Late one Friday afternoon, Joyce Patterson discovered a leaky pipe in her laundry room.
“Water was spilling into my sump pump from an overhead pipe,” said Patterson, who has lived in the same home in Woodridge since 1964. “This wasn’t an emergency. I could tell it was a simple leak.”
And although Patterson knew of two plumbers she previously had used on other projects, she didn’t want to pay their prices for such an easy repair.
“My first instinct was to go to the Yellow Pages and look for a handyman,” said Patterson. “I began calling everyone listed in Woodridge, thinking if they were closer to home, they’d be more reliable. I guess I thought they’d want to respond to a Woodridge resident to keep up their reputation in the community.
“But when an hour went by and no one called me back, I started working my way out from Woodridge. I called handymen listed in Lisle and then in Naperville.”
Patterson called about 10 handymen that Friday afternoon and only one called her back the same day.
“Another called me at 8 o’clock the next Monday evening, but most didn’t call back at all,” said Patterson. “That really surprised me, even though I knew Friday afternoon was kind of late to be calling people. I thought sure most would call by Monday morning.”
Patterson says that in retrospect, she’s satisfied that combing the Yellow Pages for a handyman was the best way to find one, even if only one called her back the same day. “It’s hard to say what way is best in trying to find a reliable handyman,” said Patterson. “I didn’t have an emergency but I did have to get the leak repaired. You do what you have to do.”
Several residents in the Chicago area say that finding a reliable handyman requires a certain amount of perseverance. More than one person said that the Yellow Pages is a good starting point, but to call more than one handyman at a time, because Patterson’s experience isn’t unusual. Some handymen call back the same day, or the following day, and some don’t call back at all.
“I think there are a lot of guys who do stuff on the side when it’s convenient for them,” says Bruce Hilton of Hilton’s Handyman in Naperville. “But can they come when it’s convenient for you? Finding someone who’ll come back and stand behind their work is the kind of handyman you need to look for.”
Hilton, the only handyman who returned Patterson’s calls that Friday afternoon, says his phone calls are forwarded to a pager he carries everywhere. “I try to contact people as soon as possible,” says Hilton. “That’s something I’ve heard from a lot of people. They want to talk to me directly, and they want a call back as soon as possible. I can’t say how many times I’ve been told that people don’t want to talk to a machine or a secretary. They want to talk to you, personally.”
But more than one handyman in the Chicago area said that the customer’s expectations are often too high. At a time when most self-employed people have answering machines, expecting a personal telephone greeting each time the phone rings is unrealistic.
“Some people think you’re going to come over in five minutes,” says Chris Erickson of Urban Handyman in Chicago. “And maybe somebody would. But I’m the smallest (business) there is, and I think that if someone can come over in five minutes, they don’t have much going on.”
Like most handymen, Erickson usually handles non-emergency projects, such as light plumbing and electrical work and carpentry. And he says no job is too small, which is how Erickson suggests a client get to know a handyman.
“Start the person off with a list of small jobs and see the results before you have him go on to something bigger,” says Erickson. “I try to give a person a little extra the first couple of times I work for them. Maybe an extra half-hour or so. I figure that extra time will come back tenfold later on, and it usually does.”
Gene Tabour, a semi-retired handyman from Evergreen Park whose business is called Gene the Fixit Machine, recommends that individuals ask for references.
“If a guy’s been in business for a while, there should be no problem getting a couple of phone numbers of satisfied clients,” said Tabour, who says that most of his business comes from his listing in the yellow pages.
Tabour also recommends that people should get to know who the handymen are in their communities.
“Your chamber of commerce might have a list of handymen. That would be a good place to start,” said Tabour. “And if (other handymen) are like me, they’ll get satisfaction in helping people out. If I go to someone’s house because they didn’t know who else to call, I’ll tell them up front whether or not I can fix their problem. If they need an electrician or plumber, I’ll tell them. I try to save people time and money.”
Richard Misch, owner of In-A-Pinch Inc. in Chicago, says he understands how busy homeowners are these days. He not only provides light maintenance and repair, but also runs errands for clients who live within five miles of the Loop area.
“I have about 60 different keys to houses, cars, boats at marinas and storage sheds in the city,” says Misch. “I’m on some people’s access lists to security codes, and I’m constantly moving things back and forth from houses to storage sheds.
“I’ve gotten calls to do the most unusual things. Like the guy who bought a kayak and had no place to put it in his condominium. My job was to come up with a place. I ended up suspending it from his ceiling in the living room with two pulleys.”
In addition to challenging projects, today’s handyman is challenged to keep up with technology, says Paul Jirku of Helping Hands Handy Service in Elk Grove Village.
“There was a time when you could replace someone’s thermostat on their heating and air-conditioning system,” says Jirku. “But now certain systems require a computer to control the heating and cooling. Maintaining that equipment takes someone who specializes in that area. You have to make sure you find someone who can honestly come in and assess a problem. If I can’t figure out what’s wrong, I tell the person they need to get a licensed plumber or electrician, or call the people who installed their furnace, for instance.”
Tom McGehee, of Honey Do This in Aurora, says if a person can finish a job within two to three hours, chances are that’s a job for a handyman rather than a contractor. “If you’re getting into something that will take a week,” says McGehee, “you might want to check out the specific trade involved.”
And Mike Gricus, building commissioner for Bloomingdale, says to never give a percentage of the handyman’s fee up front without getting at least three references. “We get a lot of calls at the office (Village of Bloomingdale) asking for the names of good handymen,” says Gricus. “We never recommend anyone. But we do stress to get those references and call past clients.”
Marc Cohn, of COHN Inc., the Repair Network in Buffalo Grove, says most of his customers don’t have the time to be bothered with unreliable handymen.
“My customers are very busy people and they don’t want their space invaded when they come home and find a note saying the work couldn’t be done for one reason or another,” says Cohn. “That’s why I have 15 full-time employees, who only work for me. If a customer needs tile replaced in her bathroom, I have the workers ready to do that for her.”
Cohn travels throughout the North Shore area, and says he has keys to many of his customers’ houses. “I try to make people happy,” says Cohn. “As a result, many of my customers have become my friends. They genuinely appreciate it when someone is dependable.”
“I think you can sense if someone’s reliable,” says Susie Deetjan of Naperville. “I found one handyman in the classifieds, and although I called a few guys at the same time, this one called right back. Now I use him often. “My husband travels all the time and doesn’t have time to do household things. When I talk with my girlfriends, we crack up because we all have handymen. Our husbands work long hours and if they have free time, they want to spend time with their family, not caulking the bathtub.”
