I had a very bad experience with a fly-by-night tree man a few years ago. A friend of mine hired him to cut down a tree, and left the door unlocked while he was at work for the man to use the toilet. While I was at my friend's office, the man called him on the phone, and said that after he went inside the house, and looked at the furniture and the pictures on the walls, he was convinced that he had been inside the house before, that someone had drugged him and forced him to commit kinky sex acts. He sounded really weird. My friend drove back to his house so he could be there when he wife got home, and to try to persuade the tree man to leave. I came along with a cell phone so I could dial 911. My friend went inside his house and got his pistol and gave it to me while I was in the car and told me to call the police if the man did anything strange. We tried to talk the man into leaving, and he didnt want to unless he was paid for the work he did, so I wrote him a check and then demanded that he leave, but he kept rambling about drugs and sex and violence. He was clearly having a psychotic episode, and delusional. After a while I decided that it really was better to call the police, and they showed up and made the man leave.
Based on that very strange experience, plus some bad experiences while looking for a house, I would never hire a contractor that doesn't have an ad in the yellow pages, and a class "A" license. Well, I would hire someone I knew very well, like Gaugie, but your advice about the written contract and insurance is very good. |
