A Cautionary Tale Involving Floors

Here, children, is a cautionary tale for those considering depending upon Fowles for their carpet or flooring.

This morning I’m sitting in our lovely new house, alone, fuming away. As I have just twittered – there’s no rage like impotent rage. The reason I’m alone is that Rae has taken the kids out for the day. The reason she has taken them out for the day is because they aren’t meant to be around the house today and the reason for that is that our carpet should be being laid today.

You will not the use of the word ‘should’.

Rewind a little, just under two weeks ago when we got the house. Rae spent half a day sitting in here waiting for our hard flooring to arrive. Despite several phone calls it was almost one o’clock before we found out that the layer simply hadn’t turned up and wasn’t answering their phone. I’m still waiting for Fowles to return my calls from that day. So a one day job turned in to me sitting here for two three-quarter days over the weekend to get the floor laid so we could move in.

Then there was the promised phone call. We were promised a phone call on the Tuesday before Christmas to remind us to pay for the carpet (that isn’t being laid today). With packing and Christmas we didn’t realise until Wednesday that the call never came. Never mind, we’ll ring them, as we’d been told they were open every day except for the public holidays. HAH! No answer on Christmas eve, no answer on the 27th, no answer on the 28th, no answer at 8:20am on the 29th – despite the answering machine telling me every time they were open from 8:00am to 5:00pm. We packed up the kids and went in to see what was going on. “Oh, yeah, we took the days off.”. Arggghhhhhh – what’s the point of having an answering machine and not using it properly? Why not put change of hours on your web site? Why not tell your customers the right information? I’m also still waiting for the return phone calls from the messages I left.

So, after making sure all the rooms were clear this morning and organising for the kids to be out and daring to dream we may actually get to sleep in our new bedroom tonight, or maybe watch some television in our new theatre room, my heart sank when, at 9:30 and with no sign of the 8:00-8:30 arrival of the carpet layers, the phone rang.

Yes. It was Fowles. Yes there was a problem. Their carpet layer had ‘hurt his wrist’. I had to let him ramble as the steam slowly leaked from ears. They were trying to find someone else to do it today, “but, you know, at this time of the year…”. I think they must have read between the lines of my silence. Apparently we are ‘garaunteed’ the carpet will be here, first thing tomorrow.

I’ll be waiting, my bet is my phone will ring at 8:30 am…