Much ado about rubbish…

Reno has started… so in the midst of hacking there were some concerns… and collateral damage…

Case in point:
The stainless steel rubbish chute that you open to throw your rubbish out of. While removing it to treat the walls and re-tile the wall, the workers found that the previous installation was too tight i.e. too much silicone (or whatever it was) was used to seal the thing, so when they were removing the chute and it ended up spoilt.

Previously, this was not highlighted to us as one of the areas that we may have to be wary about, so when the contractor informed us of this, and told us that we have to bear the cost of the chute, of course we were pissed off… He already “waived” the installation and transportation charge of $80 and just going to charge us raw material cost of $140, but still… if they didn’t spoil the damn thing, we won’t even have to fork out a single cent for this!

Granted, $140 is not a big part of the entire reno budget in the bigger scheme of things… but to me it was a matter of principle, if you spoil my things you should pay for it. Cos you’re already charging me quite a lot for every other thing… but I’m also worried that if we piss the workers and contractors off so early in the job, they’ll haphazardly do everything else, and that will be very bad for us.

Sigh… then it got me thinking. Over the weekend, we purchased a mattress + bed frame for 3.6K, which is significantly more expensive than a generic/lower-end brand. But we really felt very good sleeping on it… And our washing machine was about 800 bucks, at least 200 bucks more than usual, but it is proven that it is very water and electricity efficient…

Then why can’t I get over this $140? Is this a case of being penny-wise but pound-foolish?