Said It Here

Clients who refuse to fix underlying problems before repairs

Clients often reject crucial preliminary fixes like repairing leaks before drywall work or dispute necessary structural updates because they believe the work is a scam or unnecessary. This forces workers to either proceed over active damage that will ruin the new installation or halt the job entirely due to the owner's resistance.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    Walk away from the job
  2. 2
    Have the client sign a liability waiver stating you are not responsible for damage caused by the known, unfixed leak
  3. 3
    Seeking opinions and validation from other professionals to convince family members

In their words

Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.

r/HomeMaintenance1 person · September 2026

“Me and my guy’s were tearing down sheet rock when customers states she doesn’t want what’s leaking fixed I told her it makes no sense to put sheet rock up and not have the leak fixed first because the same thing is gonna happen somewhere down the line again but she stuck with her statement”source ↗

Dry-Shop6730 · r/HomeMaintenance · 6 upvotes
r/Roofing1 person · September 2026

“The pole barn used to belong to my father in law (who takes offense to any updates to his property no matter how dilapidated he’s allowed it to get), and he says it was done correctly, he’s “done research” and has never heard of needing a 2x4 and believes the roofing company is trying to rip us off.”source ↗

buddy_theshelf23 · r/Roofing · 1 upvotes

Where this came up

People with this problem also raised