THE CONSTRUCTION STRIKES BACK!

It was a dark
time for the homeowners...
Construction had dragged on for months,
much longer than either the family or the workers
and sub-contractors had hoped. Then disaster struck!
The chance to finish in March or April vanished with our contractor...

Just after the middle of March, disaster struck the Sullivan-Scott construction project.  Our general contractor, Mike, suddenly up and left the state -- taking with him a lot of money that I'd generously advanced him to help get his struggling family through the winter months.  He told his co-worker/"partner" and me that he was moving a few miles away to Kenosha county.

The week before he moved, he told me he intended to be at the house every day to get the project done.  He never showed up.  At the end of the week, I told Kiff that, if I had to, I'd drive down to Kenosha county and pick him up every morning to get him to work on the house.  I'd been patient, but my patience had just about run out.

The following Monday, I found out he wasn't in Kenosha county.  In fact, he wasn't even in the state.  He had gone, leaving his partner and us high and dry -- with a half-finished home addition.  To add insult to injury, he'd taken some of his buddy's tools with him.  He'd also installed my old furnace -- which I'd given him as partial payment for services (not) rendered, in his previous home.  The good news is that I got both the furnace and the AC (we replaced both as part of this project) back from the understanding landlord (who Mike also skipped out on).

The bad news was that Mike and his family were now in Texas, well beyond the reach of local authorities -- who eventually told me that they couldn't put a warrant out for him, as he'd only taken money from me (for a job not done) and not actually stolen anything.  Brian swore out an actual theft complaint about his missing tools.

But there was nothing more that we could do.

So, the pictures (repeated) above and below are the home as it was when Mike abandoned the project.  Somehow, abandoned seems too kind a word, but that's all that comes to me at the moment.  He left his partner, me, and my family swinging.

One of the only good things in all this was that I had -- wisely, as it turned out -- paid directly for all of the construction materials involved.  That money, at least, did not go to waste.  On the other hand, now what I had was a pile of construction material in my yard and carport and only one angry carpenter remaining who might have the foggiest idea what to do with the stuff.

We'd hit a critical juncture -- and probably not the last one.   Inside, the drywall was half-finished, half-mudded, and not sanded at all.   Outside, the Tyvek wrap was blowing in the fierce Wisconsin winds.  Materials lay scattered around our yard.  Look at the top to see what the interior looked like.   The drywall wasn't finished in the stairwell, the mudding was barely begun.  A lot of the recent work looked half-assed.  Check out the photos above to get a glimpse of the outside.  Notice the half-finished facade work and some general shabbiness.  Note also the packets of shingles still on the (apparently completed) roof.  Remember those.  They'll turn out to be important.

There were also many things that Mike had not completed, or not done well, that -- as yet -- we knew nothing about.

This would come back to haunt us later.

TO BE CONTINUED....

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