Remember our pool deck? The workers came, they worked 6 days, all day, were doing a fine job and then a county inspector showed up (they are all so obnoxious, there must be a special Hell for them) and said this company did not have a license to lay pavers. Someone blew the whistle on them and we don’t know who. Were we the target, or were they? We may never know. (Woe to them if we ever find out.)

All work stopped. That was Friday last week. Monday, they owner of the company was to go down to the county compliance office and “straighten things out”. We fully expected to be informed and also, if things went as the owner insisted they would, the workers would show up on Tuesday to finish. For them there was perhaps two days’ more work.

But we heard nothing. We called but no one called us back. On Tuesday, Ed called and left another message, to wit: Please call so we can decide how to proceed and have our job finished. No return calls. Ed then called the compliance office and learned they would need a license that they did not have so they couldn't finish. The story is that adjacent counties do not require a license but Lee County does and it was an honest mistake.

We gave up on them since they were not calling and Ed called Steve, our neighbor’s aces handyman and Steve said (oh, bless him) “No problem, I’ll be there in the morning.” Originally we wanted Steve to do the whole job, but he couldn’t remove the old coping without a crew and he works alone. Luckily all the new coping has been put down.

So Steve has been finishing the pool deck and doing a great job. It is taking him a little longer since he has no helpers, but he is diligent. Still no word from the contractor. We have half the contract amount with which we will pay Steve. If the contractor has not paid for the pavers, we will put the money in escrow for that since, definitely, there will be a lien placed on our house for nonpayment. The paver company wouldn’t deal with us so we’ll have to wait till they come to their senses.

Ed thinks they have sent their crew to the other counties where they have work pending and where they do not need a license and therefore can continue to operate.

Ed had, early on, suggested he hire the crew privately to finish but he would still have to pay workmen’s comp (very pricey). And, of course, they didn’t want to hear this because they need their crew to work on uncompromised projects.

However, leaving us twisting slowly in the wind has left us with a bad taste. We didn’t deserve this. Their crew was doing good work (although Steve found some problems) and we were going to recommend them. Well, screw that.

When it's all done, I'll get a friend with a digital camera to take pix and load them into my computer so I can post. It's looking really well.

xx, Teal