Paul Macherey

Macherey represented himself as being highly qualified, dropping that he "just finished teaching an architecture class at SCI-Arc downtown."  I believed him without checking out his claim.  He baited a hook by asking me if i would like a larger deck.  (The job is redoing a stair/deck that leads to my front door.)  That appealed to me, and he said a couple of things that made me think he had a good working knowledge of hillside code.   

He showed me a couple of designs on his computer many weeks later.  One looked like a cattle ramp.  The other was simpler, but neither would have be eligible for a permit because they were both way out of line with hillside code. He claimed to have submitted drawings for a pre-permit check, and I believed him.  I went to the building dept today and see that no plan was ever submitted, which was no surprise.   He has no business address, and his business name XENOPHORM doesn?t appear to be anything more than a name on a business card.  He?s good at not putting things in writing.   He called to tell me ?GOOD NEWS!  The city approved the plan you liked (that I knew was not to code) so now I can start on the next phase.  I need a check for another $1600 to make more drawings.?  By this time I knew he was unlicensed and lying to me, so at least he didn?t get that much more out of me.  

Like I said, I was foolish.  Lesson learned.  So long, money. 

PS  in the meantime, the stair pulls farther away from the front of my house, and I've lost 8 months of time on this reconstruction.