Rob Strait, General Contractor

Said he would, but did not reimburse us for lumber and supplies he had us pick up for him at the lumber yard and pay for, that had been included in the contract and which we had already paid him for--so we paid for them twice.  Ran out of special-order paneling, insulation, trim boards,  which we had also paid him for, and used materials which we had on hand for other work we had been doing, so again we ended up paying for these things twice.  Disappeared with crew for weeks on end while he worked on other jobs, including building his sister's house, in its entirety. When his crew WAS here he generally was not, only stopping in occasionally, usually to get a check.  Seemed to take no pride in his work, at least not on this job.  When it became obvious that we had overpaid him by thousands, because of all the materials we had had to supply which had been included in his estimate, the final installment of which we had paid to him, and because some of the work included in the estimate had never been done at all, he would not, absolutely would not, reimburse us.  Our option was to take him to court.  He gambled  that we would not, and he was right.  We did not.  On the "plus" side, he's a popular guy, very personable, everybody likes him.