Woodruff Construction

"Why does this always happen when a client request all this extra and then when they get the bill for all the extras they go crazy. First of all it was this client that wanted to purchase all of her $1700 worth of fixtures as the client wanted to use all of her Amzon.com gift cards. After happily revising her estimate 6 times to be able to get it within her ever shrinking budget it was still that an "estimate" before demolition. It was after the demo had started that all of the issues, problems, and damage were discovered such as, damaged subfloor, cracked toilet drain that was the issue with the water damage in the basement, having to relocate the tub drain resulting from the purchase of a factory second tub, lowering the sink drain in the wall to accommodate the purchased sink vanity combo Swedish made from IKEA, the uneven framing discovered behind the plastic tub insert that needed to be furred out to give an excellent quality subway tile installation on the walls, then add a paint job at the end of the project. All of these and more were pointed out to the client and told they would be extras and in the signed contract it spells out that all items not outlined in the above description will be considered an extra and billed out at a labor rate of $65.00 per man hour plus materials. She told us to "go ahead and do whatever it takes to make the job right". The client was told it would take between 10 to 15 business days to complete the project. We do not work weekends when there is not overtime built in the contract nor when the client is unwilling to pay overtime rates. She stated it took 22 days she is counting weekends it took 17 business days with all of her extra work included, yes we do work on weekends when the client is will to pay overtime rates to make their increased deadlines. On day 15 of the project the client was sent a bi-weekly invoice, as stated in the contract, which included the charges for the extras and that is when all H*** broke loose. We were then demanded to meet the client at 8:00 to explain ourselves. When I arrived there the client was already hot under the collar and let me know "there is no [Member Information Removed] in H*** she was going to pay us that amount" and then started out letting me know "she was an independent woman that was not to be bullied", "she had gone through a bad divorce", "purchased the house on their own", and on and on. Once that was finally over we agreed to lower the extras from $3400 to $1200 to help her out as that was "all the money she had left". She then agreed to give me a $3000 check for the biweekly invoice and the agreed on $1200 for the extras when the project was completed that was initialed by both parties. A few days later our bank informed us the client stopped payment on the $3000 check, it was after we consulted with our legal counsel that the property lien and small claims court was brought up by me. Then the degrading, rude, demanding text messages and emails started by the client. A few days later we went back to the hostile environment she created and finish our end of the contract and the extras. While there she started degrading me to my son and business partner including saying things like "he should leave me and start his own business" and other things I'm not going to mention. Our work is excellent. I too have pictures, screen shots of text, and emails I could show. If you value your business and getting paid for the work you have done stay away from this customer. CONTRACTORS BEWARE"