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Hosts Mikki Paradis and Jessica Abreu open with a “chicky chat” recap of Mikki babysitting Jess’s kids, including an Uno-cheating incident and the kids texting their parents throughout the night. They then share a homeowner horror story from Sam in South Carolina, who hired a referred contractor to enclose a patio into a sunroom for $42,000 without getting other quotes or verifying a license. After failed inspections, repeated upcharges for rework, delays, and being asked basic planning questions on site, Sam discovered the contractor wasn’t licensed and was allegedly “working under” someone else’s license before ghosting. Sam hired a licensed contractor to redo and finish the project for $28,000 more, stretching the timeline to nearly a year, and the hosts stress that verifying a contractor’s license is the bare minimum step to avoid being scammed.
00:00 Verify That License
00:34 Babysitting Chaos Recap
04:28 Uno Cheating Meltdown
06:58 Kids Texting The Parents
10:21 Dogs Yes Kids No
10:47 Homeowner Horror Stories Setup
13:14 Sam Sunroom Plan Begins
14:27 Contractor Jargon Red Flags
19:36 Deposit And Demo Start
21:45 Footing Inspection Fails
23:08 Inspectors And The Double Dip Scam
30:10 Paying For Rework No Way
30:39 Call the Inspector
31:33 Framing Red Flags
32:05 Failed Header Inspection
35:15 Engineered Beam Upcharge
36:05 Delays and No Shows
39:07 Subs Asking Homeowner
41:40 License Check Discovery
44:39 Confrontation and Ghosting
48:14 Damage Control Strategy
50:34 Hiring a Real Contractor
52:48 Costly Finish and Lessons
54:25 Verify Licenses Always
56:32 Qualifier License Explained
01:01:21 Wrap Up and Share Story
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Creators and Guests
Host
Jessica Abreu
As a social media expert, Jessica has a knack for identifying what makes each business unique and translating that into powerful, engaging content that resonates with clients and customers. From crafting tailored strategies and managing accounts to recording on-site content and boosting engagement, Jessica and her team handle it all so their clients can focus on what they do best.
Host
Mikki Paradis
President & CEO at PDI Drywall Inc. Mikki founded her first construction company, PDI Drywall Inc, in 2005 while she was still a student at NC State. After growing PDI into a multimillion dollar company, she has become an accomplished entrepreneur, speaker, and advocate for innovation in business and leadership. With a passion for empowering others, she has built a reputation as a forward-thinking professional dedicated to driving growth and fostering meaningful connections. Known for her dynamic energy and ability to inspire, Mikki is deeply committed to creating positive change in her industry and beyond. Whether through her entrepreneurial ventures or speaking engagements, she consistently challenges the status quo and encourages others to reach their full potential.
What is Chicks in Construction?
You plan your renovation with excitement, trust your contractor, and hope for the best...until things start going sideways. That’s when most homeowners realize they didn’t know what they didn’t know.
From permits that were never pulled to “contractors” who ghost after demo day, the construction world can feel like a maze of hidden costs and shady shortcuts. Too many homeowners end up confused, overwhelmed, and out of a lot of money.
The Chicks in Construction Podcast is here to change that. Hosted by Mikki Paradis, a licensed general contractor with 20+ years of experience, and Jess Abreu, a homeowner turned construction content creator, this show breaks down real renovation horror stories and teaches you how to protect your time, money, and home.
After building a multimillion-dollar drywall business and helping countless homeowners recover from construction nightmares, Mikki is on a mission to make sure you go into your next project informed, not blindsided. And Jess brings the perspective of someone who’s been in your shoes and now knows exactly what questions to ask.
Submit Your Construction Horror Story: https://chicksinconstruction.com/
43 - Chicks In Construction
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Jessica: [00:00:00] And every time someone tells me they're hiring a contractor, I practically grab them by the shoulders,
Mikki: shake 'em, shake '
Jessica: em, and make them promise they'll verify the license first.
Mikki: By God.
Jessica: I don't care. Please, if it's your brother,
Mikki: yes.
Jessica: I don't care if he seems nice. Mm-hmm. Look it up.
Mikki: Yes.
Jessica: It takes five minutes.
Mikki: He really does.
Jessica: Because I didn't, and look where it got me.
Mikki: Ugh. Sam, I'm so sorry. Well, hello and welcome back to another episode of Chicks in Construction. I am your host, Mickey Paradise, and this is my wonderful cohost.
Jessica: Hi, I am Jessica abr.
Mikki: And listen, we always start the show off with little Chicky chat, hashtag chicky chat. Um, and we, I realized that a couple of episodes ago, like a lot, like five episodes ago, we talked about how I was gonna babysit Jess's kids.
Yep.
And she was, listen, she was questioning her life [00:01:00] choices in that moment, which I didn't blame her.
I was, I was questioning her life choices too. I was like, Jess must be on a real pinch if she's asking me to watch her kids. And they did survive.
Jessica: They did.
Mikki: It was not without incident. But they did survive. They survived. Everybody walked away,
Jessica: breathing
Mikki: and without any injuries except for emotional ones, which I definitely, I did in impart a few emotional injuries.
You
Jessica: did not.
Mikki: I did.
Jessica: So, yes. Um, my darling children are a seven and 10.
Mikki: They're big is
Jessica: Yes. And um, they are highly emotional sometimes. And I learned that the little one, the little one does not like being told that she is wrong ever. Oh God. Mean, who really does, like, who likes being said, she's very
Mikki: young of hating, being told that she's wrong.
But yeah, that didn't go well.
Jessica: Yeah. And so I also forgot to tell Mickey that the kids have access [00:02:00] to Oh
Mikki: God. Yeah.
Jessica: Messaging apps on their phone. I had no idea. So my kids have phones that are old ones of mine, um, that are basically just tablets. They can connect to the wifi. They cannot.
Mikki: Call anybody except for Jess.
Jessica: Oh, yes, they,
Mikki: except for Jess.
Jessica: They,
Mikki: which I did not know this. And it's not like it matters that I knew or didn't. I just thought one thing was happening and realized too late that something else else was happening.
Jessica: And that's fine. So like we, we went out to dinner, it was a friend's birthday and,
Mikki: and she got all dressed up and she was looking like an absolute dish.
Her and Brad chef's kiss. It was so good. I was like, oh, they're gonna have so much fun.
Jessica: And we
Mikki: did. Little did I know
Jessica: we did.
Mikki: We had some fun. They were getting messages about me the entire time.
Jessica: So my older daughter loves to, we're gonna call it tattle.
Mikki: She is a little bit of a tattle
Jessica: tale and give like the full story of
Mikki: she likes to rat you out.
Jessica: All the things happening. Like [00:03:00] if there is something that is like, not exactly the way that like I do it, or her sister is misbehaving, like I am going to know like this.
Mikki: Oh, a hundred percent. So
Jessica: I had no
Mikki: idea.
Jessica: I keep telling her to knock it off, but I just keep getting filled in. So
Mikki: she gets the tea,
Jessica: I get all the tea, she
Mikki: gets the tea
Jessica: and is fine.
And like I know that like the little one also was young during COVID. She was, oh yeah, not, she was
Mikki: two. She's seven now. So she was a little nugget.
Jessica: Yeah, she was two when COVID happened. So everybody was home all the time for all of her memories.
Mikki: Oh, okay. This actually explains a lot.
Jessica: So she does not, I mean, she cries.
Yeah, she cried last night. Did she? She cried last night because her sister and her father were at softball practice when it was bedtime for her.
Mikki: That makes
Jessica: me
Mikki: feel better, I
Jessica: thought. Thought
Mikki: it was just
Jessica: me. I
Mikki: miss Daddy and Cora.
Jessica: So Cora is [00:04:00] leaving on Wednesday morning. Oh. To go to DC with her. Mommy's
Mikki: gonna lose her mind
Jessica: with her school trip.
And, oh, she was crying at the dinner table during the week because we were talking about it, and she's like, can we not talk about this? It makes
Mikki: me really sad.
Jessica: I'm gonna miss my sister.
Mikki: I know it's not, not funny to laugh at a child crying, but there's backstory here.
Jessica: Yeah,
Mikki: there's backstory.
Jessica: So it is, it is.
That's, she's just emotional.
Mikki: I'll just say, I thought we were having a great time. Um, I was doing all the things that I thought you had to do. Keep the kids alive, keep them fed, keep them entertained. I was doing all that, so I'm just like, I'm over here. Like, look at me. I'm killing it. I make them pizza.
We're doing it. They eat the pizza. Mm-hmm. Lana asks me if I wanna play Uno, and I'm like, all right. I haven't played Uno in like 17 to 25 years, but, all right. I'm sure I can remember the rules. So I say to her, all right, I'm gonna go do the dishes, put the dishes away, [00:05:00] and then we'll play Uno. I, she, so she was left alone and unsupervised with the UNO cards for about three and a half minutes, y'all.
3.5 minutes. I come out, she's, she's already dealt the cards. And I'm like, what? This kid's a real self-starter. She's got. She's on it. Yeah. And I'm just like, alright. So we start playing now, mind you didn't gimme the right cards. I didn't find out until I played with Cora about the amount of cards that you're gonna have.
We have like a, we all have a wild amount of cards and I realized halfway through the game why we have a wild amount of cards. Because every single card this kid is throwing down as a draw to, or a draw for every single card. So about halfway through the game, I look at, I say, Alana, I is every single one of your cards in your hand a draw to or a draw for?
And
Jessica: she said, I mean, maybe. Maybe. Okay. And she looks at you with those blue eyes. Oh
Mikki: yeah.
Jessica: Fat and like,
Mikki: like little like dough. Like little
dough eyes. Yeah. And I go, this is, this is how you know I do [00:06:00] not have children. I said, Lana, do you know what the statistical probability of you getting dealt all draw twos and draw fours in a, in a deck of cards this big, do you know what the statistical probability is?
And she's just looking at me like
uhoh.
So
I look at Cora, who does like to rat somebody out. And I go, does she cheat? And Cora goes, absolutely
Jessica: she does.
Mikki: So I did what I do, which is why you probably shouldn't ask me to watch your kids. I go, nobody likes to play with a cheater. And I just put my cards down,
Jessica: Q water works
Mikki: Q for the rest of the night because I did not I did not feel like the move was to soothe the tears.
You're crying 'cause you got busted. For, for, for, for counting cards, essentially. I can't
support that. I can't support it. So I did not try just to ease the crying. Yeah. So she then proceeded to crying for the rest of the night. Now [00:07:00] I'm still, I'm playing regular uno, non cheating Uno with Cora, we're having a great old time.
I keep asking Lana if she wants to join in. No, what I don't know is the entire time for the rest of the night, she's texting Jess. Then Cora's also texting Jess. Jess is getting bombarded. I'm thinking Jess is having a great night.
Jessica: I said was,
Mikki: they're just, they're living their best lives. Best lives.
Everything's, everything's fine. We're doing good over here. No problems. So then it becomes time for bed and I go, okay, go upstairs, get ready for bed. I was downstairs again putting like drink cups away for two and a half minutes. I come upstairs, everybody's crying. They're on the phone with Brad. They're, they're, they're FaceTiming Brad
crying and I'm like, what just happened?
Jessica: Yep.
Mikki: Like, eventually Lana came around. We played a couple of like actual games, but you know, everything was fine. She's fine. I sent him up to bed Waterworks, I, I came upstairs and I'm like, first of all, you're telling on me. Second of all what just happened? [00:08:00]
Jessica: Yeah, they're just,
Mikki: it was, it was traumatizing.
Mostly for them, but a little bit for me. And then Jess comes, comes and I'm like, she's gonna be so mad at me because she's getting blown up by her kids the entire time. She goes, oh no, I expected that. And I was like, well, I didn't,
Jessica: sorry. Like I just expect my,
Mikki: like kids gonna do what kids do
Jessica: they, I mean, the little one is, I mean, she's tough for us.
Mikki: Yeah, yeah.
Jessica: On a regular, regular basis.
Mikki: Yeah. I
Default_2026-04-13_2: probably
Jessica: know nobody to play with the card cheer elaborated on, you know,
Mikki: I'm get her a t-shirt for Christmas that says Card shark.
Jessica: I love it.
Mikki: She'll love it. She'll never wear it, but she'll love it.
Jessica: She'll wear it. I mean, she wears the sweatshirt that you got her for.
Mikki: Oh
Jessica: yeah.
Mikki: She's.
Jessica: She's still wearing it in the, and it's been hot. Here's in North Carolina. Yeah, it's spicy and I have to spicy to explain to her that you're going
Mikki: to sweat
Jessica: to death. Do you have a t-shirt under that? Because she likes how soft it is. So she like it on her skin. It's very soft. And I was like, you have to have a T-shirt under that because it is going to be hot today and [00:09:00] you are going to get sweaty.
You're
Mikki: gonna regret your life choices.
Jessica: Yes. She
Mikki: doesn't. She does
Default_2026-04-13_2: what
Mikki: she wants.
Mm. So moral of the story guys, is the kids did survive. I would say it was not without incident, but Jess wasn't worried about it. I was for like five days, five to 10 days.
Jessica: This is safe. 'cause I traumatized you a
Mikki: hundred percent.
I'm sorry. I was like, oh my god, this is terrible. I just felt bad 'cause I was like, they were bothering you the entire time and I had no idea. Yeah. I wouldn't tell 'em to cut it off, but
Jessica: yeah, they're fine.
Mikki: So that happened. Now you guys know her kids survived. No major crimes. Were committed. Everything's fine.
We can move on. Um,
Jessica: and the next morning I was like, did you guys have fun? They're like, oh yeah.
Mikki: When she told me that, I, I honestly like didn't ask her how the girls were doing the next day because I didn't wanna hear that. Like they were not Well, no, I was, they
Jessica: were fine.
Mikki: They were so, they acted like they were so severely traumatized that I was sure that they were going to need therapy after what I did to them.
Jessica: No.
Mikki: Which was just watch them and keep them alive, but still [00:10:00] not in the way that just watches them and
Default_2026-04-13_2: keep,
Jessica: I think you were more traumatized than they were. Hundred percent. She's never gonna
Mikki: watch them again. I got in the car and I was like, Hector, thank God we don't have kids. I don't know how I would survive this or how they would survive it.
Nobody survived tonight. They woke up and they were fine. Kids are resilient. I forget this.
Jessica: They just like to test you.
Mikki: Oh, and they did.
Jessica: They did.
Mikki: They did. I was like, oh my God. It was, but you know, again, I'm great with dogs. You know this.
Jessica: She'll watch your dog.
Mikki: Mm-hmm. Not your children. I've watched, actually, I thought about this.
I've watched many of my friends' animals. I have only watched two of my friends. Children.
Jessica: Mm.
Mikki: So people are, they
Jessica: wanna be the end. People
Mikki: are like, Mickey's the person to watch your dog. Kid's. Questionable. And that's fair. It's questionable. So that happened. But listen guys, we have a homeowner horror story for you today, and I cannot thank you guys enough for writing in and sharing your homeowner horror stories.
Because the whole point of the podcast is to share with you guys the things that have happened to [00:11:00] other people so that they don't happen to you. And the more people that share their stories, the more intricate little details. Mm-hmm. We can add to our ever growing list of things that are an absolute no.
Absolutely no
absolute no. And they're. I will say like, as the, as the stories have come in, and so many of them have the same little things, we have really built our absolute no list. We're gonna, we're gonna create a whole thing on the pa on the website mm-hmm. Where you can go and get a list of our absolute nos, our deal breakers, our Uhuh.
We're not doing that. Um, so if you have a story that you want read aloud, you know that you wanna get the validation of this happened to me, and I want everybody to know we are here for you.
Okay.
We are here to spill the T in your stead. Mm-hmm. So if you go to chicks in construction.com and you scroll down, there's a little.
Form that you can share your story with us. You have the option to, to be [00:12:00] anonymous. I will let you guys know, even if you don't click that option. Jess is not gonna say real names because she's just not here for that. Lawsuits is not how she wants to live her life. So by default, she changes the name.
However, however, it's people know like even if we change the name, if somebody knows they did you dirty and they hear the story, they know. Like we can't get in trouble and neither can you. But there is that validating feeling. Mm-hmm. Of huh? Now everybody knows what you did.
Jessica: Yes.
Mikki: We also appreciate you guys liking and subscribing on whatever platform you are, either watching or listening because that helps more people get exposed to the pod and then be encouraged to share their stories.
And that means there's even more people that we can help not get screwed over by shady general contractors and renovation people.
Mm-hmm.
Okay. I also really loved the way that this guy wrote the story. Like I was reading it going, oh my God, is this me? Is [00:13:00] this, is this my alter ego writing in a story?
It was so good. I was, I was here for like, the way that like he set it up, how he went through it. It was good. So get yourself a little snacky snack y'all. 'cause we about to get into it.
Jessica: It is. Okay, so this one is coming from South Carolina. His name is Sam.
Mikki: Sam,
Jessica: that's what I'm gonna call him. Alright. I'm going to tell you what happened with my sunroom and you're going to understand why I'm still pissed off about it.
Mikki: It's, this is the greatest intro. I'm like,
Jessica: yes. Tell me all the things. I'm already invested,
Mikki: I'm already pissed. All for you.
Jessica: The vein and Mickey's head's gonna start going,
Mikki: here we go.
Calm down. Calm down.
Jessica: We've got this covered patio out back, nice size, but we only use it maybe three weeks out of the year because South Carolina is either 100 degrees or cold and wet.
Mikki: Yeah. Facts.
Jessica: Mm. My wife kept saying [00:14:00] we should enclose it, turn it into a sunroom actual conditioned space we could use year round. I thought it was a good idea.
Mikki: She knows what she's talking about.
Jessica: Mm-hmm. I asked around at work, this guy tells me his brother-in-law does construction, has his own crew, does good work, fair prices.
So I called him, his name was Jeff. Jeff, Jeff. He came over, walked around the patio, started measuring stuff. Then he starts throwing out all of these terms footing and load bearing and R values and vapor barriers. I don't even know what that I, I was reading it and I was like, yeah, you know what, if, if somebody was saying that to me, I too would think like Sam does that half of what he said might has well been in a foreign language.
But I just nodded and understood, nod like I understood because I didn't want to look like an idiot. So what, [00:15:00]
Mikki: what
Jessica: the heck is an R value?
Mikki: Okay, it's a great question. So an R value is the rating system that they use to rate how, how much insulation your insulation has and like cer, like windows can have an R value.
Mm-hmm. Your drywall can have an R value, your insulation obviously has an R value, but a lot of things, obviously OS one does, um, maybe not so obvious, but to a contractor it's obvious that insulation adds an insulation value and so the R value is how that INS installation is rated. I do think I, as I was reading that, I was like, you know what, it might a mini red flag if a general contractor is using like construction terms.
Vastly with a homeowner. Mm-hmm. Because I'm like, are they trying to confuse them? Because here's the thing, if you work in commercial construction, which is kind of what what I'm considered to [00:16:00] be in, we are only dealing with other contractors. So yeah, we talk in contractor speak because we're like, of course they understand what an R value is.
But if somebody does a lot of home renovation projects, then they probably know that a homeowner doesn't understand what an R value is. Yeah. And so they would explain to you, Hey, you might already know this, but just in case you don't, here's what an R value is and here's why. What I wanna do makes that R value better.
So I'm like, huh, maybe somebody using like. Trade language, speak with a homeowner. Mm-hmm. Might be a little bit of a red flag.
Jessica: We don't know. I
Mikki: don't know. We don't wanna talk to you like you're stupid, but I also don't wanna like, use so much construction jargon that you don't know
Jessica: what it is that you're wanting to
Mikki: be paying for.
It's like, that's why the term layman's terms is a thing. Because,
Jessica: because we're a layman.
Mikki: We're a layman
Jessica: and la
Mikki: ladies. Yeah. We
Jessica: don't dunno, we don't know what you're talking about.
Mikki: Yeah.
Jessica: I mean, some things that like footing and load, I mean, I understand that something's [00:17:00] gonna go into the ground to hold up the stuff that's above it.
Mikki: Yeah.
Jessica: But
Mikki: that's,
Jessica: and vapor barriers. I assume that that means, so that water doesn't get into places.
Mikki: Yeah.
Jessica: Right?
Mikki: Yep, yep, yep. It's like water or condensation. It's moisture. It's a moisture barrier.
Jessica: Moisture's
Mikki: on moisture. She's on it.
Jessica: All right. And I mean, a lot of people would just nod so that they don't look like an idiot.
Yeah. Like that's, that's normal. We should ask questions.
Mikki: We are encouraging you guys to not nod. Mm-hmm. And to just allow yourself to feel like you look stupid and ask the question. Because so many times, not asking the question leads to how this story ends, but we get it. Mm-hmm. Like it's human nature to be like, oh, I don't wanna look dumb and act like I don't know what I'm, you know, I'm just gonna pretend like I know what he's talking about.
'cause I don't wanna say, I don't know what you're talking about. I will say I'm the first person to be like, I have no idea what you just said. Explain it in a different way. But I'm perfectly fine with people thinking I'm stupid. That's story of my
Jessica: life. So, um, he continues, [00:18:00] he quotes me $42,000, says eight weeks start to finish, gives me this breakdown on paper with all these line items I don't really get,
Mikki: yeah.
Jessica: Something about stem walls and frost lines and engineered beams. I asked him a couple of questions, but then he just used more construction jargon to explain, okay. Bigger red
Mikki: flag.
Jessica: And I felt stupid.
Mikki: Yeah.
Jessica: Asking him to break it down further. He seemed like he knew what he was doing. He had a business name.
Mikki: Mm-hmm.
Jessica: A truck with a company logo on it. Business cards. Professional looking guy. We signed the contract in April, so he didn't even go around getting other kids.
Mikki: Yeah, I was just about to say, I was like, audience, what was the first mistake? And we're not shaming, Sam. We, we are grateful that Sam wrote and shared a story.
So Sam, we're not coming for you, but for the sake of the whole class, the first mistake here [00:19:00] was we didn't get additional quotes. Mm-hmm. Because I guarantee you, if he had gotten additional quotes, he would've had some pretty different numbers
Jessica: and he would've had somebody else not using all the construction jargon Exactly.
And trying to confuse them,
Mikki: explaining to him in words that he can understand in terms that makes sense to the average homeowner. Yeah.
Jessica: Like me,
Mikki: I don't understand half the words
just as a fricking podcast about this stuff, when we'd still need somebody to explain to her r value. So like, you guys aren't wrong.
Like it is, you're, you're in, you're doing what you're supposed to do. You don't need to understand what R value is. Whatever your job is, you're doing a great job at it. And this isn't it. Okay. Yeah.
Jessica: Um, we signed the contract in April. He said they start the first week of May. I wrote him a check for $12,000 as a deposit.
Mikki: So, not bad.
Jessica: Not, not a lot of,
Mikki: I don't know what the per like, I don't know what the math, math is, like the do, do, I don't know.
Jessica: 42,
Mikki: but it's not, it's not 50. Less
Jessica: and half.
Mikki: Yeah. So we
know that
Jessica: that's good. [00:20:00] He said that standard. Oh, 30% down. Had I just kept reading
Mikki: Whoopsie,
Jessica: I remember he did say he did the math for us.
He did, he did say that.
Mikki: So I would say that's too much. 'cause we're, we're gonna try to keep you guys within 20%. And um, I will say though, the, the, the ranges that general contractors ask for is all over the Dagon place. Mm-hmm. But I did confirm with Nicole. So Nicole is a general contractor that does kitchen and bath renovations here that we love and we adore and she's like out here killing it, winning tons of awards 'cause she's doing great work.
Outstanding. She does not ever request more than 20%. And that is for a kitchen and bathroom renovations, which are expensive and a big deal. So if somebody doing that kind of work isn't requesting more than 20, nobody else should be either.
Jessica: There we go.
Mikki: Heard it here. First facts as according to Mickey.
Jessica: Yeah. You can just tell him. The chicks in construction said,
Mikki: yeah. Love for us.
Jessica: Yeah,
Mikki: we've talked
Jessica: about that. Um, so I gave it to him. They [00:21:00] showed up that first Monday and tore down the existing patio cover in about a day. Then they started digging these trenches. Jeff's talking about how they have to go below the frost line for the footing.
I didn't even know we had frost lines in South Carolina, but whatever. He's the professional air quotes. And he used, he used the quote,
Mikki: quotes, he used quotes he used. Jeff is just really interpreting
Jessica: Sam's
Mikki: vibe.
Jessica: I am the air, I am doing the air quotes for those of you who cannot see me, quote
Mikki: unquote a professional.
Jessica: Yeah. And like the frost lines, like that's just a funny thing.
Mikki: That's a thing we have. I mean, they, they exist here. They're different in every state. So it does, I mean, it's a thing.
Jessica: I mean, it can get cold enough.
Mikki: Yeah. Every, every once in a while.
Jessica: Little bit. The footer inspection was scheduled for Friday.
The inspector shows up, looks at it, fails it.
Mikki: Yeah.
Jessica: So
Mikki: we didn't see that coming.
I mean,
Jessica: you know, Monday morning quarterback here, we knew what was coming
Mikki: for real. Sorry, Sam.
Jessica: All right. [00:22:00] This footings aren't deep enough and they're,
Mikki: so the whole frost line thing, he clearly didn't take that into account.
Jessica: How do you not get it deep enough? That's what she said,
says some things aren't deep enough and they're not wide enough for the size of what we're building. Jeff tells me the,
Mikki: sorry. Sorry about that.
Jessica: We're just a
Mikki: bunch of teenagers, children, and grown up body.
Jessica: She was not expecting that from me. I'm gonna cry.
Mikki: She can't pull. Oh, stop it.
Jessica: Okay. I'm serious. It's one of the things where now we can't look at each other.
Mikki: No, we can't look at each.
Jessica: We do. We're gonna start
Mikki: laughing. This is why Jess and I are not allowed to go to funerals.
Jessica: We're not allowed to go anywhere and sit next to each other if you have to be serious because [00:23:00] we give each other one look and over.
All right.
Mikki: All right. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. Sorry. So serious. Sorry, boss.
Jessica: Um, Jeff tells me the inspector's being ridiculous, says he's been doing this 15 years, never had an issue, says inspectors in our county are just tougher than other places. Thank God.
Mikki: Right. Here's the thing, like footings are a standard thing.
Like unless you're building like a five story building, footings are pretty standard. It's, there's, there's a calculation. That helps you calculate how deep and how wide your footings have to be. Mm-hmm. It's really genuinely not rocket science. There's like a website you can just put in what you're building and it's like, here's what your footings need to be.
So the inspector wasn't being a jerk, he was just doing his job.
Jessica: Yeah.
Mikki: I'm just gonna guess. He expected Sam to pay the, the, the, [00:24:00] okay. How did, oh yeah. I did not see this coming. Yeah. Part of me wonders if these contracts, if this is part of the, the scam. Oh. If doing it wrong several times, getting them to pay for it.
Because here's the thing, this Jeff Guy, he is not the one digging those footings. He is paying somebody else to dig the footings.
Mm.
So if that guy digs the footings wrong. Yep. I can assure you within the trade industry, we do not expect to get paid for our bad work. We know. Mm-hmm. Like if, if I make a mistake, I know that it's my cost to fix it.
Jessica: Right.
Mikki: So I guarantee you, well, I wonder, I don't, I wanna say I guarantee, 'cause I'm, I'm in my wondering phase mm-hmm. On this one. Are people doing it wrong and they're getting the, the, the sub to fix it at for no cost, but then they're turning around and they're charging the, the homeowner the cost to fix it.
Like, I wonder
Default_2026-04-13_2: this
Mikki: is part of the scam.
Jessica: It would have to pay the sub to [00:25:00]
Mikki: No. If the sub, if I do my job incorrectly. Mm-hmm. It, I,
Jessica: so do you think that the sub doesn't know what to do?
Mikki: I don't know. I, I, I, I, I don't know. Mm. But I know that one thing that is very clear within the subcontractor community, we do not expect to get paid if we failed the inspection.
Yeah. If we did something wrong, unless the general contractor specifically told us to do something that we knew was wrong and we said, Hey, general contractor, that you are not gonna pass inspection like that. Mm-hmm. And they come back and, and they say, do it anyway, and then they fail the inspection. Okay.
At that point you're gonna pay for it.
Jessica: Right.
Mikki: But like mm-hmm. In, in the world of trades, we don't think that, that we're gonna get paid for doing our job incorrectly.
Jessica: Yeah.
Mikki: It's just not a thing. Thing. And know should, and and we deal with inspectors all the time. Like we just had a thing where. In, in what we do, there's something called fire taping.
And all of what we do with, with walls and multifamily construction mm-hmm. Is all dictated by something they're called, it's called a ul, it's done [00:26:00] by the underwriter's laboratory. And it's a testing that's done to tell how durable or how long a, a fire will burn for before the, the, the fryer spreads or the smoke spreads.
So we have to do everything to the, the standard of each UL and a ceiling has a UL and this wall could have a different UL and all these different walls could have different uls that have different requirements.
Jessica: Right.
Mikki: So we had a situation where an inspector failed our GC for their fire, fire protection because he was under the impression that all of these walls needed to be the same.
And so he failed them and. It happens. I'm not saying like sometimes inspectors don't get a little too big for their britches, but as the subcontractor who knows what everything is, I just went back to him and said, Hey listen, this is in the plans because here's the thing, an inspector is not God. The plans are God.
So if the plans say this is how it needs to be done, the inspector cannot overrule that. Those in plans were [00:27:00] sta those plans were stamped by the city. They were approved by the city. Mm-hmm. So we went back to the inspector and showed him the different uls and said, this is the requirement for this wall type and this is the requirement for this wall type.
We have met that standard. And they were like, oh, okay. Sorry.
Jessica: My bad,
Mikki: my bad. Oops. And we moved on.
Jessica: Yep.
Mikki: If the work, if the inspector is asking for something that is unrealistic, you as the tradesperson, you as the general contractor, even you as the homeowner, have every right to push back and say, okay, show me where it says that in the code.
Show me where it says that on the plans. You tell me where the authority is, that this is wrong. And if they can't show you, and it's just their opinion, listen, that's not how this works.
Jessica: No,
Mikki: you can push back. So the idea that, oh, these inspectors are causing all these problems. No, they're not. You're doing the work wrong.
Because any good general contractor can push back if, if a inspector is truly [00:28:00] being ridiculous. There are protections in place to protect homeowners and to protect general contractors from rogue inspectors. Mm-hmm. This is, this is a nonsensical thing. It, and we need to debunk it.
Jessica: So it has been debunked,
Mikki: , I mean, the idea that it, it is. We're seeing it more and more in our homeowner horror stories where the general contractor comes out, they bid a job, they start the job, the inspector fails it, and it is a double-dipping.
'cause they're, they know that they're not gonna have to pay the subcontractor to do the work again. But they go back and they go to the homeowner and they say, Hey, listen, you have to pay for this. 'cause they, they, they messed it up. Mm-hmm. And now it's your responsibility. No, it's not. In what world is that your responsibility?
They're hundred percent double dipping or double dutch, or we're, we're still workshopping the name.
Jessica: We'll, we'll figure it out.
Mikki: We're gonna figure it out and then hashtag it. But I'm just saying it is, they are a double dipping. And it is, it seems to be a real way that general contractors are making money.
[00:29:00] It's a real way that they are scamming their clients. Mm-hmm. And it is something that is very triggering when we call it out on social media. It's very triggering to shady contractors because all of a sudden we're educating homeowners that that's not okay. Mm-hmm. And that is very upsetting to a lot of people that have been making their money off of the backs of hardworking people.
Mm-hmm. We're not here for it.
Jessica: No,
Mikki: no. Ma,
Jessica: we're gonna make it stop.
Mikki: Yeah, sure.
Jessica: Yeah. So Jeff says he'll fix it, we'll get it Reinspected. No big deal for
Mikki: only the two
Jessica: and of $2,000.
Mikki: Absolutely Not.
Jessica: Looking directly in her eyes.
Mikki: Directly in my eyes, I'm gonna do it again. You don't pay for rework. It is not your responsibility.
It is their responsibility to do it right the first time. And listen, if they come to you and they say, Hey, listen, the inspector's being ridiculous. Say, okay, I'm gonna call the inspector. Call the inspector. Mm-hmm. You have the right to call the inspector. That [00:30:00] inspector is inspecting your home. You may not be the general contractor, but it's your home.
And if they failed the inspection and the general contractor is blaming the inspector, call the inspector. If you wanna talk to the inspector's, bosses, all of these people are accessible. Call them. Ask them, why did you fail? It? Is this, is this, are you being, is this industry standard? Are you asking for something that's unusual or is this pretty standard?
And then you can go back to the general contractor and say, no, I'm not paying you for it. Do it. Right. Not doing it or get off my job.
Jessica: Yeah, a hundred percent.
Mikki: A hundred percent.
Jessica: And I'm standing there thinking, okay, this is annoying, but this stuff happens in construction. Right?
Mikki: If you're scamming people.
Jessica: So I paid it.
Mikki: Oh, Sam
Jessica: Reinspection passes. They
Mikki: start, there we go.
Jessica: Mm. So you know only
Mikki: one, you know. Second time
Jessica: they start framing and this is where I start noticing things feel off.
Mikki: Okay.
Jessica: Every time I came home from work, [00:31:00] there were different people there.
Mikki: Mm.
Jessica: One day is two guys I've never seen. The next day is three completely different guys.
I mention it to Jeff and he says something about subcontractors and scheduling and how it's just normal in construction. But it seemed weird to me like nobody knew what the crew from the day before had been doing. Framing, inspection comes up, failed. Mm-hmm. Inspector says the header over where the French doors are. Yeah. Supposed to go. Isn't big enough.
.
Jessica: Okay. So it's not so going to support Yeah.
The span or something.
Mikki: The load, yeah. So it's a, it's a load. So b basically when you interrupt a wall with a door or a window, they're all outside walls carry load because of the, the, the weight of your roof. So all outside walls carry load. So on an outside wall, if you break it up with a window or a door, you have to support it with a, a heavier duty piece of wood.
Like a lot of times it's like a two by eight or it can be a two by 10, depending on how [00:32:00] much load is above, like how much roof weight, weight your roof.
Jessica: Okay.
Mikki: You know what I'm saying? How much your roof weighs. So they have to, you, you basically are just distributing the weight of the roof onto that more structural framing member, so it kind of head goes out, and then underneath that heavier piece of framing mm-hmm.
You have like what they call a jack or a king stud. Okay. Which is like three, two by fours or two, two by fours that are put together. And so that carries the weight from. That piece of framing member down to those additional studs.
Jessica: Okay.
Mikki: So it supports that opening.
Jessica: Got it.
Mikki: Because it's, it's a big deal, like how your house sits is a really big deal.
And having the, the correct structural framing members, it's how you prevent sagging and like your things failing inside of your house. Yeah. It's, it's, you
don't want it to fail.
It's a big deal. So, and he's not, the inspector's not being ridiculous again. In my general contractor's books that I have, my substantial amount of books, [00:33:00] there's a book, you go to it, you calculate, you know what your roof is gonna be, what your roof span is, and there's all kinds of things that you pitch and all the things that you factor in.
And it literally has like a chart. Like, you know, women will understand what I'm talking about. We all have bought a pair of pantyhose, right? And you have to like look at your weight and look at your height and then like track on the little thing. Okay? Then this is the sites that I need. It's the same.
It's literally a very similar chart for the structural framing numbers members'.
Jessica: Why guys can't do it. They don't ever have to look for
Mikki: pantyhose. They've never under shot for pantyhose. But literally, that's the best example I can give you. There is a chart just like that in my book that I can go to and it says, okay, in this case you need to use a two by 10 or a two by 12, whatever it is.
Or a double, A double whatever. Mm-hmm. A whole thing. It tells you it's pretty easy. It's. That, that is not hard.
Jessica: That is not that doesn
Mikki: sound hard, but I'll tell you, it's expensive.
Jessica: Mm.
Mikki: So the more like beefy your framing members have to be, the more [00:34:00] expensive the wood is. So it's not surprising that somebody would try to make, to save money by
Jessica: making it smaller
Mikki: and hoping the inspector doesn't catch it.
Mm-hmm.
Jessica: Mm-hmm. Well, this inspector caught it. Boom. Not enough support for the span or something. Jeff gets all defensive, tells me the inspector doesn't know what he's talking about, that this was engineered and approved, but clearly it wasn't approved because we literally just failed the inspection.
Mikki: Clearly,
Jessica: clearly. Yeah, he says, fixing it is going to cost $3,500.
Mikki: He told me Sam didn't pay it.
Jessica: We need a special engineered beam, have to order it, labor to install it, the whole thing. Oh, of course he is.
Mikki: Mm.
Jessica: I've already got 14,000 into this project at this point in my back patio is completely torn apart, so I paid the 3,500.
We're eight weeks in now, so when he's supposed to be done.
Mikki: Yeah. And there is still in framing. Yep. Cool, cool, cool.
Jessica: Yep. Instead I've got half [00:35:00] a sunroom and I'm already over budget in six weeks behind Jesus. And then the work just started dragging out.
Mikki: Yeah.
Jessica: Some days nobody would show up at all. He'd say his crew was on another job, which is.
Awful. Like finish one job before you go do another.
Mikki: Yeah.
Jessica: It's probably not even that. I heard that. It's hard. He just doesn't have like enough, like he just didn't tell the guys to go back.
Mikki: I don't know. Sometimes it's legit, like, like if there's like a holdup, like for instance, right? Like, like let's just like play devil's advocate.
This guy doesn't calculate the load correctly. He turns out he has to get an engineered beam, which that is a thing, and they are expensive. Mm-hmm. However, if you had experience, then you would know, have known. 'cause here's the thing, it's not like Sam, the homeowner changed that. He wants double doors in here and the, and the.
The general contractor thought we were just putting a window. That is the case where you, the homeowner, would pay for that difference. Right? Because the general contractor bid it with it [00:36:00] being a window and now they want a door. That's not what happened in this story, but I'm trying to give you like a, Hey, where would it be a legitimate for a contractor to come back and charge extra money if you changed it after they bid it and it, it's going to incur additional costs.
Yes. That is your responsibility to pay for it. But if this general contractor didn't know that he was gonna need a special engineered beam, I'm sorry, I don't think that's your financial responsibility. Jeff can choose to eat the cost or he can choose to walk off the job. Those are his options. I, he should have known.
And that's a his, it's a moment for him to learn a lesson that hopefully he won't make the same mistake again. Mm-hmm. But I don't see how it's your financial obligation. He's just gonna make less money off the job. That's a lesson he needs to learn. And he's lucky you're willing to give it to him. But yeah, like.
It happens where you have to, these things happen, but it's your responsibility to know, right?
Jessica: Yeah. So, um, there might've been a [00:37:00] he says there was a material delay one day he was waiting for the inspector to call back. He always had a reason for people not being on the job.
Mikki: And that's what I was about to say.
So let's say you do get paused and. You have to order this structural member and it takes some time for them to make it. Do they have to make it? They have to, you know, create it for your job specifically. So let's say that puts you a couple weeks behind and your guy started on another job. Like, I don't think that's completely unreasonable.
Jessica: Okay.
Mikki: But at the same time, it shouldn't be a consistent thing. Mm-hmm. Like, okay, you had to put your guys on another job. You started this project first. So when that beam becomes available, I don't, I, they should be making plans to have people on your job to try to get it caught up. Right? Like that's responsible, general contracting.
Like, okay, you can't help the fact that, okay, now we have to have this beam made. It's gonna delay us by a couple weeks. Shit happens.
Jessica: Yeah.
Mikki: But when that beam comes in, you better have your guys ready to be on that job.
Jessica: Right.
Mikki: And that's a communication thing. So I do think that [00:38:00] they're right in the sense of like there was something off and it did start triggering red flags.
Jessica: It is. So when people did show up, they ask me stuff, where do you want the outlets? How high should the windows be?
Mikki: What,
Jessica: what about the HVAC? I had no clue. Nor would I, like, I can tell you where I want outlets probably because I'm like, I'm gonna want this here and this here and this here.
Mikki: Y'all, you know, who tells you where you want your, one of your outlets?
The code, the the building code. In your state. There's also an international building code that's accepted internationally all over the world. That one will tell you where your outlets go. You as the homeowner absolutely should not be telling people where, where an outlet goes, there's a rule that you have to have if you're within six feet of a source of water, you have to have a GFI.
Oh, that's not a, something that a homeowner would know.
Jessica: No.
Mikki: So my god, today, could you imagine if the, in the, the people on the job are asking you, the homeowner to know whether that's supposed to be it absolutely not. [00:39:00]
Jessica: I thought it was just like, where would you like this? Because like, are you going to have a TV here?
This is where you would want an outlet. No, I
Mikki: mean, that's a great thing to ask the general contractor, but you as a homeowner should not be dictating where outlets go. The code does that for you.
Jessica: Who knew,
Mikki: who knew P you know,
Jessica: not these
Mikki: guys,
Jessica: not these subcontractors. Oh my God. I mean the homeowner. I mean, now we know.
Now
Mikki: I know. And it's not, I'm sorry, but it's not the homeowner's job to know that. And it's like the, the second that somebody is asking you a question as serious as where does an electrical outlet go? Or the window height. So do you not have plans, do you not have drawings as to where this window's supposed to go?
Jessica: I
Mikki: guess not. It sounds to me like, no,
Jessica: which is probably a problem
Mikki: y'all. How did he even get this thing, get permits for this thing? Like, I have a lot of questions. A lot of questions. Sorry Sam.
Sorry.
Jessica: Um, I had no clue. I tried to call Jeff and half the time he [00:40:00] wouldn't answer. I'm trying to run my own business and now I'm apparently managing this construction project that I don't know anything about.
Then we get the electrical inspection, inspection. That one passes.
Mikki: Apparently somebody knew where to put the outlets.
Jessica: Somebody knew, but we are way behind schedule and over budget. My wife's asking me every single day when this is gonna be finished.
Mikki: Are we there yet?
Jessica: We are not. We are not. We'd plan this whole Labor Day cookout to show off the new room.
That's obviously not happening.
Mikki: I'm sorry.
Jessica: That's when I finally started actually looking stuff up online.
Mikki: Yeah,
Jessica: reading about building codes. About inspections, about what contractors are supposed to do, just trying to understand what was going on, and that's when I found the South Carolina [00:41:00] Contracting Contractor Licensing Board website.
Turns out any contractor doing work over $5,000 has to be licensed by the state. $5,000,
Mikki: that's what North Carolina is, 40. So you can't do nothing in South Carolina?
Jessica: No.
Mikki: And what's interesting, that's actually an interesting thing because the majority of our homeowner horror stories mm-hmm. Have come from South Carolina.
This is like our fourth or fifth
Jessica: Yeah.
Mikki: Homeowner story from South Carolina. So there's a big correlation between like E, everybody needs a license in South Carolina. Listen,
Jessica: so even more so than North.
Mikki: Yeah.
Jessica: I mean, I think $40,000 is way too much for not having a license, but that's just me, right? I mean, it's
Mikki: pretty wild in these streets.
We're just like, you know what? Just try it.
Jessica: See,
Mikki: try it until $40,000 outta debt,
Jessica: that's
Mikki: a problem.
Jessica: Be like, oh, maybe you shouldn't do that. Cool. Love that.
Mikki: They actually just increased it like two or three years ago. It used to be [00:42:00] 30,000 and they increased it to four day. They were like, lemme give you another $10,000 to hang yourself with.
Jessica: This has been going so well.
Mikki: We, let's increase it
Jessica: up. Your up it a little bit.
Mikki: Oh my gosh. We're
gonna make the F round and find out number even more.
Jessica: Cool. So they, he's, he's so cute. This guy, they've got a whole database. You can just search right there on the website. So I searched Jeff's name. Oh, then his business name.
Mikki: Ooh.
Jessica: Then every combination I could think of, because I can feel like his, like, oh, I must just be
Mikki: his, his forehead. His forehead vein bulging.
Jessica: His thing. His business has to be here. He has to be a real contractor, right? He has to be licensed.
Mikki: Jeff? No. Oh, Jeff's not licensed.
Jessica: Nothing. He is not there.
Mikki: Let me guess.
But he's a project manager working under a licensed general contractor. That's the next thing they're gonna tell you. Is that what they told Sam?
Jessica: No, that's not what I told them. No, they
Mikki: didn't.
Jessica: I don't,
Mikki: I
Jessica: mean, maybe later,
Mikki: I don't,
Jessica: we're gonna get down
Mikki: to that.
Jessica: Yeah. We wait a little, [00:43:00] a little further down, little
Mikki: further down.
Jessica: She's you spoiler alert.
Mikki: Just 'cause it happens in every
Jessica: single one. It does. This is what they, this, that's what they um,
Mikki: that's what they say. That's the.
Jessica: That's how they get themselves out of it. Nothing. He's not there. He doesn't have a license. I remember I was sitting at my kitchen table staring at my computer, scream, scream, scream.
Mikki: It's a scream at this point. A
Jessica: scream. It feels like he wants to scream, feeling like I was going to be sick. I've paid this guy over $30,000 and he's not even supposed to be doing the work.
Mikki: Aw.
Jessica: So I called him.
Mikki: That's
Jessica: long goes. Tried to keep my voice level. That must have been hard.
Mikki: He, I'd have been
Jessica: screaming, asked him straight up about his license.
He got real quiet for a second.
Mikki: Oh, bet he did. He was thinking,
Jessica: yeah, like, oh.
Mikki: He's like, what's my best way to get outta this one?
Jessica: Then he says he's working under [00:44:00] someone else's license.
Mikki: Shocking
Jessica: that he's a project manager for a licensed contractor.
Mikki: Mm-hmm.
Jessica: Absolutely. Shocking. It's not
Mikki: shocking. Absolutely not.
That is not a thing. It is not a thing.
Jessica: I asked him for the license number. I.
Mikki: Lemme guess he'll get back to me. Mm-hmm.
Jessica: He said he'd have to check with his boss and send it to me later. Never sent it. I would've been like, what is his name? I'll, I'll look it up right now.
Mikki: You're like, look, I got my phone out.
Just gimme his name.
Jessica: Just gimme his name.
Mikki: Reason they're saying that they have to get back to you, like, not a single story has, has ever been shared with us. Where we, they, they said, okay, well what's your. What's the name of the person that's licensed and they were like, oh, here it is. Not a single person has provided that information
Jessica: because they're not Yeah, they're big liars.
They be
Mikki: lying.
Jessica: They lying.
Mikki: Liars be lying.
Jessica: Mm-hmm. I told him, no more work and no more money gets paid until I see proof he's licensed. He started talking really fast saying, I'm holding up the project.
Is crew [00:45:00] scheduled and we have a contract. I say, I don't care about the contract. No. If you are not licensed to do the work in the first place. Right.
Mikki: At least Sam knew what the, what the deal was. That contract is null and void. You misrepresented yourself. Mm-hmm. By being a licensed, so saying you were a licensed general contractor, you are not.
No. The contract is now null and void done and every single time this has happened, they do the same thing. They start yelling, they start saying, you are in violation of the contract. Mm-hmm. You are holding up the schedule. You are holding up the job By not allowing an unlicensed contractor to finish every single time y'all.
It ain't. The funny thing is we have no reason to believe that this is the same person. Screwing over all these people in South Carolina, but this is the same mo. Mm-hmm. This is exactly what every single one of them does, because nine times outta 10 it works.
Jessica: Yeah.
Mikki: Because you don't, you just started watching the chicks in construction.
You hadn't seen it before. So you didn't know. You
Jessica: didn't know. But that's [00:46:00] Now, you know.
Mikki: Now you know.
Jessica: He hung up on me.
Mikki: He did not.
Jessica: He hung up on me.
Mikki: Sure.
Jessica: I drove by the house the next day around lunch. Nobody was there.
Mikki: Ah,
Jessica: day after that. Same thing.
Mikki: Yeah.
Jessica: Called him, went to voicemail, texted him nothing. Well, week went by and I realized he just ghosted me.
Yeah. I would've realized that on day two.
Mikki: Yeah. But I've noticed that, that, that people are surprised once they call somebody out for lying that they then just no longer engage with them. But I, I think we just need to like be like, Hey guys, we just want you to understand that when you realize that you have been scammed and then you call the scammer out.
They're not gonna answer the phone again.
Jessica: No,
Mikki: but that's. That's okay. Mm-hmm. We need to plan for that. So you wanna plan what your next steps are before you call that person out for not having license and for lying to you. Mm-hmm. Because they're never gonna come back.
Jessica: No. They're going to take all the money that you have given them [00:47:00] and
Mikki: Right.
Jessica: Piece out.
Mikki: So the move for homeowners, right. Like, because obviously we want you to watch our show and to know how to not find yourself in this situation. Mm-hmm. That's the plan. That's the, that's the, the goal. Right. But if things happen and you find yourself in this situation anyway. Okay. Okay. We're here.
Right. So what do we do now? What we do now is, is we realize we've been scammed and now we start playing chess while they're playing checkers. We start making moves before they're aware that we are aware that they be doing us dirty. And you do what you need to do, set yourself up in a way that maximizes your ability to get as much of your money back and as much of the work done mm-hmm.
That you can, before you, you, you pull the trigger. To, to let this guy know that you're onto him because the second that they know that, you know that they're not licensed, they take that one call, they tell you that they're working under a general contractor. They don't give you the name of that general contractor, and then they literally never [00:48:00] call, answer your phone calls again or show up to your job again.
And more than likely clear out all the tools. 'cause that's the other thing. Yeah, I've already said what I said about that. You should see it on another podcast. I'm not allowed to say it again.
Jessica: No. Um, and I mean, he said that he didn't want any more work done.
Mikki: Yeah. So he,
Jessica: and so like, he, he told them that he didn't want them doing
Mikki: things.
I think, I think he thought that the guy was gonna try to make it right, because that's just what we think people are gonna do. We think people are gonna do the right thing. And unfortunately
Jessica: they ain't, they
Mikki: ain't, they
Jessica: ain't doing it. Took off done. So now I've got half a sunroom. Part of it doesn't even have a roof yet.
The framing's just sitting there exposed. Mm-hmm. Electrical roughed in windows I already paid for in one of the progress payments, but never got installed.
Mikki: That sucks.
Jessica: The windows are just like hanging out.
Mikki: Hanging out.
Jessica: So I found a lawyer, he told me suing an unlicensed contractor is tough because.
They're already [00:49:00] breaking the law.
Mikki: Yeah.
Jessica: Even if I won, actually collecting any money would be almost impossible
Mikki: because you can't get blood out of a rock. Mm.
Jessica: He said I could file a complaint with the licensing board, but since Jeff doesn't have a license, they can't really do anything. Yep. They can't take away something that he never had.
Mikki: Mm.
Jessica: So I had to find another contractor, a real one this time I looked him up on the state website before I even called him.
Mikki: Yes. My boo.
Jessica: That is the move.
Mikki: You got it?
Jessica: Mm-hmm. I asked to see his actual license when he came out.
Mikki: You're like, no, bring the certificate. I wanna put eyes on that bad boy. I wanna touch it.
Jessica: Um, and he verified his insurance.
Mikki: Yes,
Jessica: I did all the stuff I should have done the first time.
Mikki: Aw, Sam, I'm so sorry I don't learn the hard way.
Jessica: He walked around looking at Jeff's work and kept shaking his head. I, my words, I can just feel the [00:50:00] tension Yes. That this guy is feeling the
Mikki: stress
Jessica: because it's not gonna be good.
Um, it says some of the, some of the framing had to be redone. Electrical was okay. Foundation was okay, but not great. Gave me a quote to finish it all properly. $28,000, that's over 60. For the grand total for a project that was supposed to cost me 42. It took another four months to finish. Wow. We didn't get to use it until January.
Missed Labor Day, missed Thanksgiving, missed Christmas, almost a full year from when we started.
Mikki: Wow. For a sunroom enclosure, closure.
Jessica: Yeah. Wow.
Mikki: It's crazy. That
Jessica: sucks. But part of me, I'm like, yes, it sucks. But part of me was like, at least it was your sunroom and not like, and not your
Mikki: main house.
Jessica: It's not inside.
It's not your kitchen. Yeah. It's not your bathroom. So like silver lining.
Mikki: So you weren't staying with your in-laws? Oh my God. For a year. [00:51:00] I Lord have mercy.
Jessica: No,
Mikki: absolutely not.
Jessica: No, absolutely not. So
Mikki: the glass half full, we're, we're trying to
Jessica: get, trying to find, trying get into
Mikki: the gain, you know, stay outta the gap.
My god.
Jessica: Yeah. So the room looks good Now. The second contractor actually knew what he was doing. Shocker. Everything passed. That
Mikki: license really adds up.
Jessica: Yeah. Everything passed inspection the first time. First
Mikki: time he didn't have to pay for any rework. Mm-hmm. Any double dipping as they say.
Jessica: No.
Mikki: And the day is us.
We're we're, we're tagging it. We're, we're claiming it. We're making up names now.
Jessica: It's just we're doing the
Mikki: best we can. We sure are,
Jessica: but every time I sit there, I just think about how much extra money I spent and how the whole thing could have been avoided.
Mikki: Yeah.
Jessica: I filed a police report. They took down all the information, but basically said, good luck improving fraud, and even better luck getting any money back.
That was nine months ago and I haven't heard a word. So yeah, that's what happened to my [00:52:00] sunroom. It's a nice room. Cost me an extra 20 grand in a year of my life dealing with this garbage. Oh. And every time someone tells me they're hiring a contractor, I practically grab them by the shoulders,
Mikki: shake 'em, shake '
Jessica: em, and make them promise they'll verify the license first.
Mikki: By God.
Jessica: I don't care. Please, if it's your brother,
Mikki: yes.
Jessica: I don't care if he seems nice. Mm-hmm. Look it up.
Mikki: Yes.
Jessica: It takes five minutes.
Mikki: He really does.
Jessica: Because I didn't, and look where it got me.
Mikki: Ugh. Sam, I'm so sorry. Like it's just wild to me. How prevalent this is and like the more we have these situations and then we, the more research we do, you know, I thought I knew, like we literally started the podcast.
We just, we just wanna educate people. We didn't even understand the extent to like, no, the levels that contractors are scamming people. Mm-hmm. Until we got into the thick of it [00:53:00] and started really doing research on how many people get taken advantage every single day. Mm-hmm. By contractors. It's wild.
It's crazy. It's absolutely wild. And I like guys, we say it over and over again. The bare minimum that you have to do when you are hiring a general contractor is to check and make sure that they have a license that is the bare minimum. Mm-hmm. And, and I know we wanna trust people and people sound like that guy was using all the construction terms because he wanted that guy to think that he knew what he was talking about.
'cause he wasn't licensed, but he wanted to create so much confidence mm-hmm. That he didn't even think to checkup and, and look to see if he had a license. No.
Jessica: He was also referred by somebody at work. Yeah. So also when you get like a personal referral, you feel like that person's not gonna tell me somebody that's gonna screw me over.
Mikki: Yeah,
Jessica: they will. They, they will because he could have done good work for them or he could have not even have done work for them. He could have just been somebody that,
Mikki: yeah, he could've been like, oh, I know this guy. I met him at the bar. He
seemed like a [00:54:00] good guy
Jessica: who did work for somebody.
Mikki: Good old Jeff.
No.
Yeah, absolutely not. Mm-hmm. So like, that's the thing guys, and, and people can get really, really hot and bothered in the comments about, oh, just because somebody has a general contractor's license doesn't mean they're gonna do good work. You're right.
Jessica: A hundred percent
Mikki: That we're not guaranteeing that because they have a license means they're gonna do good work.
In fact, we have had horror stories where people were actually licensed and screwed homeowners over like the, the Jake Moba story here in North Carolina. That guy was licensed. However, out of all of the homeowner horror stories that we have shared, I believe that was the only one who was actually licensed.
So it is a rare occurrence mm-hmm. That somebody has gone through the trouble of getting a general contractor's license and is out here in these streets screwing people over.
Jessica: Right.
Mikki: So passing the test of do they or do they not have a license, is a great way to, for step one, for you to figure out, does this person [00:55:00] have enough integrity to tell me the truth?
If the answer is no, we're not even doing a follow up. But the, the only way that works where you can walk away without any damage is if you check that license before signing a contract with them before they start working your property. Mm-hmm. All of that has to happen before anything starts.
Jessica: Now, a thing that we've been seeing recently too is that there's a lot more contractors being qualified by other somebody else.
Yeah. So when you see that they're qualified by somebody else, what is another layer that you, is there like something else that you should do there to, because like it's not actually them and their business that's. License
Mikki: somebody. Well, you know, well their business is license, so, so, okay. Basically in the state of North Carolina, I can't speak for other states 'cause I don't know a general contractor, somebody who has a license can qualify up to two businesses now.
Do I know why? No, I don't. It's seems weird. Seems a little weird, [00:56:00] right? But like, it's the law, it's allowed, so it's not wildly uncommon for construction companies to have multiple people as qualifiers. 'cause somebody could quit. So they wanna have, they wanna have a backup in case somebody, you know. Mm-hmm.
Moves on to another job. Or like we've worked in comp with companies where the, the person who was the licenser holder was running the business for many, many years and then they retired. Mm-hmm. And so even though they are still technically the owner of the business, they have somebody else qualifying the company.
'cause they're out there living their best lives and they don't wanna mess around with being the qualifier for the company. So there's a lot of different reasons why somebody would be calling themselves a general contractor, but they themselves are not the license holder. There's a lot of reasons, but what we're finding is people who don't think it's important to study and take the test, we'll go and find someone else to qualify their company.
And not every time does that lead [00:57:00] to something bad, but. In a lot of the situations, you're dealing with somebody who does not have the experience to pass the exam and are finding a workaround mm-hmm. In how, how to still have a license, which, hey, at least they're putting the effort in to having a license as opposed to just being unlicensed.
Mm-hmm. But it kind of begs the question like, okay, well if you had to find a workaround to taking the test, are you gonna find a workaround to doing my job correctly? So, and
Jessica: then if the, if you complain to the licensing board, is it going to be the person that's doing it or is it going to be the license holder?
That's going to be, so both. A. Both. Okay.
Mikki: Well that's good. And so that's why in situations where I was working with people that I realized kind of after we got. Started that they did not have integrity, nor did they know what the heck they were doing and didn't wanna listen to me. I've pulled my license because I'm not going to deal with somebody who doesn't know what they're doing and doesn't wanna learn.
[00:58:00] So if that person had, you know, under my license had done something wrong, they could potentially get their license taken away because my test scores qualified their business mm-hmm. To have a general contractor's license so that that license could be pulled and my license could be taken away or suspended or like things could happen to the both of us.
Okay.
So it is a really big deal and it's actually a huge business where people go out and get their general contractor's license and they get paid to qualify other companies. And sometimes it's legit and sometimes it's not. And so asking questions about that is a great way to say, okay, well I wanna meet the qualifier, I wanna meet the person that passed the test.
That's, that's the person that, that, that I wanna know. Yeah. I wanna, I want their phone number. I want to be able to reach out to them if I'm having problems with you and you're not responding in a way that I think is appropriate. Mm-hmm. Because both of those people, if they do actually have a GC license that's qualified [00:59:00] by somebody else, both the person who's operating the business and who's qualifying the business are on the line.
Jessica: Yeah.
Mikki: I mean, to the extent that the, the licensing board will actually do anything about it, because sadly we've seen several situations mm-hmm. Where
Jessica: I got a slap on the wrist.
Mikki: I mean, barely, they barely get a slap on the wrist. Mm-hmm. So again, we are not saying that a license is the end all be all, and it fixes all the problems.
But we are saying that if somebody wants to do things the right way, the first thing they're gonna do is go out and get their general contractor's license because they care about knowing, they care about understanding and they care about doing things the right way. That seems like a great place to start.
Jessica: Right.
Mikki: It seems like a great place to start. I
Jessica: mean, that's, that you're professional,
Mikki: the right, it's not the only qualification. Mm-hmm. They also need to have the app, appropriate insurance. They, you also need to check and make sure that they haven't mm-hmm. Had the bejesus suit out of them, or they haven't had several different companies in the same genre under their name.
There's a lot of other things that you need [01:00:00] to do to suss them out, but the basic thing is to check and see if they have a general contractor's license.
Jessica: It's step one.
Mikki: It is. It's step one. And we don't want this to happen to you. No. So that's why, if it has happened to you, sharing your story is so important because it helps us educate everybody else.
So many people are going to learn from your stories. Mm-hmm. And we appreciate you sharing them. We do. So please go to chicks and construction.com and share your homeowner story with us. We appreciate you liking and subscribing and liking on whatever watching or listening platform that you're on.
Obviously it helps with the algorithm. That's what matters. The elusive algorithm that nobody knows what it is.
Jessica: Nobody knows.
Mikki: Just we know you have to like and subscribe. That's all we know. That's
Jessica: all we
Mikki: know. All we know. So other than that, where can they find us on the socials?
Jessica: So on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram is at Chickson Construction Podcast.
And on TikTok it's at Chickson Construction.
Mikki: Yeah guys, so we thank you and we'll see you next time. [01:01:00] Bye bye.