Contractor Issue WWYD

[wawa]

So...ongoing floor dude saga.

He refinished our floors and was supposed to leave us with matching shoe molding, already stained and poly'd, for MH to install once he finished the baseboards.

I'm an idiot and paid in full once the floors were done. Then after 3 weeks of "oh, sorry - I'll drop it off next week" he came back with a story that he hurt himself and it would be another several weeks before he could get to our stuff and offered to send us a refund so we could just do it ourselves. So I told him that we'd just go ahead and take the refund. This was a month ago. Is anybody surprised that we haven't gotten a check?

He sent me this email:

Minwax cherry will match perfect. Varathane waterbase polyurathane available at home depot will work as a topcoat. You can purchase the moulding at [local flooring warehouse]. It is $25.00 for 100 linear feet, much cheaper than home depot. You need 3 bundles. Please take in to consideration that the price for the shoe moulding including labor was about $125.00 and that i spent $50.00 on an extra bundle of wood to finish the repairs. I am sorry I couldn't get and finish the moulding for you. As I said I had an accident carrying my sander down a flight of stairs and messed up my hip. Not trying to make excuses but that is what happened and I dont want you to think I was trying to rip you off.

OK, whatever. So we guy and buy the supplies, and get the stuff stained. Still no check. I send him a quick, "hey, haven't recieved the check. When can I expect that?" email, but no reply. Send pretty much the same email again. No reply. Text him. No reply.

Talked to MH and he thinks that floor dude was waiting on us to OK the check amount. That's not how I read his email - I read it as saying he was sending us $125, but maybe I'm wrong? I dunno. So I am about to send the following:

Floor Dude,
FYI, by our calculations materials for the shoe molding (molding, plus stain and poly and brushes) came in at $118.59 including tax. So including our labor time spent applying the stain and poly $125 seems low. I understand that circumstances were beyond your control when you got hurt. However, I'm a little frustrated that this has dragged on since the molding should have been done well before that event. We are very happy with your work in general, and I don't think you are trying to rip us off, but I do think that your time management and communication have been lacking.

Please call or email to discuss so we can get this refund check squared away as soon as possible.
Thank you,
-me

Honestly, I'd be fine with 125 at this point, but I kinda want to play hardball just because he's pissed me off so badly.

As for the $50 bundle of wood he mentioned, he used about 3 pieces from that bundle and for reasons I don't understand left us with the rest of it rather than just taking it. But he also said he wasn't going to charge us for it since he screwed up the schedule so badly. That was all verbal though.

Email good? Not good? What would you do at this point?

[wawa]

Jan 11, 2013 15:38:40 GMT -5 @callmefia said:

Sounds like his message was looking to send 125 less the 50. You might want to remind him about that conversation.

Yeah, doing the stain and poly took about 3 hours of work between the multiple coats, so I figure 3 hours labor>$50. Hence why I'm fine with $125.

I kinda wanted to just disregard his $50 nonsense because it felt like he was hinting about it, but didn't want to come right out and say it. I'm pretending it's not even an option to deduct that at this point.

Is that too subtle? should I just come out and say, "You said you were not going to charge us for the $50, so that has no bearing on this refund."