The garage in our backyard was in bad shape when we bought our house a decade ago. This spring, we hired Dave to take it down and install a new fence.
The demo proceeded fairly quickly. A month later, he still hadn't finished the fence, or removed broken concrete from the job. He prefers cash, refused cheques from President's Choice, regaled us with tales of his financial problems. Instead, we needed to hit an ATM daily.
The fence was built over weeks, with Dave working no more than a couple six hour days each week. Then he disappeared.
It took an angry call to finally get him to return to finish the disposal and put a latch on the gate. He asked for an additional $300 (cash, of course) for some minor additional work, but refused to provide an itemized bill detailing the extra cost.
Several boards on the fence are seriously warped, and it sits four inches above the ground on one side of the property. Dave said he'd be back to resolve the issues, but that was a month ago.
On the plus side, it doesn't appear he wants to collect the HST which is outstanding.