I'm in such a mess w/ my house! We had to have a roof put on, in that process thought we would put new flooring down, & box in the front porch, it was wasted space. Hired a local man, & got TOOK! I started this mess when I was 50 & now I'm 58 just started getting restatuion from him Nov. last year(2011). So this guy had been taking people for years I was the youngest when I finally got him in front of a judge, it took 3 years for him to admit he just took us & the $12,650 we gave him. Along with us there were 16 senior citzens on the indictment, none up them had even tried to take this guy to court till I found them & got them on my indictment. Needless to say I very afraid to have anyone to come & do work on my house, this guy broke the weight baring stud wich made us have to have that POLE! I now have stuff falling off my house, he left it like that & we can't borrow anymore $ so we're still trying to recover. By the way, we lived 6 years in the kitchen while we got the $ up to finish the livingroom. He left the wall not attched to the house in the livingroom & the roof leaked on the opposite end of the orignal leak. Only knew that cause it was raining when they finshed. Knew I was in trouble when sent a sub. contractor ( who had shoved the handle of the trowel into my new dry wall ceiling, he was mad cause he was left to mudd) to check on the leak. This is to much information, but I have not talked about this to anyone outside of family, so sorry to unload! Just sick of living in a half done house & that pole is driving me crazy.