Homeowners Beware!!

While I don't go out of my way to watch it, one of my favorite shows on TV is Holmes on Homes, shown on the HGTV network. The premise is that he goes around fixing the mistakes of lousy, lying, and often unlicensed contractors. Sometimes I wish I could crack those thieves posing as contractors over the head with something heavy.

We had a woman come in upset over a contractor who had required a large down payment for the work, started tearing things apart, then disappeared. First of all, you should never pay more than 10% of the job cost as a deposit. If they want more than that, they are often in financial trouble and that should be your first clue that something is about to go wrong. There are exceptions, of course, but it's a general rule of thumb.

Unfortunately, there's really not much we can do about it, but we do what we can. So, we looked up the license number the "contractor" gave the woman and it was for a man with a completely different name from a town 100 miles away. Our state's Contractors License Board listed the license as a "sole proprietorship," so we knew he wasn't an employee. Just to make sure, we called the owner of the license and he said he had met the thief a while back to discuss a possible business deal, but got the impression that the guy was a creep so he quickly declined. Instead, the slimeball just started using the legitimate guy's license number.

Man, that pisses me off. We notified the License Board and our local District Attorney. That's really all we can do. Unfortunately, that woman will probably never get her money back.

Moral of the story? Background checks are very easy to do in the Information Age. Before you hand over your hard-earned money, make sure you do your research first. Sometimes even that doesn't work, but it certainly can't hurt. There are many great contractors out there, and I hate that scum-sucking ******-******* ******* @#%(&*^ *$%&$#@%& out there ripping people off ruin it for the good guys (and gals) and make us have to go through such a process.

Be careful out there, and remember that your project probably needs a permit. If your contractor says you don't, give us a call, then fire him/her if they have lied to you.