#1006 – The Expat Files: Navigating Maintenance, Culture, and Wealth in Latin America

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came out to play and now that I wonder Hello there all you ex-pat wannabes. I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America The show that tells you just what it's like to live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started Alright, just a quick announcement. This show first goes out on a 13th of November That's a Friday and the 15th is a Sunday and that's the last day you can get in on the early bird discounts for my January 2021 expat insider seminar

[00:45] So if you want to get in on the deal and save 500 bucks off the regular price You must sign up by the 15th. By the way, I'm still looking for a female who wants a roommate We've hooked up two pairs of roommates so far, but they're male and we've got a female to hook up So if you want to save $750 off the single price and you're a lady a real one Not a guy who self identifies as a female just send me any email the expat files at gmail.com Oh, and by the way, when we do hook up to prospective roommates, they share emails with each other Then they usually get on Skype or what's up or do a phone call to see if they're compatible Generally since everyone who listens to this show and who's considering coming to the seminar are on the same page about most of the important

[01:31] things in life Generally, the roommate thing works out just fine Of course if you've got any real bad nocturnal habits like my brother who occasionally shouts out in his sleep shot in a goal Scares the hell out of you, but he likes to play hockey in his dreams Well, you could make the case. He's not a very good perspective roommate Though I'd take shot in a goal in the middle of the night over ala Akbar anytime though Admittedly, both could scare the shit out of you. So anyway for the seminar which begins on January 8th That's just about two months away. Now. Remember. I'm looking for a female who wants a female roommate Alright, just one more announcement. There'll be a repeat show for this Sunday That's November 15th because I won't be around to do that show right now

[02:17] I'm in the process of leaving for a four-day real estate fact-finding tour Perfect timing to of course, you know, the COVID thing has popped the real estate bubble virtually everywhere And I've been getting a ton of emails lately asking me to update people on the real estate situation here in Latin America Seems like everyone who's been holding off and waiting Wants to know at which point to get in or out and what kind of deals there are out there So in the upcoming few days, I'll be visiting various towns and cities even hitting the beach Where tourism is completely dead get some boots on the ground again to gauge exactly what's happening in the real estate market By the way in Latin America real estate is called BNAs Raices. That's BNAs Raices Anyway, as for the Sunday November 15th show, it'll be a repeat from the archives from the way back machine

[03:06] Alright, let's take an email from Chris a previous expat insider seminar attendee And I'm sure this email was sparked by the fact that in the last couple of shows I've been talking about maintenance and repair issues and my basic expat toolkit Yeah should have around the house and also on the previous show we highlighted my extended list of tools If you're a serious do-it-yourselfer and hey, I say why not even if you weren't the do-it-yourself type before Once you get down here living in Latin America, you're gonna have a lot of time on your hands So you got to keep your fingers in mind To occupy my advice go ahead try it try lots of things Especially since we've got YouTube now that can you show you step-by-step how to fix or repair anything even if you're not great Or get stumped when you're taking a crack at fixing something. It's really unlikely that you'll make things worse

[03:54] Besides that repair and maintenance guys here in Latin America earn somewhere around 15 to 30 bucks a day So even if you're stuck, for example having a plumber around your house for an entire day It won't cost you three to five hundred bucks like it will mistakes. It'll be a tiny fraction of that So anyway, Chris says in his email. Hey Johnny How are the maintenance guys when you're living in an apartment that is compared to the US do they fix things promptly in Latin America? Specifically Guatemala and what about the condo and apartment management companies? How do they compare to the US? All right, Chris good questions Well, I'll tell you right off the bat maintenance guys will fix what's broken But it comes at a cost a non monetary cost They never clean up after themselves in the way you'd like them to now

[04:42] What I've learned to do is as soon as the guy arrives on the job I take a broom a dustbin a bucket and a wet mop and I put it right next to the spot where he's working And I give my nod and make sure he acknowledges what needs to be done when he's finished At least then they'll put in some cleanup effort But don't ever expect them to leave the area exactly as they found it They won't just remember all the maintenance and repair guys are coming from a different and much more humble neighborhood than the one you're living in In fact, if you walked into one of these guys houses, you'll see a thousand different defects that you'd never tolerate Small stuff to be sure but to us it can be aggravating Depending how anal you are or not Like worn off paint or paint bubbling on the walls Age-old watermarks in the ceiling doors that don't shut or lack right bare light bulbs instead of lamps or ceiling fixtures

[05:32] Cracked windows missing or mismatched tiles everywhere You know as you've heard me say many times before middle-class Latin American style is lower middle-class trailer cord even poor By US standard so then when an electrician plumber or painter gets to your house He's waltzing in with a completely different set of standards than you have but these guys are not dumb a lot of them very smart So they're easily trained but you see the biggest mistake I see with gringos and expats who hire these guys Even for example, just hiring the guy to come over and fix your washer or dryer Well, you just can't say there it is fix it. Let me know when you're done You got to sort of monitor them pop in and out once in a while In fact many times I've said for example to an electrician who's done with the job. I'd say look good job

[06:17] It works, but you're not done. You see those wires hang in there. You got to tuck them in that's not acceptable Oh and look out with plumbing jobs I'll use scads of silicone around sinks and toilets wash basins and that stuff when it's glopped on always looks cheap and second-rate You know what? I mean now as far as fixing things promptly. Well, let me tell you the story about a plumber I just hired last week turns out the place I'm in now has two floors And for some reason each floor has its own individual water supply go figure, huh? In other words, there are two water shutoff valves one for upstairs one for downstairs And I noticed on the first floor the hot water is working fine But the second floor no hot water until I nosed around a bit and I saw Underneath the jacuzzi enclosure on the outside patio. Yep. This place has got a second floor patio out of concrete

[07:07] With a nice big eight person badly maintained jacuzzi on it It looks to be about three years old But since they never put a cover on it the Sun which is intense down here Bleach the hell out of it and the chrome fixtures look terrible It's the perfect example of Latinos with money and no class or maybe just an incomplete education or both Well, what I realized is that whoever built this place put in a gas hot water heater for the jacuzzi I don't know why because you don't need to heat water for a pool or jacuzzi when it's outside here in Latin America No way the Sun does that job nicely, but if you can afford to go to the hot tub store I guess if you're not too worldly the salesman can talk you into anything Anyway, what I found out is that the guys absolutely did not follow first world electrical or plumbing codes because you see they hooked up

[07:56] Another gas hot water heater for both the hot tub and the upstairs hot water supply There's two bathrooms upstairs and they've got a shower and they had these two gas hot water heaters the tankless instantaneous kind Installed underneath the jacuzzi platform right next to the hoses and pumps So since on the second floor, there was no hot water in two heaters. I decided to take a crack at it myself I've installed a few gas hot water systems So I'm not completely clueless and plus there's always YouTube So anyway, when I crawled through the door under the jacuzzi platform to gain access to those things, man It was so tight in there. I couldn't wiggle through to get any access. I said hell with it I'll call a plumber a very tiny plumber. So I did he came over the next day got one of the heaters working

[08:42] Told me he needed a part at a hardware store That was something like four miles away to fix the other one now This was a Wednesday and he said he'd come back the next day Thursday and install the part fill the jacuzzi Give it a once-over center, etc And of course made sure the hot water worked in the bathrooms upstairs. All right, so Thursday the next day came He didn't show no call or word on the chat line from him either not so unusual in Latin America Meanwhile, I was taking showers on the first floor So I didn't really care wasn't that big of a deal. So Friday came around in the early morning I sent him a what's up message. I said you coming he said yeah, I got the part I'll be there today and then it started raining now You see electricians plumbers etc Usually arrive on the dreaded motorcycle and when it got to be Friday night and he still didn't show up

[09:31] The next morning a Saturday morning. I sent up a text and I said look if you don't show up on Monday I'll just get another plumber. I've got things to do and can't wait around for you And then I said if you say you're gonna be here You at least have to tell me a couple hours beforehand if you're not and you see that's the real problem with maintenance guys here They're all on manana time. I mean everyone's on manana time except the screen goes in Europeans Of course though with gringos and expats who've been down here a long long time Sometimes they'll fall into that groove tube But not too deeply because we've got this internal guilt thing going about being on time and wasting other people's time Though I always remember what my mom once told me she said if you're not 10 minutes early you're late But then again, she's a hundred percent German

[10:18] Anyway about 20 minutes later. I got a text message back from the plumber. He says I'll be there Monday for sure Don't you worry? There was just too much rain from my motorcycle. So he did show up on Monday He fixed the whole damn thing I'd say he spent maybe four or five hours on the job plus getting parts at the huge hardware store slash pool and jacuzzi Outfit about four miles away and the total charge about 50 bucks now I fully realized he tried to gouge me because I'm a gringo living in an upscale neighborhood and all that Now it made a difference that he was a really nice guy. He sent me pictures on what's up of his wife and kids Yep, Latinos are very friendly They'll do that and at first you think that's nice problem is you end up on their contact list forever Remember down here. You absolutely have to have what's up

[11:06] You don't need anything else, but what's up is a must or you won't even be able to talk to your cleaning lady Yep, what's up? You learn to love it and hate it at the same time funny enough even on those days He didn't show he sent me some memes and some jokes in Spanish The good thing is you can judge a person's intelligence by the kinds of memes and jokes They said yeah Surprising how many mental midgets there are out there, huh problem is how to get these guys to quit sending you stuff Because you see once a Latino gets your what's up number You just might get bombarded with junk Of course, you could block them and eliminate them as a contact But in the future you might need a plumber again bottom line You have to know certain things about Latin culture that you're never gonna be able to change Oh, and I'll admit when I first got down here. I'd get frustrated

[11:53] Blow my stack and lose my cool, but I also found out very quickly. It didn't work There'd be no effect the Latinos I was pissed at for either being late not showing at all Promising something that they never followed through on or doing something completing it successfully but making a big mess and then leaving Well, I found when I scold these guys or blow my top They gave me the deer in the headlights look like I'm the crazy one I'm too demanding problem is they've been getting away with being sloppy for so long for decades with no one calling them on it And you know to me, it's really hard to reconcile with the fact that when you walk into one of these magnificent Spanish churches Or have a look at the aqueducts They built way back when bringing water in from the mountains to the big city and you see the intricate Carvings and statues and the way they do marble work and woodwork

[12:42] They've got some fantastic artists and craftsmen here. So what's up with this strange dichotomy on the one hand You've got fantastic artists and craftsmen making churches monasteries cathedrals and stately mansions And he got the regular repair and maintenance guys in the phone book or well x.com on Craigslist Whatever and they do get the job done, but it's never pretty unless you're standing right over them like a scolding teacher And again, a big percentage of that is due to the fact they come with just a couple of tools You've heard that tired old saying everything looks like a nail and all you've got is a hammer Then again, if all you've got is a can opener does that mean everything looks like a bottle of bud? I don't know For example that plumber that came along on his motorcycle He had a small gym bag full of tools with him, but he didn't have a drill a plumber without a drill

[13:32] I mean, come on You got a drill hole sometimes got to go through walls and partitions and sinks countertops floors Whatever and when I brought him into my little tool room because he asked if I had any three-quarter inch PVC elbows surprise surprise I did but he didn't and he's the plumber Girls have their lipsticks and makeup boxes and I have a box full of connectors and pipe fittings. Doesn't every gringle Well, he saw that I had two drills and he picked the bigger one up the hammer drill that goes through concrete He said while his eyes lit up how much for this one? I said, well, that's a professional model around 150 bucks yourself It's overkill for most people, but I kind of like to collect the good stuff But that didn't seem to deter him. He still had a smile on his face and said, yep

[14:17] I'm gonna get me one then he said to me can I use your stove and I said what for he said to heat up some pipe ends Turns out you see that's how Latino plumbers save on pipe fittings They don't need to buy separate elbow or union joints when they have a fire a flame they'll just heat a PVC pipe up and bend it or expand it and that's something they'd never let you get away with in the States because by heating it you've changed the properties of the PVC tube. It always becomes a bit more brittle and weak But this is Latin America, right? Oh, and of course Chris asked in his email about Latino property management companies Well, Chris, I haven't had good experiences with Latin American management companies I've used rental management companies three different times now, you know when you run out of place It needs constant cleaning and maintenance. Well as you might expect when things had to be repaired

[15:06] They'd bring in the usual suspects a local plumber Electrician roof or whatever and when I had come back to stay in the place for a while there'd be the telltale signs of a Latin American plumbing repair like Excessive globs of silicone caulk where they shouldn't be or it could have been an electrical repair Then I'd see wires dangling out of a crooked outlet box. Now that drives me nuts Even worse is when there's no plate covering the electric box or a loose one or one that's twisted or crooked I mean really what's so hard about getting two screws the right screws. That's the problem They always use the wrong ones or what's that hand or they'll just have one screw instead of two or they'll have two screws And one's not exactly gripping anything So when you plug into an outlet the whole box moves in fact as I look at the room I'm doing this show from right now

[15:52] There's four electrical boxes and three of them are crooked on the wall That means they never lined them up with the floor or used a level or even did a halfway decent job of eyeballing them Or could it be that Latin America has all the world's one-armed drunk electricians could be bottom line You want to make sure they know you're around watching and you might want to say things like make sure those boxes are level and tight In other words, what I'm saying is because there are no electrical plumbing or concrete inspectors here in Latin America Oh, there are some but they never come around and really all things considered It's infinitely better than dealing with the kind of inspectors to have up in the states where they come in and practically Invent violations to stick you with of course to justify their jobs and it always ends up costing you a lot more money

[16:38] Well as for me knowing that there are no inspectors here in Latin America, or at least they won't come out Therefore you have to sort of be your own inspector, and I don't mind that in fact. I prefer it that way Again the plumbers electricians and such do the job it'll work But it won't look that nice and they'll cut a lot of corners man I wish I could take a picture of this room and show you what I'm talking about I've got four outlets here and three of them are crooked and one of them doesn't even have a cover plate on it So you can see the wares kind of haphazardly jam-packed in that box Kind of enticing for any little kid crawling around on all fours, but I digress as usual Anyway Chris as far as property management companies the only way you're gonna get a high-quality Management company and you're gonna be happy with everything they do is if you hire one run by gringles and expats

[17:25] There are a lot of them out there Especially in the tourist areas, but you're gonna pay a lot more money gringo prices Oh, and one more thing about maintenance guys. You know for a lot of the time. I've lived in here in Latin America I've had a maintenance guy full-time He'd just come in every day at eight and leave at four or five of course That's not what most expats would do But you see I had a big yard with lots of trees and a garden and you know here in Latin America the sun And the rainy season take their toll not to mention plants grow unbelievably fast So you need a lot of maintenance and care so instead of paying a guy to come in one or two times a week I just paid him 300 bucks a month so for years I had a full-time maintenance guy And he also doubled as a guard and a gopher too now the thing is those guys most all of them live in crummy Low-end neighborhoods, and they bring along those kind of habits with them one of the guys

[18:13] I had for over five years chepe your longtime listeners might remember a show when I mentioned He wanted a couple days off because the city was installing electricity to his house for the first time So just a few years back this guy chepe his wife and his four kids first got electricity Now he was a very smart and ingenious maintenance guy But the only tool he really had was a machete, and he brought that with him everywhere Eventually he learned how to use all the tools in my tool shed So chepe was the perfect case of a smart guy who had no tools and thus was extremely limited With what he could do oh he could fix things alright, but everything he did looked a little bit rough around the edges And kind of sloppy just like back at the old homestead so I was always on him to up his game

[18:58] And he did oh and remember most latin american painters who paint for a living don't even use masking tape Why because it costs money so they just eyeball everything and to tell you the truth or eyeballs ain't so good That's why when I have a painter in I tell him he's got to use masking tape and a drop cloth Oh, that's another thing. They never use drop cloths That's why after any paint job your floors will always have little paint spatter marks on them Oh, and don't assume your painter will know how to apply masking tape if you give them a roll Oh, and don't assume he knows how to take it off correctly either because you know there is a trick to it You have to kind of pull it at a certain angle So you leave a nice delineated border oh and as for the latino painters who do use masking tape well You know most of times they're only halfway there the thing is I've been in some very nice houses

[19:46] And office buildings, and I've noticed just sitting in the chair having a look around certain stretches on a wall or windowsill Where the masking tape has not been removed and that paint job might have happened a couple of years ago And by then you know your masking tapes kind of welded to your wall And when you pull it off if you can pull it off sometimes the grout where the substrate will come with it So you see that's the kind of stuff you're up against with maintenance and repair guys and management companies here in latin america I repeat because there are no inspectors here That's going to be your job And if you don't have a good eye or open up your mouth when you see something that's been done But rough around the edges your place is going to look as they say in spanish Corriente that means common or mediocre Then again some people are more anal than others talk about going native now

[20:35] That's not to say that once in a while you won't run into a guy or gal who's absolutely into the details though It's rare in fact once I was way out in the boonies and I walked into a little tienda a little 7-eleven store and everything was perfectly organized the place was spic and span great lighting and traffic flow And I thought to myself if I ever had a business that required a lot of inventory management in a warehouse I would hire that store owner in a second and I bet his kids are going to be like that too But you know, it is so rare I took photos and I use them in one of my powerpoint presentations to show people That the chaos and disorganization you see all over latin america is not ubiquitous There are exceptions even out in the boonies where you at least expect it Though most middle and lower middle class latinos went to the chicken wire and duct tape school of repair

[21:24] I get that but there's one thing I just don't get once a latin american person guy or girl gets to a certain level Where they can afford nice things One of the first things they do is they buy a lot of designer clothes and real jewelry But for some reason guys anyway are especially into rolex watches Some of them have two three even four of them Of course, these are guys who are really trying to put on the dog and they make a lot of money though They haven't got a cent in the bank. It's all on credit. Of course That's the way it is in the states too with a lot of people. Anyway I know a pretty well-off latino who has four rolexes and it seems all his upscale friends have rolexes, too I mean really how small a penis must you have to own four rolexes? But I did ask him not about the size thing but about why he would have four of them

[22:11] He said because he likes nice things and they keep exceptional time. Talk about the ultimate oxymoron, huh? A latino planning his day by the millisecond. The fact is this guy i'm talking about is one of those famous Entitled children of the latin rich in his case. He's 50 now growing up physically but mentally Oni's got a brand new very nice oddy sedan with about a foot and a half long crease in the fender It's been there at least six months and it would take probably 150 bucks to fix it Can you see the mental disconnect here? Now I ask you if you had a nice light new oddy and you had a little fender better How long would it take you to get it fixed? You'd probably bring it to the body shop the next day Because it's kind of an unwritten social law in the states

[22:57] Anyway, if you're driving a nice new car and it's got a dent in it It kind of reflects back on to us and we feel sort of embarrassed by it In fact in some states, I think they even ticket you if you got a bashed-in car I know they do if you're missing a window or have a crack in your windshield in the states You can't even have a sticker on your windshield Meanwhile here in latin america every struggling guy with a shitbox has 15 or 20 decals or stickers on the windshield Plus a couple of those gravity defying suction cup things one for a phone one for your favorite saint And one for photos of the girlfriend or wife and one for beer Don't laugh just yesterday I went into a shopping mall parked in the parking lot right next to a toyota minivan You know those 12 passenger jobs with windows all around and after I hit the button to suck my mirrors in you know

[23:42] That's a must here in latin america If you have a decent car you'll have one of those buttons You will use it because if you don't your mirrors will get clipped So anyway, I looked into the driver's side of that minivan And the guy had a suction cup drink holder hanging from the windshield with a half a bottle of beer in it Yeah a bottle not even a can I mean really in the states who would have balls to do that You'd be pulled over in 10 minutes stayed and pound your car and you'd be spending the night in a slammer for sure Meanwhile here in latin america I've never ever met a single person who got ticketed for drunken driving or having any liquor in the car open or otherwise In fact the latino guy once told me if you have open booze in the car or any kind of booze in the car And get pulled over in the cop spot said then I said, I know I know just give it to him, right?

[24:29] He said no way just give him half I laughed but he was serious By the way that latino rich kid who's now an entitled rich adult The guy with the four rolexes his father is a mega chicken farm owner and the kid the 50 year old guy now Inherited the mega chicken farm business, but only after his dad sent him off to school in the states You know rich latinos always try to send their kids to us schools And they make sure to rub it in with every friend and acquaintance Anyway, just a few weeks ago. I got invited to a party at this guy's house And man, let me tell you he had all the toys, but the place had all the usual defects. I mentioned earlier the crooked electrical outlets Little paint spatters here and there and let me tell you this place was around six thousand square feet

[25:15] A mini mansion and the guy even though he grew up as an entitled rich kid really had no taste or class But you know wealthy people always think they do not that I do far from it But I do know the difference at least I think I do then again. I might be delusional So anyway at this party all these high rolling latinos were talking about their cars Specifically their next car and I said, you know, you ought to be thinking about getting a tesla And the guy with the four rolexes he said nah, i'll do one better than a tesla He said i'm getting an electric hummer. I said, are you joking? Is there going to be an electric hummer? He said yeah You can get on a waiting list for a couple hundred bucks and I said hummer. I thought hummer was dead a long time ago He said nope, they're alive again and they're taking orders for their first electric model

[26:02] Then he showed me the website on his smartphone and then I thought to myself Perfect that's exactly what the world needs another clueless latino rich guy ripping through red lights and his electric hummer Do I sound extra cynical today? All right. I think we have time for another email This one's from one of our legions of daves. He says hello, johnny as always i'm patiently waiting friday and sunday To listen to your always interesting podcast I recently started to go back in time and listen to one of your episodes december 2019 Where you mentioned using an hp laptop that you paid 200 bucks or so for would you please? Tell me a bit about that and regarding your latin american medical report Do you provide a list of doctors dentists etc along with specialties and fees? Well dave, let me answer the second part first. Nope. I don't include a specific list of doctors

[26:52] It's a general report, but I give a specific range of fees Though if you come down to one of my expat insider seminars You'll get to meet some of the docs and we go to one of those upscale hospitals, too Now in regard to that little 10-inch laptop, that's the one I take when I travel I'll send you the link for it. It absolutely does everything I want and it holds a 250 gigabyte mini sd card So even though it comes with something like 64 gigs of memory You can expand that to four or five times the memory i've had that thing for three years now and it's just fine Though i'm sure they've got an updated version of it by now It's a great traveling computer and I use it as my spare if I have an issue with my main computer It's on amazon. Where else? You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america If you need some help with your own plan b we can schedule a one-on-one phone or skype consult

[27:41] Just send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And if you want to get on the waiting list for my next week-long expat insider seminar in central america Where you're guaranteed to get a two to five year head start on your plan b Send me an email the expat files at gmail.com