On Sunday afternoon, the angle valve for hot water under my kitchen sink suddenly started dripping. It wasn’t a wild emergency with water spraying everywhere, but every ten seconds a small puddle formed under the valve, and the makeshift rag was soaked through within an hour. I couldn’t tighten the valve by hand, so I had to shut off the main water supply for the entire apartment. Since we needed to cook, bathe the kids, and function normally until Monday, I searched online for a local emergency plumbing service with 24/7 availability. The dispatcher promised over the phone that a technician would arrive within an hour and that the simple repair would be done in no time.
Shortly before five in the afternoon, a guy in overalls arrived carrying a small tool bag. He walked into the kitchen, lay down under the sink, shone a flashlight on the brass fitting, and grabbed a pipe wrench. He turned the nut twice, unscrewed the old worn-out gasket, pulled a new five-crown rubber washer from his bag, applied sealing paste to the joint, and tightened the nut firmly. The whole operation took less than five minutes. I turned the main valve back on, the joint stayed completely dry, and it seemed the problem was solved.
The tradesman got up from his knees, wiped his hands on a rag, and without batting an eye told me the job would be fifteen hundred crowns in cash. I stared at him in disbelief. I asked how he came up with such an amount when he only replaced a single washer and spent five minutes at my place. The guy dryly replied that eight hundred was the flat fee for a weekend call-out, six hundred for labor, and the rest for materials and professional assessment.
I didn’t want to argue about every crown on a Sunday afternoon, so I reached for my wallet and told him I’d pay the amount, but I wanted a proper receipt with a breakdown and a company stamp in case of a complaint. At that moment, the tradesman suddenly changed his tone. His face turned red, he angrily threw his bag on the floor, and snapped that he didn’t carry paperwork, a receipt with tax would be three hundred more, and if I didn’t like it, he’d immediately loosen the valve, take back the washer, and leave me without water for the whole night.
This arrogant attempt at blackmail in my own home made me instantly furious. I stood between him and the front door, pulled my phone from my pocket, and told him in a perfectly calm voice that he wouldn’t touch the angle valve again. I added that if he didn’t immediately sign a confirmation of payment with his company ID number, I would call the municipal police for unauthorized business and blackmail, and tomorrow morning I’d file a report with the trade office and the tax authority.
The tradesman saw he was dealing with someone who wouldn’t be intimidated by his threats. He finally pulled a crumpled receipt pad from his bag in frustration, scribbled the amount and company stamp, and literally snatched the money from my hand. He slammed the door behind him and disappeared down the hallway. It was a disgusting example of how some tradesmen exploit people’s emergencies on weekends, and a clear lesson that insisting on an official receipt always pays off.
