Well got to say this has been one of the more "interesting" weeks of my life. After shopping around for the cheapest and most capable demo contractors for my back lean too and concrete slab I went for a local company/ Which unbeknown to me at the time I agreed to use them, is ran and operated by a well known Lebanese family with erm Connections..... I knew they were Meditteraneans but not sure which breed, which is usual for this region..

They run this side of their business enterprises really well and have cheap prices... 3,500 Aus versus the next cheapest quote of 5,000.... To cut a long story short the wife and I took a week off of work waited for them to turn up... they Cited rain delays... it was raining. Whereup they turned up last Friday and started dismantling my Lean too. The blokes they used were friendly polite and communicative. No worries with them. They did a good job...cleaned up the building debris and took off on Saturday. Problem was the concrete slab, plus rain was making their other jobs delayed. So I found someone else that could do it this week.

This is where the "Fun" begins... I reckon they've only done half a job... I phone the bloke up and say as nicely as I can that I can get someone else to finish this can I pay for what I owe, and I'll use you in the future for any more skip and rubbish removals. He says whats left will only cost 200 dollars... so make it 3,300... My quote for the concrete removal is 1,200.... So all of a sudden I'm in dispute with "The Lebanese" and I mean The Lebanese to the tune of 1,000 bucks. Where upon he says Eddie dont worry I finish the job. Midweek he sends his Brother around who runs the Bobcat and Excavation part of the Business who tells me he Cant start for 2 weeks and it cant be done without concrete cutting, which I have to arrange myself.

Luckily I've been around the Northern Subs long enough to figure there has to be a safe way out of this. So I phoned up one of my Lebanese freinds to work out the best approach. "Appeal to their honour" she said..."Tell them you really liked them and your very disappointed with whats happened and want to be able to deal with and recommend them in future"....... So I arranged the other demo guy....(This one's Maltese... I think they are safe LOL) and trepidatiously tried to work out how to cut 1,000 bucks of the 3,500 that we had handshook on. After a decent phone call I ended up with 600 bucks off and the promise of a free skip. He dio add I was "Breaking his Balls" but in a jovial way.

Just shows how easy it is to unwittingly get yourself into a dodgy situation. ...Probably one level down from the Hells Angels and the rest of the Bikies... so I'm back to being relaxed again.

I hate to imagine what would have happened if a Newly arrived person from the UK found themselves in this same situation and dealt with them in the usual UK manner. Molatovs at dawn most likely.

Sometimes mate you just have to swallow your pride, put it down to experience and move on. I paid out money a few times on our build where it wasn't 100% right to pay out but I needed to maintain good will.... has paid off in the end.

BB

Glad its all turned out okish for you.I suppose if you dont pay up you always have the fear of waking up to finding the pet rabbit on the barbie.

Yehp something like that, you read about these people with the same surnames in the National papers, Generally they just have ago at each other. I'm just hanging on to the idea that the next cheapest quote was more expensive than I'll end up paying.

Everyone ... Carpenters, Kitchen people, Flooring people have been put on hold for Two weeks whilst this saga was happening. Plus I've had no running water inside the house for over a week now. Tarps are taking a battering today, it's a squally day in Melbourne.

Hopefully the demo will be completed this week.

Just think yourselves lucky that your 21 year old size 6, 5 ft 8, naturally blonde and gorgeous daughter isnt the apple of some fluckwit bikie's eye and he'll stop at nothing to either have her or destroy her......

She was the bikies prefered barmaid and always specialed them when she worked at the local club, a club that is a bikie gang front....


our lives are DEAD interesting at the moment... And Esparance may be their only way forward.... Bloody sickos

Always beware the builder that undercuts the rest. I have heard about your experience a few times.

I too have had a number of terrifying encounters with the lesbian community

Serious???

Would you move from Rocky to get away from them? We had bikie stuff going on down our way a while back, some visitors to an Aboriginal family were trashing everyones gardens and fences, one of the neighbours got pissed off with his garden/garage being trashed and called in some bikies who rocked up on their bikes and then put their living room window out. Been all quiet since but then again, they scare the crap out of me so it doesnt surprise me the people concerned are behaving themselves.

Are things any better from last week?

I'm dead serious.... Nope, wouldnt move from rocko.... Yet.... Will PM you