I quickly figured out after all of my frustrations, that the only way to get something done was to get on one job and stick with it. I had voiced my frustrations to John (who is an educator up in NYC spending his vacation time to come down and help) and he told me I just needed to be proactive, pick my job and not get distracted. There was no point in getting upset, or getting in an argument, or trying to change a system that wouldn't.
Miss Flo is a wonderful woman who is building not just her own home, but one in the back for her granddaughter and two great granddaughters. Unfortunately there are a lot of crooked contractors down in New Orleans, and she found one that tried to take her for a ride. She worked in payroll for years, and wasn't about to get taken advantage of, so she's taking the guy to court. Unfortunately he stopped work in the middle of the job (a very bad one too) and left her stranded in a half built house. We did a bunch of carpentry for her, helping to finish her porch and side railings. We installed washer/dryers and valves in her bathrooms. Did some tiling and plumbing work, but kept running into seemingly impossible problems. He took all the fixtures for her tub and shower but left the rough-in, so we had to keep going back and forth to Home Depot trying to get the right parts.
Once I had finally decided I wasn't going to leave until she could take a hot bath in her house, I had to go about figuring how to do that. It came in the form of finding the one guy, "Tank" at common Ground who knew something about plumbing and telling him there was a 12 pack in it for him if he'd come over to Flo's with me to see what we could get done...
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