It's 2.50am and I can't sleep.
We've had an ongoing saga with our builders - when they've been here they've done a great job; getting them here has been an issue. We're at the end of week 19 of an 8-10 week job.
The end was nigh though. Today a man arrived to finish off the taping/filling/sanding. We've gotten to know him over the last four months and get on extremely well. We had a nice chat about various things and I pointed out the last few areas that needing done. (Should add that this would have completed the basement conversion but there would have been some other building regs work to do in the rest of the house e.g. intumescent staining).
I came home at 4.15pm to find that he hadn't done the work. He had stripped out our newly installed bathroom suite and shower and left. It turns out he did this on the instruction of the owner of the company because he wanted to indicate that he had an issue with the payment schedule.
We have paid everything to date and there is no balance outstanding. If there were a problem I would have expected it to be communicated in writing or by phone to either one of us or the architect. Instead, someone gained access to our house under false pretences and stole things. To make matters worse, he had been sympathising with the fact that someone had broken into our house last week and stolen my bag whilst I was in the house with 2 of our children.
In fact, we know that the invoice schedule was front loaded so that most of the costs were paid early to offset costs of parts, manufacturing etc so the balance to pay for the final invoice and the retention (neither invoice for these have been submitted as that work hasn't started) is less than what we will have to pay a 3rd party contractor to finish the job (and buy a new bathroom suite).
I can't sleep. I am working tomorrow instead of my normal day off. Dh is working 9-9 every day from tomorrow until Christmas Day and is still poorly with a rampant chest infection.
I don't know how to make it better.