I found this story on another board. LOL People just want to believe. How does this end? I’m betting…demo done. Having “trouble” getting parts. 9 months later….still not done. Contractor phone not working. Worst case…contractor “sub” on the job gets hurt…no WC………Homeowner supports contractor in retirement
I’m hoping the exprienced homeowners / landlords on this board can help me with this one…
I’ve got a rental house in need of repairs to the bathroom — shower needs replacing and, possibly, some of the sub-floor below needs to go, though we don’t know that yet.
My sister, who lives in the house, has found a “great guy” who can fix the whole thing. He’s given me a worst-case scenario of $4K for the labor, the shower, the tile, the flooring (if need be), etc. He says he can meet my requirement that all of this meet with the city inspector’s approval.
However… I asked for references (he gave me one fellow contractor’s number), and a license, which he says he’s tested for but which has “been on hold for 4 years” due to State of California licensing board backlog and due to their putting him into a “special category” of applicants requiring more extensive background checks, etc. (purely a statistical issue — luck of the draw and not anything he did.)
I’m not experience in this sort of thing — the sellers of this house brought everything up to snuff when I bought it (city inspected and approved), so I’ve not done much in the interim.
Does this license story sound fishy, or do these types of bureucratic nightmares really happen?
Is his insurance any good under these circumstances, or am I exposed if he hurts himself?
Has anyone in CA had work like this done and does that $4K seem reasonable? Would someone with a license charge more than that? (Translation – is there a cost benefit to taking on extra risk?)
Any advice most welcome, even advice of the “are you out of your mind” variety.
Replies
In the 'old' days, stupid people would get thinned out because life was a lot more dangerous. Nowadays everything is leaning towards idiot-proof, so it is allowing the idiots to breed like rats.
While I generally like to steer people away from bad moves if I can, there is a point where it passes beyond "bad judgement call" and becomes "sheer stupidity". For sheer stupidity, I let 'em go ahead and do it in the hopes that it might thin off the stupid herd.
jt8
"If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base." -- Dave Barry
While I generally like to steer people away from bad moves if I can, there is a point where it passes beyond "bad judgement call" and becomes "sheer stupidity". For sheer stupidity, I let 'em go ahead and do it in the hopes that it might thin off the stupid herd.
Stupid people are funny.
They are even funnier when they are hurting themselves.
Not as funny when they are hurting others, unless of course it's only suerficial.
They are even funnier when they are hurting themselves.
Yeah, but they all have cell phones, so they always call for help. Then the rescue crew has to spend a million $$ trying to save Stupid's sorry a$$. And then another group of stupid people will decide that we need safeguards to keep the original action that caused the rescue from needing a rescue in the future, so then we'll have to spend a billion $ to try and keep Stupid from doing that stupid thing... at which point Stupid finds some new idiotic thing to do and the whole process starts over.
Allowing the herd to thin would have been so much easier. ;)
jt8
"If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base." -- Dave Barry
I never said we should rescue them.
But we can use them as entertainment until such time as they are extinct.
sounds worse than fishy, sounds downright slimy, like last months fish
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