Vent: The day I had to patch a hole shaped like a cartoon character

Got a call for a quick patch job in a kid's bedroom last Tuesday. The homeowner's son, maybe 8, had tried to make a secret door in his wall and cut out a perfect, jagged silhouette of SpongeBob SquarePants. Took me two hours just to build the backing for all those weird curves and points. What's the strangest shape you've ever had to fix?

4 comments

4 Comments

tessap972mo agoMost Upvoted

Actually, that's not a quick patch job at all. A two hour backing build for a complex shape like that sounds about right, maybe even fast. Calling it quick sets a bad expectation for homeowners. They hear that and then think every patch should take twenty minutes. A proper fix for something with weird curves takes time to do right so it doesn't crack later.

norag872mo ago

Last year I watched a contractor spend three hours just getting the mesh right on a curved archway corner. @tessap97 is totally right about setting bad expectations. Homeowners see a tiny hole and don't get why it takes half a day. But if you rush the backing on a weird shape, you're just coming back in six months to fix the cracks. That two hour build time sounds like someone who knows what they're doing.

caseywalker2mo ago

Calling it quick just means they work fast without cutting corners.

rivera.hannah1mo ago

Oh man, a SpongeBob shaped hole is a new one. My weirdest was probably a heart shape, but I made it worse before I fixed it. I cut the drywall patch backwards on my first try, so I basically gave them a broken heart in the wall for a day. You really can't rush the weird ones, can you?