The saga of the porch

Paige and I seem to have very bad luck with major purchases. We frequently get incompetent salesmen and the worst service possible. Our first major purchase after we got married was a couple of couches. I think it ended up taking 3 years for us to finally get them delivered. Ok, maybe it wasn't that long, but it felt like it. They sent the wrong color, ripped then when delivering them, etc. I don't remember all the details, but I do remember that we ended up getting them for dirt cheap, because we had to go back to the store so many times and complain, and we kept demanding refunds. And I remember leaving their store once in the middle of the ordeal so angry it was all I could do not to put my steel toed boot through their plate glass window.

We should have taken that as a sign. In February, we went about getting bids to replace the awning on our back porch that was destroyed in the monsoons last summer. We figured that would leave us plenty of time before Luke was born to get it finished. We chose a company, and they told us it would be 2-4 weeks to get the permit, and then another 2-3 weeks to put up the cover. Well, 18 weeks later (18 weeks!!!!) we finally have the porch installed. We will never deal with these guys again, and will recommend to anyone who asks that they also not use them. They basically blamed all the delays on the Gilbert permit office. I won't go into all the details, but the bottom line is that the Gilbert permit office was right on schedule, and the awning company was completely incompetent. At one point (about 14 weeks into the process) Gilbert had reviewed their drawing and made some redlines, and the company let the permit sit there for 4 weeks before picking it up, while telling us that the delays were Gilbert's fault. We attempted to cancel the contract, because I no longer wanted to reward their lousy business practices, but they wouldn't let us without paying a 25% fee. So we were stuck giving our money to them.

The install guy came yesterday and started, and he seems to be the only one at the company without his head up his... well, you know. He worked hard to get the porch up, even though they only sent one guy to do a two man job. He has a few details to finish tomorrow (actually today, I guess) and then it should be done.

We've told the company we want the price reduced because they screwed up so badly. So far they haven't responded. If they fail to reduce the price, it may take a while for the remainder of their payment to make its way through the Addink accounting department. Like about 18 weeks or so.