Rumour Has It
A neighbor came over today and introduced herself, and gave us a tidbit of gossip about our project.
Did you know that apparently we were trying to turn our house into units (rental units, that is, not units of length or something abstract like that) and could not get the permits, and had pressured Willson/Bailey into working without them, and that's supposedly why they walked off the job?
I could go into how this has elements of what really happened in it and how they got twisted into something totally false, but much of the story is already up here so I won't. It's just so damned funny to think that nobody really ever believes that all we ever wanted was a storage space for our tools, and they have to make up other possible reasons for our motivations in this debacle.
posted by ayse on 09/24/05
Folks around here spread the rumor that we hated it in Eutaw and were selling our house and moving back to town. We never said anything remotely similar to that! Who knows where they get this stuff?
Well, we know the former contractor walked all over the neighborhood talking to contractors about our job, and what he said is sure to be his side of the story, but some of this seems to be a game of telephone. Nobody seems to understand the concept of having a cellar for storing things, so the actual story doesn't make any sense to them. They edit the details to make it seem right, and suddenly it bears very little likeness to the truth.
Wait. Wait. I never understood the genesis of all the problems with Willson/Bailey. Is it that you asked them to put in a cellar, and they didn't understand how to do it but took a stab at it anyway?
Or maybe don't explain, because just thinking about all this makes my head hurt.
You gotta love it. You know what they say, a contractor spurned and all that. Who's is that colorful house across the street? I'm excited to see your house when it's done. -Tabby
So here's the deal, short form:
We needed to have the foundation replaced. Willson/Bailey tols us they could add in a basement space (which we wanted for storage) for only $X more, where $X was reasonable given our budget.
Then Willson/Bailey told us the City said the space had to be livable space, rather than storage space -- that means lots of windows for natural light and ventilation, and an internal staircase, and ceilings at 7'-6" or more -- this stuff all costs lots of money and requires the project to go through what is called a major plan review with neighbor approval and all that; a real pain in the ass when we really were not going to use the space for anything but storage.
Willson/Bailey was supposed to obtain the permits, according to our contract, but they did not, because there was no way the City would let them put in livable space without a major design review. Scott Bailey just dumped the whole permit process on us and let us sort it out.
Fortunately, the City, when we went to them directly and asked, prepared to beg and plead for a simple cellar, was quite reasonable. They said that in fact it was perfectly fine to make a basement that is just storage space, with lower ceilings and no windows and all that, no major design review required. They told us that no way would they have told Scott Bailey anything else, though he claims they did. Anyway, we got the permit for storage space, and that is what we are building. It could possibly be turned into living space someday, but lord knows we don't care for the trouble.
But that's not the real conflict with Willson/Bailey. The real conflict is that they claim to have lost $40,000 on the excavation alone. I'm not going to go into detail about how and why, but we don't feel that number is anywhere near correct, and we were not going to pay three times the original estimate to have them finish the work. So we fired them.