renovations

@josephsaad44

I sympathize with you, it's a challenge!

As wealthy (relatively) foreigners with (usually) no or very limited local language skills, it is rather an invitation to take advantage of us. And there are definitely some unscrupulous folks who do.

But what choice do we have? It's either do it all yourself, or pick some random folks you bump into at the supermarket/DIY store, or go with your neighbours' recommendations.

If you're in a hurry, or you have major house renovations to do before your home is habitable, then that's an extra complication.

All my renovations (village house near Shipka/Kazanlak, several apartments in Plovdiv) have gone EXTREMELY SLOWLY, because I wouldn't start until I had found workers I had some confidence in (and good workers are in demand, so they have plenty of work). All came from direct recommendations (as in I had Mr. X do job Y at my flat/house, and he was great... and you can come look at Y if you want). In the village, I even got a couple of indirect recommendations (I watched what my neighbours and nearby folks were doing at their houses, so when they had someone working on their roof, or building a garden wall, I went to talk to the builders).

My village neighbours are beyond wonderful, easily the best neighbours I've ever had. They've been unfailingly friendly, kind, and helpful. And happy to explain how to do project X, and who did this at their house.

The other source has been my local cafe and the village shop. I show my face regularly, spend a few euros, and I'm always friendly and outgoing. It takes some time for a bit of a rapport, but then when I said that I've got a massive problem with my plumbing or my roof they were happy to tell me who the go-to village guy for plumbing and roof repairs were.

Alternatively, only buy stuff that's pretty much done, so you've only got to do a bit of painting or furnishing. :-)

@josephsaad44

Where abouts?

is there anyone here who might know a reliable strait and honest people as a builder please?

    -@josephsaad44

It's sad that you've had problems. There are good builders and bad ones, like everywhere. You do need to post what area you are in, if you want recommendations. 

In my 20 years here (and my wife's nearly 60) I've had a number of properties, needing various degrees of repair/renovation. Our search for tradesmen has covered the whole gamut of sources: sticking a pin in the phone book, recommendations from neighbours/colleagues/shopkeepers/local FB groups, conversations on random building sites - you name, we've tried it. The only avenues we haven't explored are prayer and the press gang.  Out of all of the purported "tradesmen" we found, only one was a diamond - but very much in the rough; his work was excellent but very slow, he had emotional and family problems which could keep a soap opera going for years and which regularly overwhelmed him (and that took up way too much of both his and my time) - and he wasn't Bulgarian. All the Bulgarian "masters" we employed, from one man bands (some of them with genuine training and qualifications to their name) to organised "brigades" were bodgers and chancers, producing shoddy/dangerous work at often outrageous cost. We soon learned that our own DIY skills were usually equal -and often superior - to those of the average local "professionals", many of whom had even come to believe their own lies and exaggeration.  My wife's colleagues all have the same or similar stories to tell, without the shining exception of our morose foreigner, and have just learned to accept shoddy work, spend time they could ill afford learning new skills, or just ignore the repairs that needed doing.

There's no denying that real Bulgarian craftsmen DO exist - I've met several of them, in London - but they're either all abroad or working full-time on prestigious major building projects where "investors" are paying relatively big bucks for their skills and offering rolling contracts for years on end.

The rest of us are reduced to relying on blind chance, or resigning ourselves to lowering our standards and swallowing our pride...