A friend of a friend works as a handyman and wants to work on my rental. Is it a good deal?

Situation

A friend of a friend works as a handyman and wants to work on my rental.  Is it a good deal?

Response

If all goes well and this friend does a great job for a cheap price, you win.

What happens if things don't go so well?  What if things work out badly?  What if they go horribly wrong?

How big of a risk are you willing to take? 

Some terrible things that could happen are:

1.  The repair is done poorly and needs to be redone.
2.  The "repair" is defective and causes damage to your property.  For instance, the leaking pipe stays repaired for 2 days.  The tenant leaves for the weekend.  The pipe leaks again and $10,000 in damage is done to the house and $2,000 to the tenants furniture.
3.  The workman is rude to your tenant and threatens them.  You lose a tenant.
4.  The workman hires someone as a helper and the helper gets injured and sues you for damages.
5.  You pay for parts up front and the guy takes off with your money
6.  The workman steals from your tenant and the tenant sues you for damages
7.  The workman damages something while making the repair and then charges you to fix that too.
8.  The workman is injured on the job and is disabled for life.  He sues you for damages.
9.  The workman claims that you paid him "under the table" when you should have paid him and witheld taxes.  Now the Federal Government is after you for not complying with tax law.

This is not an exhaustive list but represents some of the things that could happen. Are you prepared to deal with these?  Are you covered by insurance if they do happen? 

I have seen all of these things happen to people who use "cheap labor".  How high is your risk tolerance?