It is difficult to negotiate with contractors to get work done at your house for a fair price, but it is especially hard for the elderly.

What would you do if your aging parents were clearly getting taken advantage of by contractors who were supposed to fix their driveway?

That is what this young lady experienced, but don’t worry, she was able to get revenge for her parents!

Check it out.

Don’t screw over my elderly parents

Back in 2004 I came home from college to find my parents driveway ripped up and unusable.

That sounds suspicious.

My mom was in tears because the contractor had just informed her that the price of the project had gone up to double the original quote.

Gave no reason to why it would now cost double.

My parents were teachers in a small city in a poor state so they didn’t make a lot of money.

It was through careful investments and savings that they moved to upper middle class.

My parents lived in a nice neighborhood in this small city and worked hard their whole lives and took pride in their home.

It wasn’t an extravagant house by any means.

It was a tri-level 70’s Brady bunch house in a city of one story Adobe houses, never renovated but well built and we’ll maintained the 30 years they lived there.

That is just wrong.

Contractors would often assume my parents were rich and try to squeeze them for money.

So, this is something we unfortunately have been dealing with my entire life.

When this all happened they were retired and on a fixed income so projects like this were thought out and prepared for carefully.

My mom was beside herself with stress about the whole situation but managed to keep it from me when I called every Sunday.

So, imagine how mad I was to learn about this situation.

This seems predatory and maybe illegal.

This particular contractor went out of his way to make the driveway a disaster area and my 70 yr old parents with mobility issues had literally been prisoners in their home for two weeks unable to get through construction zone.

The contractor had stopped all work until the full payment was made.

My parents had already paid half of the first quote.

He had extended out a straight forward job by only having one or two workers show up whenever they felt like it work an hour and then leave.

I had no idea while I was at school that this project had been going on for over a month.

That semester at school I had taken a legal class for my area of study and had just written a paper on contract law.

Within an hour of me getting home I had the contractor on the phone.

To this day I don’t know what came over me it was like I was possessed by a ghost of a prosecuting legal shark.

Wow, good for her!

I insinuated but never specifically said that I was their lawyer.

I threw out legal terms and accused them of being in breach of their bid and a legally binding contract which (fortunately) had some language meant to cover their *****.

Pointed to all the areas where they had violated their agreement and the obvious intentions to screw my parents.

I had the contractor stuttering and stammering and promising to make the job a priority.

When I got off the phone both my parents were staring at me in shock and made the statement I made earlier that it was like I was possessed.

Victory was won when the next morning at 6 am a full crew of at least 5 guys plus contractor came and finished the job in three hours.

Contractor never asked for the revised price and not even the second half of the first price.

He just did the job and left, didn’t leave an invoice or address to send payment.

They were terrified of getting sued!

Of course mom being mom tried to get in touch with him to make the second half of the payment and he got so freaked out that she was going to sue him he dropped off a check for $1,000 from “accounting errors” and apologized profusely.

Plus he left all the extra supplies that he over purchased and had billed my parents for.

It was enough that the following year when my father had to go from walker to wheelchair we had enough concrete and supplies to build a ramp.

Damn that felt good and that one thing I could do for my parents after a lifetime of them sacrificing for me made my whole college education worth it to me.

Moral of this story…don’t **** with the elderly.

And give a daughter an education she’ll defend you from the wolves. Lol

Wow, I bet that the contractor regretted his actions!

Let’s take a look at some of the comments on this story.

Absolutely, well done.

Good idea from this person.

Nothing better than a fierce daughter.

Absolutely legendary.

Their smartest investment.

Now that’s what I call revenge!

It’s a good thing she came home when she did.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.