A Dixie Carpetbagger

Linoge, talking about his experience with a contractor-

Feel free to contact me directly for the full, sordid story, but to say that we were not satisfied would be putting it very mildly.

Yep, sounds ’bout right.  I worked as an engineer (designed truss systems) in the housing industry for over four years.  One thing you can count on– if you’re not careful, your contractor will screw you.  For examples, I’ll give you two horror stories.

First, one that I got to experience.  Contractor had no luck with choosing an electrician, so the house he built burned down.  Twice.  It burned, he rebuilt it, it burned again, and he rebuilt it… again.  I don’t know if the third time was the charm or not, because I left my job right after Attempt #3.  (The home owner must’ve been a Monty Python fan…)

Two, my aunt and uncle’s horror story.  They wanted to move back to the area after their 20 in the military was over, so they chose a family friend to build their house… which went about as well as you would expect it to.  The foundation isn’t level, the cabinets are weird, the bathroom is non-standard, and the vent hood on the stove vents… nowhere– it has no duct attached, it just sits on the underside of the cabinet.

This is the same contractor that “accidentally” connected the toilet in one house to the hot water heater… which was cranked to the highest setting.  You can imagine what happened when Mr. John Q Homeowner sat down on the can to christen his new home…

Beyond these little gems, I have tons of stories, not including the ones about delivery drivers…