N Mars Construction

Mars was hired as subcontractor for Ruffing Building Company. Mars himself hired various people to do the work while Mars spent most of the time on site sitting in his pick-up truck, eating or shouting at his employees. Ruffing made an offer for a home remodeling project. His quote was accepted and we signed an AIA contract on 12-06-2019. Price was $64,000. Time to complete was 90 days after commencement. Project commenced on February 19. On March 30, 2020, we signed a change order for $32,000. By now Ruffing has collected $62,000 = 66% of the entire price. Last day Ruffing, Mars or any of the sub-contractors were seen on site was July 28, 2020. The project is not even near completion. In fact, three bathrooms are destroyed, in many areas the original hardwood floors have been removed for no obvious reason, the railing to the second floor has been removed which represents a hazard, uncapped electrical wires are hanging out of the walls which represents another hazard. At no time Mars or Ruffing applied for a permit with the local authorities. None of the work which involved structural, plumbing, HVAC and electrical changes was ever inspected. Since July 28, 2020, I have been trying to meet with Ruffing on site to review the work done so far together with a consultant I retained. Ruffing only sporadically answered my text messages, e-mails and voice mails and ultimately refused to meet. Instead he wanted to meet "on neutral ground" to "agree on the amounts". He he wanted me to call his legal counsel instead. In addition Ruffing deceived me by telling that the bathroom installation material I had picked together with him and his wife Donna on 12-28-2020 was "$10,000 over budget". As proof he presented the quote from the store. I agreed to pay him an extra $10,000. Only in July 2202 I found out, that the actual cost to him were only $13,000 or less. So far Ruffing has only paid $6,000 or less to the store! This constitutes theft by deception.