French workmen

October 6, 2014

     Autumn winds have made themselves known today in Caunes: there is no denying it: or the fact that  Wednesday, October 24 will be my last day for the year at 10, porte de Narbonne.

     I thought I had arranged matters so there would be no rush to complete tasks.  That is true, for the most part, but there are a few items I was unaware of that need to be resolved before I depart:

     1. the electric and water meters need to be read during the month my contract assigns a meter reader to me, November, when I will be gone;

     2. the shutters in the house need to be leveled, so that they are flush with the exterior walls when they close, a precaution against robbery, as well as away of extending their life.  The front door, whose wood has swelled, making it an athletic event to open and close, needs to have its supports readjusted.

     3. SFR, another phone, internet and television service, has to replace Orange, which is more expensive.

     4. The old Butagaz butane canister that supplies gas for the stove top needs to sealed off and the new one -with a new feeding tube-- installed.

     5. The house needs to be cleaned from top to bottom, linens placed in giant garbage bags with lavender sachets inside to keep away bugs and the damp.

     As to #1, I have been told that it is possible to paste a piece of paper behind a shutter where a meter reader will find it and take the figure I write down from the meters the day I leave.

     As to #2, Lars Leveling, a Frenchman of Dutch origin has been here today to readjust the shutters, drilling into place crossbars that right them.

     As to #3 and #4, Lars will try to help me when he comes back Friday to complete the work on the shutters.

     As to #5, Nicole, Lars' German fiancée will come by next Monday and on October 24.

     Nicole and Lars met in Australia and decided to move to Caunes together.  They have two young children and will be married next May.  Lars is much in demand because his work is excellent and his price reasonable.  He is thirty-seven, strapping and full of energy.  He charges the cost of materials plus 15 Euros per hour, which includes paying him for a half-hour lunch and the time it takes him to put his tools back in his truck.  He works steadily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and he is punctual.

     I thought that when we agreed on the jobs to be done before I left it might be the beginning of --as Claude Rains said to Humphrey Bogart in the last scene in Casablanca-- "a beautiful relationship".  I had visions of myself going away, staying in touch with Lars via e-mail to approve plans and wire funds, returning to find that the top floor of the house was fully renovated with a new bedroom, full bath and even a sauna.  Lars put in a similar set-up in the house of a couple who live on Caunes' main street some years ago, so I know he has the ability to, at least, supervise the laying down of a concrete floor and tile on top, if not plumbing.

     But he's not interested: he's full up until next summer and he thinks a cement company could do the job more easily.  He could lay the tile, but that will not be done until after the tile is laid on top of the concrete --something else he would rather not do, because I've steel beams holding up the roof foundation.  He'd be happy to do the walls, to consult on the bathroom fixtures and install them.  Pressing him for names that could do the other tasks, he just told me there were many, although those who do very good work were hard to find.

     "I have a good reputation in the village, and I want to keep it, I want my clients to be happy."

     --Even if that means turning down jobs, it seems.

     Yet I have to admire Lars' perspicacity: in a small area like Caunes and the surrounding villages, opinions about workmen's quality of work are the coin of the realm, freely exchanged and of different value.  Many men work in the building trades, the competition is intense and the make-up of work teams is fluid, with carpenters, plumbers, plasterers and electricians jumping from one to another.  There are no residential general contractors: people who are aware of all aspects of a job and coordinate the sequence that has to be followed to execute a renovation project in line with the client's wishes, work in the commercial sector.  On the residential side, there are plumbers who manage plumbers, painters who manage painters, electricians who manage electricians, but no one with the expertise --and the inclination to manage all aspects of a job.  I think Lars has the ability to do so, but he doesn't wish to. Working as he does, independently for the most part, usually the last workman to come on to a job, he doesn't butt heads with workmen from other trades. --That also helps his reputation with clients, who engage him for small jobs and large before and after a large project is completed --more or less to a client's satisfaction.

     I should also be grateful to Lars for not leading me on.  Anyone who ever read Peter Mayle's A Year In Provence remembers the impenetrability of the masons, their unreliability and the particular frustration Mayle felt over having a circular stone table set up in the garden.  Lars has given me reason to think about whether I really need to put a second full bath in this house, given the undoubted aggravation that juggling several workmen --each with a different way of working-- would cause.

     I can live without the extra bathroom for the foreseeable future, I have learned.