Fence Nightmere – Contractor drilled the hole and went away

We and our neighbors hired a contractor to do the fences in our yard, but the guy drilled the holes with BobCat and left for 5 months (I lost $400 deposit). The city sent the inspector and gave us warning letters for $500 fine because we had violated the bi-law by leaving holes on the yards. Without any choices, I had to patch the holes myself temporary.

Because the hole left there for months, there were so much water so I had to use pump to get rid of the water. Then I built a simple frame using 2×2 and some left over 2×6 then filled the top with mud. This way, we can easily pull the woods out for the next contractor to finish the job! Sigh..

2007 Update: We finally got another contractor to finish the job: 5′ board + 1′ lattice + 4×4 post, around $28/ft (including one gate). Since we don’t trust anyone, we negotiated with the contractor for the “Terms of Payments” (see picture). We at least talked to 3-4 contractors before choosing the right one.

Quality wise was only okay, let me point out what’s wrong:

1. This guy didn’t use the professional galvanized steels fence brackets for the 2×4 horizontal support, he used something cheap instead
2. He re-used some of the 4×4 posts that had been submerged in water for months. I could tell this fence won’t last very long, but at least he didn’t run away
3. When he built the main fence door,  he didn’t use diagonal bracing.  So, sagging will be a problem.  I can guarantee that but this is easy to fix because home depot has the steel cable sagging repair kit

Problem: Although the contractor finished the job but when I signed the contract,  I didn’t pay attention to the detail of the gate. The price only included one gate, the side where me and my neighbor are sharing (our house is “linked by garage” type) wasn’t included.

Solution: I built it myself, it’s easy. It took me half a day to build 2 of them, one for me and one for my next door neighbor (My bad: I forgot to use diagonal bracing!). The guy on the opposite of our house actually paid $150 extra for the same contractor to do the gate, see last photo. They didn’t even put the lattice on top.