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16 Posts
I recently was called out on a sunday evening to do a after hours urgent service call. The owner of a Rental property called me and told me the main sewer line was clogged, and his tenants were complaining. After discussing my rates, i offered him to wait until monday morning to get a better rate. He said to go ahead and work on it at the sunday rate. I loaded both of my snakes, a electric eel mainline machine, and my rigid k380 mini rooter. I showed up at 5pm and found a very old cast iron pipe under a very old house. I set up and started snaking with the eel, and flushing the pipe. The stoppage started at about 35 feet in. I worked it and worked it, farther and farther. 2.5 hours later it was too dark for me to continue and my light was broke so I stopped and Rolled up my equipment and was going to continue in the morning at the standard hourly rate. The tenant was going to deal with it through the nite. I called the owner and notified him that the stoppage still existed and would need more work. He agreed to come back and finish the following morning. I came back the next morning set up again and attacked the stoppage again. I found roots had invaded the old CI pipe and debri was compacted in the line for about 40 feet. After several retrievals of the cable and the cleaning of the C cutter (roots,tampons, condoms, and other vile items) i finally got it to POP and cleared the line, i chased it a couple times and flushed it. It was open. I loaded up my tools and wrote up the bill for the 5.5 hrs of total work. I charge hourly labor and a hourly equipment charge. I also charge a after hours overtime rate. The bill was a total of $720.00. I notified the tenant and the owner that the line was cleared. Both were thankfull. I tried to meet with the owner immediately after and he asked me to send him the bill. Normally I collect after every job, cash or check, but the owner was unavailable. So i sent the bill right away. 10 days later i still do not have the payment, so i call him and he says I charged him too much and complained that he called other companies and they would not have charged him that much. He said he would pay but he wasnt happy with how long it took and how much it cost. Now its been 2 weeks, and i fear he isnt going to pay. This is the first no pay in 5 years of honest work. I hate to have to file a mechanics lien, and then a lawsuit. What a waste of time. This sucks. And i was depending on that payment to cover bills. License, bond, insurance, fuel, labor, all of this is costly, and to not be paid is a drag.:furious: