Remodeling Woes

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

Still haven't loaded new pictures.  Had a very lazy weekend.  Long overdue.

Ray and helper arrived bright and early.  Getting ready to spray the walls and then start cutting the tile.  WHO HOOO!!

Seeing how we are the bulls eye of the blizzard, hoping that they don't get snowed in here.  On one hand, they might get the job finished.  But on the other hand, I don't want them around 24-7 for 2 or 3 days.  LOL

Stay warm, stay dry, stay safe everyone in the storm's path.  It is a wide storm and has already affected CA with power outages, if I heard the Weather Channel clip correctly.

Virginia

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

Man, this dude has me so po'd right now I could scream.  Left for lunch around 11:30 and said that he would be back to spray the ceiling, paint, start cutting tile, etc.  2:45 and haven't seen hide nor hair of him.  I'm sure no matter how little snow we get tomorrow, it will be too much for him to be able to get here.  Another week of mess and upheaval.  So very glad that this is the last major interior remodeling project that we have.  Ugh!

Virginia

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

And so the saga continues.  Of course, Ray did not contact me about Monday afternoon, just blew me off again.  I did not expect him here Tuesday or Wednesday morning.  But if my 65 year old hubby with many health issues could get us dug out, I wouldn't think that a healthy 40 year old with 4 boys would have any problems getting dug out.  Most, if not all, businesses were open on Wednesday afternoon.  Regardless, it is now going on 10 am and no sign of Ray and no contact.  Tried to call and his phone isn't working.  My guess is that he hasn't paid his bill and he's shut off.  Maybe his computer access to so he may not be getting my very po'd email that I just sent.

We are down to painting, laying tile and then bringing in fixtures and having plumber connect them.  Then a little repurposing in the old laundry room and it's done.  When this job first started, he wanted to remove the washer and dryer and repurpose that room first.  I wasted no time in explaining that the washer/dryer would, under no circumstances, be moved until the new connection was in place.  I cannot imagine how I would be reacting if I still didn't have my washer/dryer.  That would have been the week after Christmas. 

Some day this nightmare will end (I hope) and I will have an extremely cool set-up but right now I am beyond exasperated and don't know what to do to get this project going again.  Sheesh!

Virginia

[kodydog]

Hang in there Virginia, tomorrow is another day.

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

Hang in there Virginia, tomorrow is another day.

Yup, another day for Ray to not show up.  I'm spending the day cleaning up after that SOB.  Just spend over an hour sweeping plaster dust and vacuuming the carpets downstairs.  I can still see plaster dust so after my break will take my good Kirby downstairs and see if it will work some magic for me.  Still have a ton of plaster dust in the old laundry room in the area of the closet being built so will finish sweeping that out before I vacuum again.  Then need to mop the vinyl in the laundry room real well and dust everything in site.  Hopefully my wedding party won't freak out.  I'd reschedule but I've done that twice already due to Mr. Lazy Bones and I don't want to lose this job. 

Fortunately, I'm not super busy right now.  A lot of small alteration jobs and working on cushions for a cool antique rocker but nothing major  Have some stuff scheduled for late Feb or early Mar so at least I have the time to deal with his screw-ups.  Problem is that I'd rather be spending down time quilting or something else that is fun, not this crap.

Virginia

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

Got tired of posting every day, "Well Contractor didn't show up again today." so I haven't been posting about my contractor woes.

Saw Ray last the morning before our big blizzard, Feb 1st.  When he left for lunch, said that he would be back after lunch to spray the ceiling but never showed up, never called, never emailed.  I gave him a pass Tues and Wed.  Thur was one of those days where I figured that he could have gotten over here had he wanted to but Bob & I both figured that he would use the blizzard as his excuse for skipping out the entire week, which he did. 

I emailed him that weekend, not in very good cheer, and asked him to contact me about the job.  No reply.  Started calling and phone either was out of order or went straight to voice mail.  He's really good about dropping his phone in water so he has to get it replaced pretty often.  By the end of the second week when I hadn't heard from Ray, I was beyond p*ssed.   I sent him another email this last weekend, very politely asking him what his intentions were about the Sew & Sew job and delineated the time frames and length of time since he had last worked here and, of course, no response.

Sunday afternoon, his helper came over to get a couple of tools.  They weren't anything expensive, just stuff to use when mudding/taping and probably didn't cost over 20 bucks total, if that.  I let him go down and get what he wanted, under my supervision, of course, and we chatted briefly.   I asked him if Ray was okay as I hadn't seen him for 2 weeks.  He said that he had talked to Ray, I think, the day before (his English is broken and mixed with Spanish so it's hard to be sure).  Anyway, he said that Ray had told him that he was going to come and talk to me on Monday and that he also said that he was going to get the plumber and electrician over to finish up.

It came as no surprise to me that Ray didn't show up on Monday.  I called helper to see if he had talked to Ray and asked him if Ray was working the job over on Ponderosa.  Elvis told me that Ray had been working that job at least a couple of days.  Needless to say I was really P.O.'d about that.  So, when Ray didn't show up here again today, I decided to take a drive on Ponderosa Dr/Ct looking for Ray's truck which I did not find.

On the way home, I decided that enough was enough.  When I walked in the door, I told Bob that Ray wasn't there (drove both streets twice before I came back home) and that I decided the time had come to press charges.  So after lunch, I composed a nice long email to Ray.  I laid out the dates I had paid him money, what little had been done, how much material has not made it over to my house yet, what tasks remain to be done, etc.  Then I told him that if he wasn't here working by Thursday that I was going to drive over to GIPD Friday morning and file formal charges for theft of services or whatever the appropriate charge was.  About 15 minutes later, I received an email back from Ray apologizing and telling me that he would not be able to come until Monday as he is working out of town Wed-Fri.

Boy was I torqued.  I emailed him back and asked him WTF was he doing working another job when my job wasn't finished yet.  Told him that I expect him to be working my house 8-5 every day until my job is finished with no delays, no excuses and that I want a detailed email back from him as far as what he will be doing.  Haven't heard back from him.  I'm beyond p*ssed.  Hoping that I have at least put the fear of something in him to where he will get on the stick and finish the job.  Really isn't that much left.  Needless to say, I will not be recommending him for anything.  ARGHHHH

Virginia

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

Electrician did come as promised today and got the remaining two issues resolved so the week wasn't a total loss at least.  Hopefully contractor realizes that I'm serious about filing a report and will complete the job next week.  Time will tell.  I sure hope so as this hole situation really has me down in the dumps.

Virginia

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

Just to add insult to injury, dumb@ss did not show up yesterday or today.  Left 2 voice mails and 2 emails and no response.  Also, called GIPD and they were kind enough to send a police officer over.  Not theft of services since he has done some of the work and we would have to file a civil suit to recoup any extra $$$'s that we have paid him.  I'm sure he would figure it out so that he doesn't owe us anything.  If I had my tub, etc., I would tell him to screw off and find someone else to finish the job.  I was planning on painting this weekend down there but think that isn't happening for a while. 

Virginia

[kodydog]

So now contractor Ray = dumbass. Yeah I said it. Just don't know what to tell you Virginia. Would like to say fire the SOB but I know you have a lot of money invested. Hope it all turns out. Keep us posted.

We went through a similar thing when we had our house built. What should have taken 3 months turned into a year. Not entirely the builders fault and we were very patient. When done he built us a really nice house.