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What would you do if you thought construction workers working on your property didn’t look like they knew what they were doing? If you were worried that they were causing damage to your property, would you stay quiet and let them do their job, assuming that everything would be fixed when they were done, or would you complain?

In this story, one homeowner is in this situation when he’s getting his garage gate replaced. He doesn’t mean to cause anyone to get upset. He simply wants to make sure the construction workers aren’t creating a bigger problem.

He sends an email that is met with hostility, and now, after having already apologized once, he’s wondering if he should apologize again.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for flagging issues in my construction before the contractors were done

I live in a housing complex (not USA), where a board of trustees manages the affairs of the common property of the complex.

A few weeks ago, a car knocked over my fence and damaged the garage doors.

The trustees and their contractor were really great in fixing the fence within a few days, and the garage doors were pending insurance claims.

I acknowledged this by an email to the managing agent to convey my thanks.

Here’s some more context about the complex politics.

The complex has some historical politics which has lead to a practice where owners should not be contacting trustees directly (as they do the job on a volunteer basis in their own time), but should go through a managing agent.

A further complication is that the contractor appointed by the trustees is a long time family friend of my parents (who live with me).

A few days ago, the contractor’s employees started installing one garage gate. It was clear to me that they didn’t know how to do it, as they spent an entire day banging and drilling.

I dropped the managing agent a note to say that they seem to be damaging the gate during the installation.

OP didn’t want the situation to get worse.

That evening, I inspected the work, and sent a follow up email with more specifics around what the issues were. I thought my email was quite factual and not emotive in any way.

My intention was not to criticise, but to allow the contractor a chance to fix things before finalising.

I was aware that there was still work ongoing at the time.

The contractor was pretty upset.

Today, the contractor saw me walking in the complex, and was very upset. He called into question my character and that of my parents for me to have sent such an email, knowing there was still work ongoing, and without approaching him directly.

I tried to explain that it was not my intention to cause any harm, but I did not feel it was my place to approach him directly, due to the housing complex’s dynamics. I did also apologise profusely that it had that impact, and reiterated that it was not what I intended, but I am very sorry about this.

However, this was not well received.

OP isn’t sure if he should apologize again or not.

My parents think that I am not at fault, but my sister says I screwed up and need to go to his house and apologise.

I’m not sure if I need to apologise any further, (there is nothing I can add to what I already said. I am also not sure it will be well received. I did send an email to the managing agent to clarify my intentions (being proactive notification of the issues), and to apologise again to the contractor in view of the trustees that were originally privy to my first emails.

AITA?

It sounds like he already apologized, not that he actually did anything wrong. Why would he apologize again?

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person seems to think the contractor doesn’t know what he’s doing.

But this person thinks OP doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

OP is certainly not an expert in construction, but if it’s obvious that the construction workers aren’t either, I can understand why he would be concerned that they might be causing damage to his property. Nobody wants another problem created in the process of fixing the first problem.

In the end, he did apologize, so I definitely don’t think he needs to apologize again. Hopefully the rest of the work gets finished without any problems.

The contractor’s reaction seems a bit extreme.