Joe Considering that the customer confirmed that you were coming that day, that the customer left the door unlocked, that the dog didn't eat you alive, and that the piano was visible from the door you entered, AND you yelled, screamed, phoned, etc, to let someone know you were there, I think in this situation, you were OK to let yourself in and tune the piano. That's this case. In other cases, unless just about all of the above were true, I would be hesitant. I have entered homes where the front door was open, but I knew the customer, and they told me ahead of time they might be late getting home, or were running errands. At most, I would wait at least a half an hour, and then leave a message. I might include in the message that if they want you to come back, it would cost them extra, for the inconvenience of being stood up. Willem (Wim) Blees, RPT Piano Tuner/Technician Mililani, Oahu, HI 808-349-2943 Author of: The Business of Piano Tuning available from Potter Press www.pianotuning.com -----Original Message----- From: Joseph Rosenberg <rosenbergpiano at gmail.com> To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Wed, Jul 15, 2009 6:27 am Subject: [pianotech] Door open, but customer not home - what would you do? I made an appointment with a customer that was 90 miles / 2 hr. drive (one way) from me. I called before I left to confirm that someone would be there, and they said they would be there. When I got there, the gate opened up to let me in. There were two cars out front. The front door was open, the screen door was ajar, and there was a TV set on very loudly. A dog barked for a few minutes, and then was quiet. I rang the bell a number of times, knocked on the door, yelled inside, walked around the house to see if they were outside, called their phone but got a voice mail. After about 15 minutes, I walked around to a side door that was open. The piano was right there. I went in, kept yelling "Hello", and proceeded to tune the piano. As I was finishing the tuning, the customers came home. They didn't say anything about me being in the house alone, or who let me in. I'd like to know what other tuners would do in this situation. Thanks. Joe Rosenberg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20090715/4b0123b9/attachment.htm>
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