[Porsche-O-Phile]

Sorry to hear about your problems. I've said it before and I'll say it again - GET A WRITTEN CONTRACT. You absolutely should have done this or hired a residential construction management firm to do it for you. It is standard verbage in construction contracts that the scope of work, schedule and contractor's responsibilities are clearly spelled out and it is a LOT harder for them to jack you around once that's in place.

"Industry standard" is that the contractor is typically responsible for anything they damage and for leaving the site reasonably clean at the end of each day's work. They are normally also responsible for disposal/hauling of construction debris. You're opening yourself up to liability by just having it sitting on your lawn - if some kid gets a nail through the foot and the contractor is able to successfully argue that "hey, the owner said he'd take care of it", guess what? You get the bill.

The instant a contractor gives you that age-old line about "I'm not making any money off this job", it's time to throw their ass off the job site. I'm not kidding. They bid it, it's their problem and frankly I don't want anyone there that doesn't want to be there - it creates a dangerous corrosive atmosphere and I guarantee they'll be fishing for big change orders. I'm 100% dead serious here - we've thrown COMMERCIAL subcontractors off jobs on multi-million dollar projects for exactly this.

Good luck with the fight, but I hope you've learned a lesson from this. WRITTEN CONTRACT, architect-prepared stamped construction documents or C.M. firm in the future people. I don't know what it is with residential owners where they get so damn cheap about everything. Common sense - if people do it on large commercial jobs, there's probably a reason for it. It makes sense on a small residential job too - and it's not nearly as expensive as you might think. For this, you probably could have hired a residential C.M. outfit to handle all the details for you for under $1,000.

I suspect without a contract you're screwed, but good luck fighting the fight anyway.