New to the scene - Question on maintenance

[KJ Kim]

Hi BP,

I'm new to the real estate scene and recently purchased a duplex! I found my realtor through BP and he has guided me through the purchase process and it has been great so far.

With purchasing the property, I knew there were some minor maintenance tasks that needed to be done such as: tuck pointing the stone outside, fixing a wooden window trim on the attic, fixing the front porch light, placing doorbells, fixing a laundry room door, and removing a broker lock from the front door. My realtor advised me that he has a maintenance tech who can do everything, and I trusted him with these tasks.

I sent my realtor a list of items, and he passed them along to the maintenance tech. With the first job, 2/6 of the items were not complete and he charged me 12 hours for labor + parts (split into 4 days). I asked him about these unfinished tasks and he said he will go back. Since he was going back anyways, I asked him to take a look at the lights in the back yard. He went back and completed all the tasks, but also ended up doing some additional things I didn't ask for (like fixing the smoke detectors, fixing cabinets and doors in other rooms) and said that the tenants had asked him to do those (and charged additional 8 hrs).

Being new to this, I'm trying to understand the cost of doing business. It doesn't seem right that he did additional work without talking to me about it - but maybe this is the cost of doing business.

What do you think?