Before I start, let me say that I believe most people are good, and that includes most contractors. I think that most want to do a good job and leave their clients satisfied. For all of those good contractors out there, this is not about you. This is about one particular guy who has been just unbelievable in his unreliability.
We hired a guy in the early fall to install a fireplace chimney and do a stamped concrete sidewalk in exchange for a large screen tv. He was great, got the job done quickly, took his tv and left. He and my husband had gotten talking about other projects we have in mind and they came to a cash/barter combination agreement involving the installation of a bathroom. It was cash upfront and a motorcycle at the end. So we paid the guy, quite a bit. He worked for a few weeks pretty diligently, and added a couple of additional bills along the way, which we reluctantly agreed to and paid. Then the excuses started. These were all big excuses that you wouldn't really call someone on, like his dad dying, his mom being hospitalized, himself going in for cancer treatments. We were understanding and forgiving for all of these. But he kept saying things were back on track and he'd be there on Monday. And then not show that whole week, no phone call, email, nothing. The next time we'd call him he'd say the same thing, or have some other excuse, like "oh, yeah, last Monday on my way there I had a car accident". There have been so many excuses. All told we have heard about his dad, his mom, his cancer, two car accidents and ensuing insurance issues, a daughter with seizures, broken radiator in his truck, flat tires, broken cell phone, broken computer (so he couldn't email that he wasn't coming), and so forth. We are beginning to believe that none of it is true. He started the bathroom in October but has been to our house only once since December 9th. At this point we'd like to just get our money back for everything that is not done and wash our hands of him. I don't know that he will agree to this. So then there's small claims court, but having found a three page record of lawsuits against him in the court system we're not optimistic about getting anything back. Does anyone have any ideas, or have you dealt with someone this bad? Is there anyone familiar with the law who can tell me about enforcing a small claims court decision? I mean, I can't believe we could lose the claim, as the work clearly is not done (we wrote a contract, we both signed). But then how does it get enforced even if we are awarded the claim?
Oh, we're so fed up. This is exactly why we've done all previous projects ourselves, and will do so in the future.
We hired a guy in the early fall to install a fireplace chimney and do a stamped concrete sidewalk in exchange for a large screen tv. He was great, got the job done quickly, took his tv and left. He and my husband had gotten talking about other projects we have in mind and they came to a cash/barter combination agreement involving the installation of a bathroom. It was cash upfront and a motorcycle at the end. So we paid the guy, quite a bit. He worked for a few weeks pretty diligently, and added a couple of additional bills along the way, which we reluctantly agreed to and paid. Then the excuses started. These were all big excuses that you wouldn't really call someone on, like his dad dying, his mom being hospitalized, himself going in for cancer treatments. We were understanding and forgiving for all of these. But he kept saying things were back on track and he'd be there on Monday. And then not show that whole week, no phone call, email, nothing. The next time we'd call him he'd say the same thing, or have some other excuse, like "oh, yeah, last Monday on my way there I had a car accident". There have been so many excuses. All told we have heard about his dad, his mom, his cancer, two car accidents and ensuing insurance issues, a daughter with seizures, broken radiator in his truck, flat tires, broken cell phone, broken computer (so he couldn't email that he wasn't coming), and so forth. We are beginning to believe that none of it is true. He started the bathroom in October but has been to our house only once since December 9th. At this point we'd like to just get our money back for everything that is not done and wash our hands of him. I don't know that he will agree to this. So then there's small claims court, but having found a three page record of lawsuits against him in the court system we're not optimistic about getting anything back. Does anyone have any ideas, or have you dealt with someone this bad? Is there anyone familiar with the law who can tell me about enforcing a small claims court decision? I mean, I can't believe we could lose the claim, as the work clearly is not done (we wrote a contract, we both signed). But then how does it get enforced even if we are awarded the claim?
Oh, we're so fed up. This is exactly why we've done all previous projects ourselves, and will do so in the future.
