RE-construction

We found Re-construction and were immediately taken with Jay's knowledge of green building and his down to earth spirit. He worked with us to find a price that we could accept, and we were excited to hire him. After construction commenced, we were happy. He was communicative and understood where we were coming from, always explaining things and keeping us in the loop. As the project progressed, however, Jay became increasingly despondent and abrasive. Times were hard for all; this was just after the economy went south. We checked in with Jay to make sure Re-construction was financially solvent, and he said yes. We talked about the need for better communication and to regain our footing, and he agreed. Jay's behavior had a temporary change of direction, and then it was back to the same old Jay, never answering his phone and being short with us when we did connect. This experience is full of examples where Jay fell short, from his obvious lack of knowledge about the correct way to install Hardie siding and the inappropriate way he confronted my husband about it, to the very end where he disappeared completely. He was utterly unprofessional, from not documenting any changes or concerns he may have had, to simply not responding to any attempt we made to connect with him. After Jay walked away from the job and refused to speak with us, my husband was able to find Jay at his home. Jay said he was going bankrupt that we should have gotten notice from his lawyer. We never did. Over the course of a few months we gave him time to contact us (or have his lawyer do so) about the bankruptcy, about the items he abandoned at our house, about the unfinished work, and about state in which he left things. When that never happened, my husband again went to Jay's house to get the scoop. At this point in time we needed to hire someone to finish the exterior of the house and wanted to let Jay know that. Jay was upset at my husband presence, and then acquiesced, saying how hard times had been and giving my husband the new business cell number. When my husband asked for his lawyer's number though, Jay wouldn't divulge. A week or so later Jay came to get the items he left at the house, and was supposed to bring a letter absolving us from any breach of contract. He did not bring the letter, and promised to return the next day with the letter and to gather the last item from our yard. That was the last we saw or heard from him. We contemplated suing him, and felt our time and resources had better uses. We thought that if he was losing his business and was really having that hard of time, then he was worse off. We have recently learned that Jay is back (still) in business. We never did hear about the bankruptcy, which leads us to believe that Jay simply lied to us to get out of the job. We are not sure if he ever actually stopped functioning as a business, but he certainly stopped performing on our job. It's important that anyone considering business with Re-construction know what a poor business person Jay is and that he will gladly abandon human decency in order to get out from a contract he can longer fulfill.