This homeowner thought she was doing a simple favor for an online mom friend by hiring her boyfriend for some basic repairs.

Instead, her kitchen turned into a revolving door of reschedules, surprise subcontractors, and radio silence.

With glue-covered floors, confused cats, and one very apologetic installer, she quickly realized she was chasing answers more than she was getting progress. When she finally decided to pay the guy actually doing the work, the guilt kicked in.

AITA For paying the installer directly?

I hired an online mom friend’s boyfriend “C” to do some handyman work for me. First project, replacing toilets, went fine. The second project is removing my broken floating kitchen floor and replacing it with vinyl plank that I already purchased.

He tells me he doesn’t do flooring but he’s got a guy who does, so he’ll hire him and be his helper. Cool. He sends me a quote that I agree to.

We plan for Saturday from 10-12 arrival time. He asked to be paid up front so he can get supplies. I told him I’d pay half and the rest on Saturday. Saturday morning at 10am, he rescheduled to Sunday. At this point I have zero information on how long this is going to take, etc.

Not cool.

Sunday, two guys “N” and his helper “W” show up at my door to do this work. C is nowhere to be found. After about 5 hours N tells me he’s on call at his regular job and needs to leave, but he’d be back that night to finish laying the floor.

He calls me a few hours later to apologize, he got stuck at work and he can’t make it back, but he’d be back Monday night to finish it.

Monday morning I confirm with C that N is coming back around 5:30. I left work early to be home. 7:45pm rolls around and I haven’t heard anything from anyone.

Oh come on.

I figure N is the one doing the work and I’d likely get a response direct from the source faster than going through C, so I text N asking for an ETA. He says C told him he was getting someone else to finish it so it could just be done faster, so he was under the impression that it was handled.

I told him no, it’s in the exact same place it was when he left (exposed glue, etc, I have cats that can’t be walking on it).

He apologizes profusely and tells me we can discuss having him finish the job. 15 minutes later (8pm) I text C asking him to call me. Less than a minute later N calls and he’s not happy. C did tell him someone was coming but basically that he lied and didn’t.

Wow.

N apologizes profusely again and promises me he’s coming back Tuesday around 6pm. Tuesday, he shows up as promised. But he’s angry with C for making him look bad (side note: turns out N and W run a minibike riding club my son is part of, so he definitely does not want to leave a bad impression).

N needs supplies and asks C to bring them. He brings over 1 of the 3 items he asks for but refuses to come into my house or talk to me.

At this point it’s been 22ish hours since my last communication with C.

This is getting ridiculous.

A few hours later, N finished up and was honest, told me exactly what’s happening next. He’ll come back Friday after everything cures to put everything back and he’s even going to put up new baseboards for me. At this point I’m obviously not impressed with C at all.

By the time N had arrived on Tuesday I had already decided I don’t want to pay C the remaining 50% (which is approximately the same amount C was going to pay N). I’m paying N directly, and N is still going to do my baseboards for me.

But now I’m wondering, AITA?

Now this homeowner is left wondering whether paying the competent worker directly was practical…or if she violated some unspoken contractor code. According to Reddit, she did not.

This person says OP is doing the right thing.

This person says she’s been there, and still NTA.

And this person says it straight.

Sometimes the only thing that needs fixing is the middleman.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.