passive aggression part 2

If you're a plumber, and you're sent to work on a gas line in an upstairs apartment, and you tell the owner of the building you're working on that the work will all be done on the outside of the building...do the work on the outside of the building.

If you find it would be easier to run the pipe through, say, the floor, and through two other apartments, there are certain things you must do before you start cutting.

For instance, the first thing you must do is tell the superintendent of the building, who will then notify the landlady, who will then notify the tenants of the affected housing units. You are not legally permitted to proceed until the tenants have been notified. Under no circumstance do you enter the units without the prior consent of the tenants. Entering a housing unit without the consent of the unit's legal occupant has a name, and that name is TRESPASSING.

After the tenants have been duly notified, you may proceed with work, making sure to bring all tools and materials with you to the worksite that you will need to complete the job. This includes not only your plumbing tools, but gear such as drop-cloths, contractor bags, clean rags, and a shop vac for protecting the house you're working in and cleaning up any messes you inadvertently generate when cutting drywall or tile. If you do make a mess with chunks of plaster, tile, dust, sheetrock, and/or your own muddy boots, you are flatly required to clean it up. Under no circumstances is it the responsibility of the tenant to clean up after you.

If you fail to bring proper cleaning supplies with you, you are responsible for obtaining them. This requirement may be fulfilled in a number of ways, but it may not be met by using those of the tenant into who's house you've broken. If you do use all of a tenant's paper towels, it is important that you replace them at your own expense.

If you must leave the jobsite incomplete due to extenuating circumstances, you are still required to clean up and restore the unit to how you found it, or at least as close as you can get it. You may not leave the tenant's belongings strewn about the place. Belongings of the tenant may include items such as garbage bins (not in front of the refrigerator overflowing with chunks of drywall and your own soda cans), cleaning supplies (not left in the middle of the floor with mops and brooms strewn about, now coated in grime), pet food dishes (not put up high and therefore inaccessible to the elderly feline you've now distressed), and any wall-mounted items (not coated in drywall powder, then perched in the middle of a stack of clean dishtowels on the recently-clean table). Additionally, it is considered a bad practice to leave any items, such as big blocks of the tenant's ceiling, perched precariously on high surfaces.

If you feel the need to relieve yourself while you are trespassing, it is considered in ill-taste to track drywall dust all the way down the hallway and into the previously-clean restroom of your chosen victim. Additionally, as many people visit their bathrooms barefooted in preparation for a shower, it is highly inconsiderate to leave painfully large chunks of both drywall and gravel all over the tile.

If you must leave large, unsightly holes in the ceiling and floor around where you've installed your large, unsightly pipe, you are contractually obligated to inform the superintendent of the building of your need to do so to ensure that repair of the ceiling and floor by a separate contractor can be prompt. You should not rely on the astonished and frightened tenant of the ostensibly burgled and vandalized flat to pass this message on for you.

If you break into and trash one apartment, you should lose your job. If you break into and trash TWO apartments, you should pay a hefty fine and be made to formally and publicly apologize to the tenants you have harmed.