I don't know how it is in your area, but in mine it's very hard to get workers for just about anything. This goes for plumbers electricians carpenters, handymen etc.

I have a few good guys that I can still rely on but I have properties spread out over a fairly large area including New York State and they are not available to go to all service areas.,..there are times where we may do call after call to try to get someone to work and if they do even call back, they tell us that he can't get to me for many months. So just a few days ago we had a problem of no heat in a nine unit building,.This has a fairly new boiler.we found that the original installation people sold out that division to another company who does not work on natural gas boilers and suggested calling a plumber. .And not all plumbing heating people say they can work on steam. Currently they need extra insurance to do so.

So I called the 10+ plumbers in the area and only one call back and said he couldn't do it for a long time.

So what you do for a no heat and upset tenants in the cold? so finally one of the plumbers had pity on us to come out to the nine unit building and worked on the boiler to get them heat.

Not sure what I would've done with tenants screaming for heat and threatening to call the authorities and TV stations if he didn't come out.

But again in Massachusetts and in New York service people/owners are saying the same things, they are overwhelmed, a lot of their help have quit , and they can't seem to attract any new ones. They tell me that young people don't want to go to the trades anymore, they would rather get a job in an air-conditioned office etc. and not crazy about getting their hands dirty

.

So I was thinking about all these aliens coming into the United States. Even if they send back many of the illegals, they are still allowing a lot of them to apply and legally stay in the United States.

I would guess that most of them have little trade ability. I wonder if the government (and without messing things up,) have them learn English in one part of the day and a trade in another part. Maybe underwrite for a short time, some of the amount of money to the trades to break them in and becoming the plumbers, carpenters, electricians, and other workers/ people that we need.

I remember going to Mexico just outside of a tourist area. At the community information Center in town they were teaching couple dozen people to speak English. Listening to them talk,they were mostly doing pretty good at it. I don't know how long each had been taking this course. Part of the day they were also training them on other things that involved the big hotels.

I was told ,.such things as basic room maintenance, to bookkeeping, car rentals, wait staff for the restaurant, etc. etc.

Minnesota has about the lowest unemployment in the nation. Impossible to get workers. I've stopped going to fast food, quick service type places because the experience is always so bad. Lines, slow, dirty restaurants. May places have cut hours close mid week, etc.

Yet I keep reading about all these people flooding over the border. Either it's BS or they aren't coming north. No reason these people can't do roofing, drywall, painting, work service industry jobs.

It is tough here too... my "go to guy" retired last April and since then... I have trouble finding anyone to do anything. I had an apartment that needed some minor work (more than enough for me to do as I had other personal things going on as well as just something I didn't want to do) ... it took me until November to find someone that would not only show up (two showed up but them never called back or returned my calls, the others just never answered the phone or called back) this was from June!

I have a few names now but wow it took too long. The sad part is that they did an "OK" job on the cleaning but not like what the other would have done. One of the reasons I didn't want to call this particular person was because a few years ago I asked him to fix something (a water line that had a small leak) and his response was "it's not a bad leak... I'd leave it alone... it's barely dripping anything anyway".

Heating is tough because you have to have a few people I think. I'd go through my list of them when I would have an issue to see who I could go there "sooner"... as not all have the time to just go on a moment's notice. Some do it as a side job (their main job is heating so they do it on the side) so they may not be able to get to it for a few days until they are "off".

Thanks for reminding me

why I did 97% of the work myself.

Finding laborers is one thing, (two hands and a heartbeat)

hiring highly trained, licensed and insured professionals

I've gone from having a payroll crew 15 years ago to using casual cash labor, until that got too risky liability wise.

On my latest projects I used our local Labor Ready temp office. Last year we did nearly everything ourselves as even they couldn't supply laborers on a regular basis due to so much construction going on.

The only things I hire out now are AC, and I only get fast service there because the owner is a friend for over a decade. And I hire out reverse osmosis and water softner issues because the family who owns the company lives three doors away and while I'm trying to figger out what's wrong, his guys are done. LOL

It's pretty much the same situation here in Northern Michigan. There are no places where people stand around waiting for day jobs.

Here in my neck of the woods the trades are being taken over by immigrants from Mexico. It's probably 3/4's of the skilled/licensed trades and 99.44% of the semi and unskilled trades. As a rule, the lower you go on the skill level the less English they know and the more recent their arrival to the US. This demographic doesn't have the same fear of work and getting dirty that Americans do, they jump in.

I had a tile contractor do some work for me over the Christmas holiday's. I asked him if they were going to work on the Saturday of Christmas Eve. He point blank told me "that is a white people's holiday, we work that day". He has no respect for the American's work ethic and that is echoed in his crews.

All in all, it has made it much easier to find trades people. I also suspect that some of your challenges are over the top Government bureaucracy you face in MA & NY as well as the strong Pro-union guys muscling out the competition to keep things tight. I can imagine what my tile guy would say about working in the environment up there. Pretty sure he would be ignoring every ounce of external interference and would end up jailed or deported.

Just a thought but have you looked into establish a maintenance contract on your critical systems like boilers. We used to have a few where I worked at my day job. We contracted with a certain company to perform periodic preventative maintenance on a set schedule as part of the set contract price. In the terms we had a set hourly repair rate established and some required response times (IE: 24 hours) for initial diagnostics with repairs to be performed without delay as quickly as possible. It also established the notification requirements for both PM and diagnostics/repair.

The preventative maintenance work was really just the tickler to get a company hooked. They like that money because they can schedule it at their own convenience within reason and it's guaranteed income. The real benefit for us was to have an agreed, contract established, repair schedule and cost negotiated basis for when things went South. One phone call and they had a max of 24 hours to respond and they knew it. It eliminated a lot of the daily hair-on-fire exercises before they started.

There's nothing like steam or woodstove heat.

I look thru the local yellow pages for:

electrical supply house

plumbing supply house

building supply warehouse

and other trades like masonry, landscaping, and so on.

Get there before the open and watch the trucks and van show up for materials. You can ask all of them if they have time for a small job. When you tell them your a landlord and have work/jobs every few weeks -- all of them would like to court you for your business.

I was at a well known paint supply house and found a great painter that lost his license and could only work inside so he wouldn't be caught doing more contract work. I told him i have a license and when he works for me, it's under my license, so if he gets caught, then the fuzz down my road and i will set them straight.

Ken, it is not ridiculous that a painter has to be licensed in California! Why? Because it took the entire United States until 1978 to realize old building materials "could" contain toxic materials. While in Europe, in the year 1900, they mandated workers to be knowledgeable about Toxic Lead Paint, Mold and Asbestos -- and deal with it.

I was ordered by Los Angeles City to expose Children to Toxic Lead Paint, and get a repair done within 10 days. I reported the City of Los Angeles to the State and to Federal agencies. But Los Angeles makes up their own rules and no one was going to take them on!

Now many people don't believe me and my stories. But remember 911 and the World Trade Center. My brother worked 1 block away. I told him over the telephone to get a respirator because the first few floors of the world trade center was lined with Asbestos as a heat shield. Over the news some "women" in the Government position of authority came out and said, "Don't worry, it's safe, you don't need a mask"! She was wrong and thousands got lung cancer and died!

Don, How do you fix the problem of owner contractor's saying that young people don't want to go into trade anymore and want to work where they don't get their hands dirty? Want not to work 5 days a week or be available for emergency calls etc.I talked to a local shop teacher and he said that fewer and fewer students sign up for his courses.

cheap labor

Do you think that offering new workers huge increases of pay is going to do it? As it is I'm getting bill from service people that are hugh compared to just a few years ago. I can only raise just so much.

Back in history we had waves of immigrants come in and they were assimilated into the work force. Germans, Poles ,Irish etc. Not to have cheaper labor to take work from the workers that are currently staying home. (I can't believe those people are paid so much by gov programs that cover nearly what they used to get by working)

and I believe a lot of those gov payment have already ended,

I think a lot of workers now feel its nice not to have to work. That is what has happened in other countries.

When I have traveled to some of these, I notice the excessively laid back work ethic.

I'm also not suggesting we just take hoards of immigrants that want to come here to be put in these programs but just offering training to those legal immigrants from any that want it,.

Hollis---How do you deal with not having enough people willing to do work that gets their hands dirty? Well, how is any other shortage addressed in a free market economy?? Wages rise until there are enough people taking the work. To say that the price mechanism will not work is to abrogate the whole basis of a free market economy.

Don,..I think that free markets can be affected by different things based on other factors like the government providing free money to so many.Is it then a real free market? Then after a while many consider the government benefits to be assumed rights.

I know that a few families in my neighborhood when I was very young, lived on a form of welfare.None of the older members seem to ever work regular jobs, Seeing some of those families, the young people might eventually have worked at jobs for a while, but early on found ways to somehow live with public money,..maybe not very well,..but well enough that they had no big impedes to ever work again,.

.I guess that MAYBE if they were offered a very large amount of money to do ( probably not so hard work) they MIGHT get back into the work force,

But again is that really a free market force? I think in the term "free markets" we have to be careful not to put that term as an entity upon an alter as it can be effected by so many things today.

Ie: when I got out of school, I needed some money to get into my profession. It happened to be that the local union president of the plumbers were good friends of my parents and lived just a few doors away. He asked if I would like to get a job for a while as a plumber. I told him I wasn't a plumber and I would feel odd showing up as one.

He said no problem, just show up at this huge worksite for General Electric. It was known as a cost plus job. I didn't know what that meant but I finally found out that essentially whatever cost, labor and materials,.. they would charge GE for. There were hundreds of plumbers on this job and the president made it known that I was to be "taken care of" which was a bit embarrassing. I was given a number of simple jobs and especially would do steam tracing which I found that wasn't all that hard but the other plumbers thought it was and hated it, so it was good for me,and I was left pretty much to my self.

The point is in doing that and a few other things that were required of me, I swear I could've gotten done and maybe an hour of the day. The rest the time you had to sort of look busy. In those days the money was very very good especially for someone just out of school. I actually hated doing such little work but every time I tried to do more, doing a few hours work in a day, some of the other plumbers would take me aside and say "hey kid, you're making us look bad, and ending this job too soon,.so slow way way down".(or else,.. was the implied message) So sometimes I would put a small pipe over my shoulder and would walk from one end of this huge plant being built to the other.Often chatting with some of the guys,..neither the G.E. bosses or the union bosses seemed to care, I guess it kept all of us working.

I kept my junk in the hood close by ..... short drive between them. Then my maintenance practice was to scope the problem myself ... put EYES on it. Hire out only if necessary AND WATCH what the guy did. Get trained in the fix as well as getting the fix.

This stuff ain't rocket science. Pretty soon I found myself only hiring out major installs requiring permits and licensed peeps.

... little bit funny ... my son calls and says his oil burner won't fire. It's a weekend ... doesn't want the OT charges.

I said "It one of two things, the nozzel near the ignitor is clogged (unscrew it and clean it ... kerosene works) or replace the ignitor"

We have the same problem in TX since the pandemic. Hard to find good workers, prices went up 2-3 times, some just don't seem to want to work any more.

We still have our regular guys - plumber, electrician, painter, roofers, tree guys etc. to handle emergencies, houses far away and larger projects. For smaller non-urgent issues, my husband would go and fix it. He is handy and an electrical engineer, we both don't work a job and have plenty of time. He fixed a few ovens recently and saved us thousand. Also use this opportunity to check on the house and on tenants.

Workers and techs will respond to their FRIENDS and those who APPRECIATE their time and work, esp the ones who pay INSTANTLY without complaining or whining.

Our annual Christmas Luncheon really helped keep our company on the Top 5 list with repair folks.

I also send them referral business and ask “Please tell them Brad sent you!”

All that said I also have great difficulty finding basic help. Part time cleaning ladies turning up their nose at $25 /hour. The most recent interview wanted $50 per hour.

PS I am seeing this in the medical arena.

4 months to schedule an eye exam. 3 months for a dental appt.

Yes, totally agreed. We pay our repair guys well and immediately, respect them and trust their work, keeping good relationships for over a decade. I will tell them if a job is urgent or not so urgent, so they can arrange priority. They will reschedule other appointments to take care of my urgent issues when needed. When it's not urgent, I also respect they have other jobs to finish before mine, and rush them.

Guys, we lost over a million essence workers during the pandemic.These people did not leave the work force by choice.Any way these were mostly our working people. Now we want these people that are on government assistant to get their hands dirty doing our dirty work. I found that I had to put on my big girl's pants and do somethings myself or go deep in my pocket and pay..Even paying them a lot of money most times I have to finish the job myself..You guys are such Big Babies.

We are in the construction business, my husband is a state certified and licensed building contractor. It is hell trying to find crew let alone crew that have driver's licenses, let alone, crew that can read a blueprint. There is a lot of hand holding/ baby sitting. We are listed in the BBB, and also pick other trades the same way. Every state has a sight. You will be paying premium, but mostly getting the job done right. I say mostly. BE PRESENT when work is being done. I recently had a total replumb of a rental and the inspector failed it because;

#1 no one representing the company was present when the inspections took place, as should be.

And #2. They covered all the holes with duct tape and the drywall they cut out and the inspector said it wasn't his job to uncover it. Which it isn't.

But if a representative was they it would have been remedied.

And #3 They failed to use fire retardent caulk in the chases. DUH.

This company had STELLAR reviews, my realtor listed them as a vendor and she hadsa fine screen filter, and they had BBB A+ rating.

YOU MUST BE PRESENT WHEN WORK IS BEING DONE. Ask questions, and know the answers, don't be afraid to request a good job or to go back and redo it. HOLD THE CHECK until you are happy.

With regards to the BBB I don't even look into it any more.

Years back had a basement leak issue. Found a company with a great BBB rating. Got them in and got scammed. I fought long and hard with this so called company. They didn't care. All they planned to do was change the name a little and go back at it.

BBB was no help. I blamed them for the bad company being praised. No help. Now I realize that the bad companies can get in there as well as the good ones. Just like when you see ratings listed elsewhere. You can get your buddies to help make you look good online and then play it out until you get caught.

Also, finding anyone who actually wants to work is almost impossible. My carpenter went out on his own because he can make much more than I can pay him. He comes back when slow because of waiting on materials but we both know it is temporary.

I just want someone with a strong back, a good work ethic and a willingness to learn.