Jeff and I hired a contractor about a month ago to tear down our brick fireplace wall and replace it with a new fireplace, some built-in cabinets and a new mantle. It was a guy and his wife, we thought they seemed very professional, and they were available to start work the next day! Hmmm... sounded great... we hired them! Rookie mistake #1.
Now I have to interject Rookie mistake #2... where Jeff and I trusted the "verbal quote," and allowed them to start work before seeing a written estimate. I know, I know... super lame of us.
Anyways, the demo was finished in only 1 day, and it seemed like everything was going great... until we were hit with the bill. The bill for the demo portion of the project was almost half of what the whole project was supposed to cost!
At first, we were kind of stunned. But then we started looking at the sketchy details:
- the guy didn't have his own equipment, so he charged us for the rental of the tools he needed
- the hourly rate was super high, and he charged out the same hourly rate for his teen-aged assistant
- when he showed up 3 hours late on the second day, he said that he was at the dump the whole time so we got charged the astronomical hourly rate for both he and the assistant for 3 hours of supposed "dump waiting time"... (personally, I think he slept in)
- we were charged more than twice what you would pay at a building supply store for the materials he purchased
- we were charged an extra $300 which was unsuccessfully hidden in the disposal fee for the bricks - when asked about it, he claimed that it was to make up for "the use of his truck"
Since we didn't have a written quote to start with, we couldn't really argue with the first 4 points. But Jeff did phone the guy to explain that we weren't willing to pay for the hidden $300. It was kind of awkward, but they did reduce the bill by $225. So Jeff emailed them to say that we still weren't willing to pay the extra $75. We got no reply, so we put the check in the mail, and kind of forgot about it. Rookie mistake #3!!!
We received a letter from land titles this week informing us that there is a lien against our house for the full invoice amount!!! Apparently, you can not file a lien for an amount less than $100, so the guy filed a lien for the full amount! Even though the check was cashed weeks ago!
The End.