the wall and there is new boarding on the floor where the bath will go. Also he’s cleaned the kitchen and tidied up the front room. That was nice of him. All that housework must have made him thirsty though as today there were 3 teabags in the sink.

Before and after pics of the sink:

Day 3
Danny’s here bright and early again just after 8 but says he was on the way here when a lorry opened its door and smashed into the side of his van and damaged the door and smashed the window and he has to go back to the yard as the insurance people will want to see the van asap. He uses my phone again to ring his office.  He says the bath was supposed to be going in today but he’ll see if he can send someone else down. Uh oh. Doesn’t sound good. But I get home and he has been back as there’s a bath where a big bath sized gap was but, uh oh, there’s a note from him saying can I wait for him in the morning as there’s a couple of props [sic] with the bath and taps. Waa!!

Before and after pic of bath:

Day 4
Danny’s here bright and early at 7:45. He says the taps don’t fit the bath. He’s showing me something under the bath and saying something about how any idiot could see that they won’t fit, but what with me not being a plumber, I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. He said I could choose some different taps. I said I liked the taps I’ve got so he said I could choose a new bath. I said he could go to B&Q and just get me any old bath as long as it’s plain and white. He said ok then, he’ll do that and off he went. So I went off to work thinking that I was going to come home to a new bath, complete with taps. Duh. He hasn’t been back.

Day 5
Danny’s not here bright and early today. He’s not even here by the time I go to work. I get a call in the afternoon from B&Q to say that the fitters were wondering when I was going to go and collect a new bath. I said I don’t even drive, I can’t go and get a bath and anyway, Danny said he was going to go and get a bath for me. B&Q said can I tell the fitters that. I ring the fitters and speak to the old dragon who answers the phone there. She says that Danny didn’t say that and they don’t go round choosing baths for people in case they don’t like what they’ve chosen. I said I don’t mind what bath I get, I just want a bath and can they get one for me. She said no. I said I can’t choose a bath. I said how will I know if the taps will fit a bath I choose, I’m not a plumber. Dragon lady just kept saying blah blah blah, we don’t choose baths, Danny’s working up here now, blah blah blah. I ring B&Q and say Dragon Lady says they won’t get me a bath, can you choose a bath for me and I need it delivered tomorrow, I haven’t had a bath for a week and I want a bath installed asap, my bathroom should be finished by now and I’m getting frustrated by it all. Girl on phone says she’ll speak to the designer and get him to see what baths I can get. Riaz the designer phones me back at 5:15 and says that it’s the pop up waste unit that’s causing the problem and if I get a standard waste unit then the taps will fit. I say can I get one in the Lea Bridge Road store, as I can come tomorrow and pick it up? He says yes, he’ll leave one out for me and he’ll be in the store anyway. Hurrah! I stop being on the verge of tears and go home happy(er). Okay, I went out to the pub happy(er).

Day 6
I go to the Lea Bridge Road B&Q and say to the man on the customer services desk that Riaz was leaving out a bath waste unit for me but I don’t know where to pick it up from. He says to go down to the showroom and see the girl down there and she’ll sort it out for me. I go down and see Maryam and she says Riaz is running a bit late. Riaz was obviously running very late as some people were there waiting for their 12:30 bathroom consultation appointment and it was 1:30. Riaz eventually turns up and sends Maryam off to get me a waste unit. I get my waste unit and say will this fix the problem. She says, well, it might, you can try it. Waa!!!!! That’s not what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear that it was definitely going to solve the problem and I can have my bath installed. I get home and ring the installation service and speak to a rude old dragon and ask her if she can get hold of the fitters to make sure that someone was coming first thing Monday morning. She said she couldn’t because it was a Saturday. I said don’t you have an emergency number or mobile number or something? She said no, I’ll have to ring them Monday morning. I said fuck off you unhelpful old bag and hung up. Actually, I didn’t say that, I just said thank you, bye, then rang again hoping I would get someone more helpful and I did. A nice man called Sam said he’d ring the fitters on their mobile and ring me back. He rang me back almost immediately and said that he got the office answerphone and the mobile was switched off but he’ll leave a voice message and keep trying the mobile for me. I have no doubt that Sam is not spending the entire afternoon trying to get hold of the fitters for me but at least he was more helpful than the unhelpful old bag. Riaz the designer said in the beginning that my bathroom would take two or three days to be done, Danny the plumber said it’d be five days. It’s been five days and all I have at the mo is a toilet, half a sink and a bath with no taps (the words chocolate and teapot spring to mind). There’s plastering, painting, tiling and flooring still to be done. Grr.