#foundation layers

Man, my family has never once had good luck with contractors. We've gone through two for making footers/foundation for our doublewide mobile home back in the country (the first of whom poured four-inch thick "cookies" when we needed a minimum of two FEET deep, the other who left his material out in the rain so it got ruined then tried to charge us for extra parts), three to repair a leaking roof at mine n sis's house (STILL leaks), one to put linoleum flooring in our bathroom (he kinked it several times, then 'fixed' it by gluing patches onto it that are predictably lifting at the edges and cutting our feet)...

Now, Mom tried to get a garage/outbuilding put in, having done the foundation herself with my brothers' help to save money and ensure it was done right. All the contractors had to do was drill in holes so poles could be inserted into the ground, then add the siding and roof and garage doors. Mom specified light gray siding, with a dark roof.

Well... they switched the sidings around so it has dark siding and a light roof. And... here's the kicker: They ran into an obstacle on the last hole they were drilling. And rather than dig in and move the rock out of the way or whatever and complete the drilling... They decided to raise all the walls instead. So the poles that were supposed to go into the ground, are now resting on top of decorative custom bricks... that they STOLE from Mom's pile meant for fixing our patio (she had them counted out specifically to have enough, so now she no longer has enough)... then on one side the siding juts out crookedly around the bricks and looks terrible, while on the other side they clumsily cut around the bricks.

Then apparently had the gall to stand back and nod and say "Yup, we did a good job we can be proud of!" and left. A strong enough wind could blow the whole thing over!

Mom's gonna start dealing with them in the morning. I wish her the best of luck.

Cuz so far, we've never been successful in getting refunds or taking the other contractors to court for all the times we've been screwed over. I hope this time will be different.

Scratch that... ONE of the roof contractors was told she had to refund a small portion of the money we paid her. She has yet to pay a cent, and apparently for small claims, the courts can’t do much to make her. Closest we've come to justice. :/

The rest of the contractors couldn't be found (disappeared or changed their names), or the judges ruled against us despite overwhelming evidence. The floor guy, the more he tried to fix things, the more he kept screwing up, and we had to keep paying for replacement flooring each time, so we eventually just told him to go away and paid him so he'd shut up. We shouldn’t have, but we were just so... TIRED of all this. So very, very tired.

I hope Mom won’t bow down in this case. She shouldn’t have to pay for replacement siding, because it’s THEIR fault it needs a complete do-over. They need to return her bricks and replace any if they’re damaged. And they need to put the damn poles into the ground where they belong!

It’s friggin sad that we’ve ended up having to do so much work with building, renovating, wiring, plumbing ourselves over the decades. Fainting from heatstroke and wrapping up injuries and learning as we went, trial and error, taking weeks to do what experts could do in a day. But we’ve HAD to, because not a single contractor in our collective pool of experience has been able to do the job that they were TRAINED to do, and do PROFESSIONALLY for a LIVING!

NOT!

ONE!

That’s not encouraging. That makes the thought of American workmanship look like utter crap. That doesn’t help me believe that people CARE about the work they do. It’s just so frustrating and disillusioning and... ugh. I just don’t want to see people in my family screwed over yet again when we’ve never had a lot of money, and lost what little we saved to scammers who can’t do their ONE JOB.