Eight years ago, I added 300 square feet to my house of 1800 square feet. The best parts were the new back porch, the big laundry room (instead of a closet with hardwood floors), the added bathroom, and the extra door to the yard. I upgraded the shower, the shower floor, had a nice granite top vanity, nice big porcelain tiles on the floor, and brushed nickel finishes on the faucets and towel bars.
Then it all went to shit, well, not all, just half of one bathroom wall and the shower. You see, the contractor, who had a crew and lots of subcontractors, allowed the overflow valve to the garage water heater to be cut off the side of the house where the addition was going, and no one ever hooked it back up to anything: an open pipe in the wall between two layers of sheetrock. Eight years later, the water heater leaked a tiny bit, and before too long, I had black mold on the garage wall and the shower wall.
Then the air was tested – asbestos since the house was built in the 70s and asbestos wasn’t illegal until 1980. Then the abatement team came in and tore our the eight-year-old shower. Meanwhile, I have two other bathrooms, one redone last year to the tune of $30,000 with a new outside door and a porch, and one old crappy one with no window, half of it in the master bedroom.
After paying for the Air Safe people, the abatement people, and the construction people, the insurance claim is approaching $20,000. I left a voice mail for the original contractor and so far, I haven’t heard back. I’m sure he’ll find a way to not be at fault. I basically want an apology, a refund of my deductible ($1000) and maybe some free tape and texture on the new bathroom wall since insurance doesn’t provide that.
I’m not holding my breath. This is the guy who scolded me one day because I wasn’t keeping his crew in line.
“That’s not my job,” I said. “That’s your job.”
I guess he thought since we shared a love for singing in a local chorus that he could lean on me.
“You never would’ve said that to me if I were a guy,” I said.
When the driveway was graded and ready for new concrete, my ex boyfriend, who is an architect and designer, said, “You’re going to have water in your garage in the wintertime with this layout. The slope is wrong.”
I told the contractor what my ex said, and he yelled at me. “We stood here and agreed on this driveway!”
“I’m not a contractor,” I said. “I don’t know about slope.”
This is the contractor who did some extra work for me but would never give me a price for any of it. He installed a small stained glass window in my laundry room. He built some shelves in my laundry room. He kept trying to upsell things I didn’t want, like flooring in the tiny attic and to upgrade this and that. He talked me into a gas line in case I ever got a gas dryer. ($600). He talked me into a new driveway since they had to run a second sewer line right through it, and it was cracked with a big center score, great for tripping ($8000). I kept asking him how much for the other extra work he was doing, and he’d smile and not answer me. We agreed on three change orders, one for upgraded Andersen windows.
When the work was finished and I paid him the $150 K for the job, he showed up a week later with change order #4. The work was done. I had made my last payment.
“I’m not signing that,” I said. “You can’t add $3000 at the end.”
If it had been a reasonable amount for some laundry shelves and framing a tiny window, I would’ve paid it. But not $3000.00.
We argued, and then I called the Contractors’ State License Board to see what they had to say.
“Ma’am, it’s against the law to present a change order after the work is completed.”
“Thank you.” That’s all I needed to know.
Then in March the contractor showed up to put insulation in the new attic, two full months after the job had been completed (or so I was told).
“No wonder my January and February PG&E bills were so high,” I said. “One was for $500.”
This was eight years ago.
Looking back, I’d say the guy was a newbie and had no clue what he was doing, including leaving an open pipe in the garage wall. I got a Christmas card from him last year with the name of his crew members, new guys, not the ones who worked on my house.
How many other jobs did the old crew botch?
More importantly, will my insurance company drop me next year?
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 