I have to go to work and the builder will will be left by himself. I am freaking over this!! We really have not much of value but would you guys leave them in the house alone??

I do it all the time.

I hate being in the house with them tbh.

Personally, NO..

I don't like any strangers in my home if I'm not there, but that's just me.

I feel the same as you, We have a tiler here on jis forth day, and did leave for a few hours on the weekend, just because 5 people can't be confined to a lounge room for too long! My husband is not as worried as I have been! I just make sure they don't have keys. Be there to open up and lock up and tell them you will be in and out all day. Well that's what I say, keep them on edge a bit.

I did and the guy I contracted to do the work was as honest as the day is long. But then I left one of his sub-contractors - a tiler - alone and he drank beer from our fridge and left the bottles hidden in the flowerbeds. And he made off with some random stuff from our garage - baby car seat, body-board and can of petrol for the lawn mower. We have no way of proving it was him. It's made me wary now.

Honestly my DH is a plumber and he hates being left alone in a house for this reason, being blamed for taking stuff he hasn't etc. Though he does do it if need be, he certainly doesn't feel comfortable. The tradie is just doing his job and trying to build his business, chances are he wouldn't risk his reputation and potential earnings by stealing a few little things from you. And the way I see it potential earnings is waaaay much more than what he could case from your house.

we prefer not, but if it's a long job and we've spent some time with them then we will leave for a time...

I actually don't like them coming when it's just me at home by myself either...

Never ever. We have lots of stuff easy to lift. And not only that, they could let someone in that spins them a story.

My DH doesn't even trust our cleaner of 3 years to be left alone in the house / with keys.

I do, I'm not staying home and listening to an angle grinder.
had a whole kitchen installed while we were on holiday!

I've never had a problem.

Thanks! This makes alot of sense of course! I do feel better now

i would get someone to come stay if u can, i wouldnt trust them. expecially if u are paying by the hr!

It makes no sense to for them to steal or mess your house up. You'll never use them again and possibly take them to court.

But I always make sure I hire licenced tradespeople so I can track them down later if need be.

We are soon to be getting a deck and pergola done.

Even though its outside I assume Im going to have to leave the back door open for them so they can use the amenities, etc.

I work fulltime and DH works away so I have no choice but to leave them if I want the work done.

I also dont like being in the house alone (or with the kids) when they are around. I dont think they would do anything but I feel like they think Im examining what they do. IYKWIM?

Do you need to do that? I would assume that they can do No.1's against a tree (unless its a female tradie) and if its a No.2's they can go to the nearest servo or maccas.

When we had our extension done we quite often left the builder and his subbies here alone. The builder didn't have a key, but they had access to our ensuite via the external door - the internal door to the house was locked on our side IYKWIM.

The only problems we had were when the builder wasn't there and his subbies were left alone - the tiler did a CRAP job of our bathroom, and missed a whole box of tiles for the laundry, so under the benches is not tiled, but tilers cement. The plasterer left plaster footprints in our bedroom - 4 rooms away from where he was plastering. He actually tried to deny it at first and then blamed it on his apprentice who was looking for the bathroom...

I wouldn't leave a tradie in my house unless I trusted him fully - ie. trusted our builder, his subbies were another thing!

You don't want them peeing in your backyard, so, yes, you do need to leave access to the bathroom...

My husband is a builder and has been doing renovations for a lady, admittedly she knows us so has had no qualm about leaving him there alone, he vac'd up after himself so she was very impressed

We live in a small rural town so its' a case of everybody knows each other so I wouldn't have a problem with a local tradie being in our home doing the job he's meant to be doing. Likewise if there was a problem with the quality of the work, he'd be asked to come and rectify it too.

I haven't had a problem with it during all our renovations.

I did see a program about house thieves a while ago and how to protect yourself. They said they often "bought" details off tradies, especially things like wedding/birthday party invitations that are often on the fridge.

the tradies wouldn't actually break in themselves, but they would tell these guys when the family was going to be out of the house.

Sounds like it would be rare, but it makes a bit of sense.

I hate doing this although I have had to before. I remember atv show where they were evaluating the performance of different tradies (kind of like a better homes and garden). They had hidden cameras and it was unreal the number of times the guys went through knickers drawer or smelt dirty knickers in the laundry. One even peed into the laundry tub for some unknown reason. Most of these things you would not really notice so I prefer if I can to be present.

Yes I would and have recently. We had someone in to sand and varnish our wooden floors. We moved out for a week and the tradesman had our keys. I am not going to lose sleep at night worrying that someone is going to pee in my laundry trough.

Only if I knew the tradie.

DP is an electrician, so I'd trust him. Obviously.

The house I lived in previously, however, was brand-new when we rented it. The day we moved in, there was no oven. Why? Because builders had stolen it.

According the real estate agent, it happens quite often in new estates... something to do with the same builders working on all houses and the locks all being the same (until the first time you use the proper key, and then it only allows that key... somehow???)... they do it quite often.

DP says he's witnessed it a few times too... when he's wired up new places, he's seen the builders and other tradies flog heaps of new stuff.

I have, I do and I will.

I am married to a Tradie though, so the amount of time necessary to have one in the house without us being here is minimal as we tend to know one of everything - plumber, chippy, painter etc.

But in the past I have, and I would again.

It is not the tradie that I hired that I don't like leaving it is his "staff". Since they are often fly by night there one week and gone the next they always seem to let the bloke who is trying to build a business down.

When we had the tiles put on the second floor of our renovation I found half of DH's t-shirts from the clothes line upstairs worn and torn at the end of the day.

Last year I took the boys away so that the floors could be laid and polished (with DH home to supervise) and when I came back I was disgusted that there was floorboard glue in the bathroom sink and the laundry sink. It was also on the washing machine and they had even smashed the corner of the (brand new) washing machine leaving three pieces of plastic on the floor.

What upset me most is that they were not laying or polishing anywhere near any of these rooms. So what the Bleep were they doing in them. There were also dusty footprints in the main bedroom upstairs ( not DHs size) and there was no reason for them being up there.

I will never leave tradies alone again unless I know all of them extremely well

We had our old aluminium windows replaced with new uPVC double glazed ones last year and I had to leave our house unlocked as the job took several days. I work 4 days a week and DH works away. It's not ideal but fortunately we have not struck any problems!

Unless you can have someone in the house 8hrs/day, every weekday, how does one make sure someone is home? I'm guessing most males work out of the home so is the female staying home every weekday for weeks and weeks on end just to make sure the tradesman is not left alone in the house .
When we did renovations which took about 2months, they were left alone in our house every weekday as I personally like to do stuff outside the house at least 4 out of the 5 weekdays. There was no way on earth DH and I were staying home every day ! Maybe we're lucky we have never encountered any problems at all.

Dp is a electrician and owns his on business, I just asked him if he is ever left alone and he said all the time. He said he would never even think of taking something.

But, when we have had tradies here that we dont know one of us are ALWAYS here, he said he knows to many stories on what some guys do.


Same here, isnt it great!!!


DP never ever uses the bathrooms. He will always hold it or go to the nearest toilets, he has come home before, lol.

No way.

Funny this post came up cause our builder started back today doing our extension/renovation and will be here till about June. He was here in January but we were away. Anyway I took my son to swimming lessons today and asked him what he wanted me to do and he said it was fine to leave the back door unlocked as they could use the loo and stuff.........fine. Except i come home and they have left the kitchen door open (which is now the back door) and the house is full of blow flies Not happy Jan, theres enough inside still buzzing around to be really annoying. Anyway I trust the builder and I need to build a good relationship for this long together so what can you do.

My DP is also a tradie aka mr-fix-it on weekends

We had all the floorboards in our house replaced before christmas due to a flooding incident with the washing machine so our 'floating floorboards' were really floating . I was extremely hesitant to leave 6 tradies here alone for a whole day. As it turned out, the day they booked us in (after problems with the slab not being dry enough) was the day we were out all day at Hi-5 concert.

We shut everything away into the bedrooms, and DP set 'boobie traps' for things so we'd know if they touched stuff.

I was pleased and relieved to come home with our LCD tv still sitting on the bench in one piece with newly laid floorboards all done in less than 5hrs (4bed/2living area house so they were VERY quick!) Can't fault them!

Yes, there are shonky people out there but a majority of the time it's perfectly safe and as usual the 'bad eggs' wreck the reputation for the majority that are honest and reliable.

I have no problem with it, we went away for 2 weeks to WA and left a key with the painter, another key with the builders doing our bathroom and they let in a guy who was fitting/refitting our fireplaces.

Had no problems at all, it was all clean and tidy when we can home (and everything was still there) and I have/had no problem recommending any of them to other people.

its better if you get a builder with a good rep. But thre reality is that you cant trust everyone. my brother worked with his bosses son who was crooked a coathanger and stole garden stuff, and the light bulbs from the hotels bathrooms. god knows why he did that. i find the best tradies are in my family or from my mums church. They are all as honest as Joab