Contracting

On October 22, 2005, we signed a contract with New Century Roofing to repair our damaged roof and replace damaged or missing fascia on the exterior of our home. The lady promised to have work completed within a couple of weeks. Several polite yet irritated phone calls later and on November 28, 2005, the roof was finally repaired -- the fascia was left dangling.. literally. (See my post from that date.) Thankfully, I refused to pay the full contract amount at the time because the work was not completed... We have never seen or heard from them again.

On February 1, 2006, we signed a contract with Shelter Roofing to repair our damaged siding and replace damaged or missing fascia on the exterior of our home. We were told we should be hearing from the crew 'in about two weeks'.

Today is March 1, 2006 -- it has been a bit more than two weeks.

And the hole gapes:

And the fascia dangles (uhm.. actually I think this piece got tired of waiting and just fell off...):


Okay - wait - someone did show up about two weeks after the contract was signed to stake a sign in our front yard for all the world to see...

I guess I just had a little more in mind as far as the promised timeline is concerned.

So tell me.. What genius decided it is good advertising to come out and stick a sign in a yard where it is obvious no work has been done? Week after week - people pass that sign.. shake their heads and say "Yep... Looks like those folks are dependable..." New Century had done the same thing back in October - staking a sign at our front corner which read: "Still Under a Blue Roof?? Call New Century!!" Clever, huh? Especially when you picture our enormous blue roof rising like a mountain behind that sign as it flapped in the wind.... After a couple of weeks Dave and I would glance at it as we passed and fill in the obvious details the sign was leaving out: "Still Under a Blue Roof? Call New Century!! We'll prolong the agony!!"

I don't know what happened to that New Century sign... Maybe they took it back when they packed up and went home... But its replacement from Shelter now sways in the wind in front of repairs that have yet to be done.

To be fair - as ridiculous as it sounds - their method of advertisement still works even on the best of us. I am guilty of jotting down a number recently from one of those flimsy signs stuck in a yard that read: "XX Construction*: Yard Restoration & Topsoil" Nevermind the fact that the yard it was stuck in looked like it had been 'restored' courtesy of some rainforest slash and burn technique... Dave called. We need topsoil - and lots of it. Dave told the guy we just wanted them to dump a load of dirt in our yard and we would spread it where we needed it. He was all for it until Dave mentioned I would be using some of it to build up flowerbeds that had washed out. "Oh no no - we don't have dirt good enough for that.. our dirt has lots of roots and stumps in it...." Er... okay... Glad we asked -- but uhm.. why exactly would we have wanted dirt with roots and stumps in it spread all over our lawn instead?

(*name changed to protect the innocent-until-proven-guilty. Since we never actually hired this firm it only seems fair that we allow them to retain their anonymity... Besides - it was nice of the guy to not just dump a truckload of stumps and roots in our yard and bill us for it...)