The Fence - Part One: The Debacle

Or as was should call it: Chris Yurjevich: "NON-tractor." He was obviously not a contractor. Or, you could say since I was basically conned, the contractor moniker is somewhat accurate in a twisted sort of way.

Let's start at the beginning.

I found him on Craigslist, and honestly--I don't know what possessed me to hire him in the first place. Maybe it was my private nature--how I hate talking to people I don't know. Maybe it was my lack of leadership abilities--how I don't like directing people. It was such a perfect storm for a fuckup of fairly grand scale, and so it came to pass.

After meeting and talking about everything on the weekend, we agreed on the following Tuesday for a start date, citing Sunday/Monday as regular closed days for the lumber yard. I was aware of the quality of the wood from Mill Outlet in Tacoma, so I didn't question him or suggest going to another source--they have nice wood.

Also, we were excited! After so long it was finally going tot happen! We were actually going to get a new fence! It was underway! Well, Tuesday morning he texted me, "I completely forgot I have 2 diff DR appts today for labwork, so I'll be there about 8:30am tomorrow to get rolling." When I thanked him, he responded, adding, "I'll see you around 8-9 depending on how busy Mill Outlet is." He never did show up that day. Or message.

That's when the real excuses started flooding in. "Diverticulitis", "The wood at the mill was soaked", "I left my post hole digger at my last job, so I need to stop and get another one," etc. The excuses started to mount. You can read about some of them in the text pic on the right. (Viewing tip: click the image, then right-click and 'open in new tab'. From there you can zoom in on it.)

Some of his warning signs: 

• He was setting posts by pouring a (yes, ONE) bag of concrete into the hole and then filling it with water.
• One of the posts was at least the width of the post out of alignment from the other posts. "There was big rock down there. Don't worry--you won't even notice it." Wrong.
• Not one time did he ever even address the other half of fence project on the driveway side of the house. Whether supplies, process, etc... he probably never planned on getting that far...
• He had no tools to speak of. No wheelbarrow, no hose... the things that he did have looked freshly-bought.
• The posts he showed up with were regular 8-foot 4x4 posts from a box store, measuring 3.5" x 3.5" wide like most do. An 8-foot post is not long enough for a 6-foot fence!
• When I looked at the heights of the row of posts he had installed, the numbers were all over the map. When I measured what was protruding from the ground I found he had only buried them 1-1.5 feet deep! That was not going to hold a 6-foot privacy fence up. The wind would have taken the whole thing down in no time.
• The final straw: I went out to the street to look down at the row alignment and saw he hadn't even been following his own string line! He was off by almost a full 12 inches at the street end. Unbelievable... and after I shelled out $3k on a survey before we started.

On top of all this, it was getting dangerously close to winter weather, and he had already missed some primo weather days.

Being the non-combatant type that I am, I dreaded calling him. Lucky for me it was just a short time later that same day when he saved me the trouble by texting me. On the right is the text chain, which ends with me replying to dead air in fantasyland. Haha, I haven't heard from him since.

End didn't end there though. No. I had to deal with the mess he left behind. Cleaning up his shit is when I found out how many bags of concrete he had actually used. I had 12 posts to dig out. I wasn't about to add that additional labor charge to the fence guys I had since lined up to do the job. I didn't get any pictures, but I ended up using this method: tie a chain around the bottom of the post, run the chain over a car wheel/tire, hook it to Honda ATC110 3-wheeler. Well, the intent was good, the process was good, I just had a little power/weight deficiency with using the little Honda. Still, I used it--giving each one a slack chain before hitting the gas and giving myself minor whiplash. I managed to get them all out without too much trouble. Hell, I pulled two of them out by hand just by wiggling and lifting! Here's what I ended up with by the time I remembered I had forgotten take any stinkin' pictures. I took this one off my security camera (as you can tell). That was a lot of work for an old guy:

"Hold it!" The de-construction of an underway debacle

In that picture, you can see the whole reason for all the waffling I've done and all the time that's passed. There are no joggles in any of these property lines, so if that's the case who owns what with a fence line that contains a 3-foot joggle in it? Well, the Coronavirus lockdown threw a huge wrench into the picture, but we did eventually get a survey done to determine who owns what before we put a new fence in. Turns out the very back corner of the fence at the corner of the property is right on the dot, but by the time it gets to the joggle in the cyclone fence it's off by half that width. In other words, the property line goes right through the center of that fence joggle, off by almost 3 feet at the street. Good to know!

Back to the story: of course, I was going to keep those 4x4's I painstakingly removed from their post holes. In a matter of speaking I paid a shitload of money for those 20 4x4's, so they're gold to me! The residual concrete I cleaned off them practically fell off some of them. That "pour mix in the hole and add water'" method of making concrete is completely unacceptable. It has zero strength. Here you can get an idea of how shallow the posts were buried:

This time I wasn't going to waste any time finding a real contractor. I was running out of good weather. I was pissed that I had gotten screwed out of a bunch of cash, and I was completely frustrated with looking at the destruction and mess in the yard. I wanted closure. I got on the web and nailed down a couple bids of good companies, finally settling on Olympic Fencing Solutions.

Next: The Fence Part Two - The REAL Fence!