Stupid reality check

EricNoah · Oct 25, 2005

$2 is two days of Ramen noodles, though!

Scotley · Oct 25, 2005

Oddly enough theft of construction materials is a huge problem in the mid-south. It isn't uncommon for a contractor to slip into a partially constucted house and take appliances and windows--sometimes after they are installed and take them to another house and put them in. Such thefts around here are not by some jerk in the neighborhood, but by professional contractors. If they'll steal materials, what sort of short cuts and overcharges do you think they engage in? It is posible that somebody is paying to have your insulation installed right now.

frankthedm · Oct 25, 2005

$2=2 days of ramen? The packets can be gotten for $0.10 each. Factoring tax, thats 19 packs = 6 days at 3 packets a day & one extra.

Nellisir · Oct 25, 2005

Scotley said:
Oddly enough theft of construction materials is a huge problem in the mid-south. It isn't uncommon for a contractor to slip into a partially constucted house and take appliances and windows--sometimes after they are installed and take them to another house and put them in. Such thefts around here are not by some jerk in the neighborhood, but by professional contractors. If they'll steal materials, what sort of short cuts and overcharges do you think they engage in? It is posible that somebody is paying to have your insulation installed right now.

There's been an upswing around here also. Cops a few towns over busted a "crime ring" of a few guys with a pick-up truck that'd been robbing building sites all around central New Hampshire for over a year. The kicker is, in all that time, they apparently never got rid of anything. Everything they stole was stashed in one guy's garage.

Now, of course, the cops have had it for a year and a half. It's "evidence". Our finish carpenter has two complete sets of tools there, and we've got (what was) a brand new generator.

They weren't the only thieves, of course. We had $7000 in windows and doors stolen during a blizzard, and another builder had two -installed- gas stoves "uninstalled" and stolen, a job that would've taken at least an hour.

We lock alot more stuff up now, of course.

Darmanicus · Oct 25, 2005

People will steal anything these days. My dad told me of a story of a hotel that was being built and it had several rolls of carpet delivered. Now these rolls took 5 BIG blokes to carry the rolls up the stairs coz they sure as hell weren't gonna fit in the lift.

Sure enough, 2 of these rolls were stolen, in the middle of the day under the eyes of a task force of security guards and god nows how many contractors working there....

I kid you not!

Nellisir · Oct 26, 2005

Darmanicus said:
People will steal anything these days. My dad told me of a story of a hotel that was being built and it had several rolls of carpet delivered. Now these rolls took 5 BIG blokes to carry the rolls up the stairs coz they sure as hell weren't gonna fit in the lift.

Sure enough, 2 of these rolls were stolen, in the middle of the day under the eyes of a task force of security guards and god nows how many contractors working there....

I kid you not!

I bet it only took 2 guys to dump them out the window into a dumpster or something....
;-)
Nell.

Bront · Oct 26, 2005

I know when my last company moved, we were quite happy that the only thing that disapeared was a single LCD monitor, other than that, all the computer equipment and office furnature managed to make it to the new office.

Thornir Alekeg · Oct 26, 2005

Look on Ebay for some idiot locally selling four rolls of insulation. Bet you find them.

Either that or they are on their way to the Gulf Coast.

wingsandsword · Oct 26, 2005

Scotley said:
Oddly enough theft of construction materials is a huge problem in the mid-south. It isn't uncommon for a contractor to slip into a partially constucted house and take appliances and windows--sometimes after they are installed and take them to another house and put them in. Such thefts around here are not by some jerk in the neighborhood, but by professional contractors. If they'll steal materials, what sort of short cuts and overcharges do you think they engage in? It is posible that somebody is paying to have your insulation installed right now.

Yeah, contractors can really, really rip you off sometimes.

About a decade ago, my family was heavily renovating our house, and we had the worst "luck" with getting plumbing shipped in. Twice two very large marble sinks "disappeared" off the truck while in transit and we had to buy a new one, they said we'd paid for it so if anything happened to it after the moment it left the warehouse it was our responsibility to replace it. Always seemed extremely fishy (especially the second time), but we really had no other option once they started that behavior.

The one of the contractors started gouging us, after the job. Because of the odd legalities behind the way the house was willed to us, we had to go to court to get permission to renovate the place (it had been willed to us by my stepgrandmother, who took terrible care of it, and it was about to collapse on itself if nothing was done). So, everything we did had to be extensively documented for the court, including all the contractor estimates and bills, as well as records of paying them. One of the contractors submitted an estimate for ~$2000 dollars, but then suddenly hit us with a ~$5000 bill at the end, saying it was more difficult work than he first thought, with no warning until after the work was done.

Well, we paid him, but if that wasn't bad enough, then a few months later at a local high school football game, he comes up to us and asks why haven't we ever paid him for the work he did. He says we never paid him a dime of the $5000, and demands we pay it again. When my father refused, saying we'd already paid, he filed a lien on the house for unpaid for contractor work. Well, as we were getting ready to hire a lawyer, pull out the court records, go to court, and fight the lien, he "graciously" offered to accept a payment of "only" $500 for dropping the lien and settling matters (which my parents took because it would be cheaper than a lawyer and court costs).

Then, a few months later he comes back and does it again, re-filing the lien saying he'd only been paid $500 out of the $5000 he billed us for, but he said he'd be willing to accept just the ~1500 difference between what we paid him and the original estimate. Now, this was just too far, so my parents hired the lawyer, fought the lien (which ended up costing a little more than the $1,500 he was demanding), pulled out the court records that showed his original estimate, how much he eventually charged us, that we'd paid him what he billed us for, and an extra $500 he demanded from us a few months earlier to drop the same accusation (cancelled checks are nice for that). The Judge dismissed the lien, and gave the contractor an earfull.