u/Low_Bar9361

Basically the guy had a leak in his bathroom above the kitchen. He insisted on closing the ceiling up first because of his cats; he was worried they would try and get up there. He informed us he has asbestos according to the last contractor (first red flag). He doesn't want to do a total abatement.

I get a drywall crew in there and tell him about the asbestos and they agree to take on the job since no cutting is necessary. They will wet sand it and spray texture, no problem, just charge more. They start the next day and do everything really clean and nice. Never seen a dustless drywall install tbh.

Then the guy complains that they were very rushed and he didn't like that he couldn't use his kitchen that day. The drywallers weren't making him happy for unspecified reasons. I would guess racism but his wife is Indian and he has purple hair, so idk, everything feels off. (Second red flag). This is when i made my first post about him:

when to fire a client?

He goes on vacation for a week and doesn't trust anyone in his house while he's gone. Cool, he has to order material anyway because that is our agreement so I'll just wait for him to get his stuff. He gets back from vacation and calls a meeting to discuss concerns. In his meeting, he says he is firing us for incompetence and wants all his money back. I'm like, "ok email me everything. We are no longer working together."

I consulted with an attorney. He says the guy is probably a scammer. He suggested we offer some money back because we did like $4000 worth of work and he wants his $6000 dollars back. We offer $1000 back now, or wait until we have invoices from subs so we can show receipts on what was done. He fires back that he's going after our bond if he doesn't have all his money back by Monday. I'm like... WTF. No. My lawyer is doubling down that he won't do shit. My lawyer is free. He's my grandpa and did contract law for a decade. He said, "this will happen again. Welcome to business."

My business as a remodeler is 4 years old now. This is the first time this has happened. I've had one other person not pay at the end but that just sucked. This is somehow worse. What to you guys think?

I got a client who micromanages everything and has no chill. He complains about everything, wants to manage ordering material but creates issues where that can't happen because he won't be home to receive materials... anyway, he's generally being a nightmare. He texts as soon as I leave the house to say he wasn't done with our discussion and I didn't answer his questions. I answered all of them three times and his wife seemed to be apologetic, but he's relentless. I mean, he had a spreadsheet of the work he wants done and we went through line by line and discussed each one.

The dude just texted me at 9:30, Sunday night. Is he insane? We already have him in schedule. He's just stressing and texting me non-stop. I want to fire him.

I think he's looking for excuses to not pay me. I could lien him, of course but I would be happier to walk away from the headache and call it a wash I've done about half his job already and only collected half of the bid. What would you guys do? Am I just too tired to deal or am I reading this situation correctly?