Hi everyone! I decided before I did anything else today, I would make a little blog post. I haven’t finished filling you in on everything.

I wasn’t going to tell about this, but maybe it will serve as a reminder not to get careless like I did. A contractor ripped me off. I know, I should have checked him out. I learned a very expensive lesson.

I may have already mentioned my “do not call’ list but just in case I didn’t..I made it after hurricane Rita. There were contractors that wouldn’t show up or say they would call me back and didn’t, so I made my list to make sure I never called them again. There were some that said they were busy and that was understandable.

Anyway, I got a loan to get some work done on my little rent house and looked in the paper to find someone to do the work. He came over and gave me an estimate and asked about the big house. I told him it needed too many repairs and I couldn’t afford it right now. He asked if he could take a look at it. I let him look so I would have an idea how much I would need when I got it worked on. He told me he could repair it and make it rentable for $6000.00. ( that should have been my first warning) You know the saying, “if it sounds too good to be true…”

He came over the next day with the agreement for us to sign and I paid him for the materials. They started working the next day. About a week later, he asked me about renting the big house. He knew I wanted a storage bldg and he said instead of paying him the rest for labor, he would build my storage bldg in exchange for 6 months rent, but he needed money for materials. (that should have been a second warning) I was wondering why he would want to rent that old house when it looked like he had a good business. He drove a nice car and truck. Get back to that later.

After I paid him, the next day no one was here so I called and he said he was stuck in traffic. That’s not unusual around here with all the construction going on. He said some of his workers didn’t show up and the others were finishing another job.

After that he would call me sometimes to let me know where he was so I wouldn’t think he had took off. I would just laugh it off when all the time that exactly what he was going to do.

They finished the little house and started on the big house but some days no one was here. He said he had a hard time finding good help. What was really happening was when he didn’t pay them, they didn’t work. I didn’t talk to him for a few days when his workers told me he was in jail in Florida. He told them he was going to Alabama to get some inheritance money from his Mother. He went to Florida and was drunk and wrecked the car he was in. The car that he drove wasn’t his after all. It belonged to a lady he was living with. She thought he had gone to Alabama, too, and wasn’t very happy to find out he went to see his x in FL and wrecked her car. She had to scrape up money to go get her car. He had already cleaned her out, too. The nice truck he drove was a rental.

I could go on and on about him. One time he tried to borrow money from me to pay his workers..That was a real red flag! I told him I didn’t have it and from what I had seen, half of his payroll was wasted. I’d see some of them goofing off or piddling sometimes. Before that, he tried to sell me 2 air conditioners because 2 of mine mysteriously disappeared. I didn’t buy them. When I thought back, I figured he was the one who stole them and thought he’d get some more money out of me.

When he popped back up, I played dumb and asked him where he had been. He didn’t know I had been talking to his workers. He said he was in the hospital. I thought,.. “LIAR!”.. he said his workers were trying to say he owed them for 15 hours. I said they worked until they quit getting paid and I didn’t blame them. He said he was sending them over the next day and I thought; ”LIAR!” again. I told him I was going to file charges on him and he said, “Don’t do that.” I asked him what did he expect? Look at the mess they left. That’s when he said he was sending them over the next day. I knew better of course. He didn’t have any workers anymore.

I have a couple living in the big house now. They work on it in exchange for rent. He caused them to have to move when they didn’t get paid.

Wow, I’m writing a book. That’s why I haven’t told about it. Taking too damn long. Why didn’t I just say, “a long story short and a friendly reminder: check out contractors before you hire them.”

That was my biggest event this summer. It eats on me all the time.  I ended up giving him around 8000.00 - that I borrowed and have to pay back - when I probably got $3000.00 worth of work done. I ended up with a mess and a bunch of building materials laying around and a few things he left; tools, sawhorses, and a two wheeler. His workers had already beat me to the other tools.J They took them and sold them to get a little money. Come to find out, they weren’t even his.

Alright, enough of that. I better get to my blog while I’m thinking about it. I’ve made a few post here in “My Word” before, but never got around to posting them.

Cyl, Tere