Welcome to Labor Day. Today on The Daily Grateful with Michael Gross. That's me, by the way. I'm going to edge him and Kate you.
I'm going to edge him and Kate you about something you might not know about. But then again, maybe you do. And it's looking up contractors on the internet, because now it's really, really weird. So as I sit here sweating profusely, I will tell you that yesterday, which was Sunday, my air conditioner died.
20-year-old train unit. I was hoping to get another couple of years out of it. I put money into it, but it died. I need to go out in the backyard, dig a hole and bury it.
It's done. It's over with boots. As somebody come out, it needs a new compressor and it's a 22-year-old or it's a 20-year-old unit. And it has a different refrigerant that they don't have anymore.
And by the time he gets done converting that and all that, it's going to cost like three quarters of what a new unit would cost. And then there's no guarantee how much long it's going to last anyway. So blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I then set about and then this guy gave me a very high price.
So, but I trusted the guy. And as a matter of fact, I liked the guy. And I'm probably going to wind up buying from him. We're making that decision today.
But, of course, I wanted to do comparisons. I got this guy through a friend of mine who's a real estate investor. He's the first person I called. So I went on that thing.
What do they call it? Oh, yes, the internet. Because you know what? They don't have anymore.
Well, I'm holding one here in my formerly Chloridane State hands. It's called a yellow pages. But even these now are weird. By the way, this is very small.
This thing is tiny compared to the yellow pages that I used to get in the old days for the town that I live in. The old days, the yellow pages were so thick and so big. I mean, it was unreal. This is tiny.
It's almost like a magazine, but a little bigger, but not much. But anyway, they're doing it in the yellow pages. First thing I do, I go to Craigslist and I type in air conditioning replacement or repair for my county and a gazillion ad pop up. But it turns out all these ads are from the same identical company.
And it's not an air conditioning company. It's a company that's out of state. And when you call, everything happens the exact same way. And it's almost like a robotic voice, but you know, and I don't know if it's a person or not.
They say, what is the zip code that you need the service and you give them the zip code. And they say, I will have the technician call you in just a few minutes. And by the way, this works on Craigslist. It works on Facebook, marketplace.
And now it's also working in the yellow pages used to be if you were a service business, you ran an ad in the yellow pages or wherever in a newspaper, remember them, and people would call not anymore. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You get thrown into one of these things, which elevates the price of what you're going to have done, because the company that eventually calls you paid for that lead. They paid a lot of money for that lead.
So these are lead generating companies. So how do you find a regular company, say you need a pest control company, say you need a plumber, say you need a buffer? Well, I'm just going to give you the advice that I has worked for me. And I don't know if it's the best advice in the world.
But it's all I've got for you. Find somebody that you know that you trust. I went to a real estate investor that I know and trust. He gave me the guy that he works with.
I got in touch with the guy that he works with. And I believe I'm going to do the deal with him because I slept last night without air conditioning and it wasn't nice. So as a matter of fact, it's horrible. So here we go.
And I'm going to replace the air conditioning. And he said, oh, we got these wonderful nukes in no. I want the cheapest damn thing you got. I want El cheapo.
Okay, I wanted as cheap as I possibly can get. And I said, well, it won't last 10 years. I said neither will I. I'm 73 years old.
How long can I expect to be expected to live? I'm willing to take that chance. The last one last 20 years. So I'm willing to do that.
It's just me. I don't know. But that is what I would suggest for you. Find referrals.
Don't go looking on the internet because you're not going to get the company rarely. Are you going to get the company on the internet or even in the damn yellow pages? If you even have a yellow pages, you're going to get a lead generating company. That's what it's all come to.
It's really bizarre. Oh, well, I'm grateful that I was able to figure all of this out. And I'm grateful that you're listening to this podcast. And I'm grateful for a bunch of stuff.
I love you all very much. I will talk to you tomorrow, which is tools day. And I hope I'm cool when I do it. Oh, I am cool.
But you know what I mean, I hope it's cooler in here. You be cool. Talk to you later.