Are you tired of people ripping you off? Are you tired of people misleading you? Are you just sick and tired of this economy? If you are, I'm right there with you.

Our spring cleaning has taken the form of home improvement, which has really opened my eyes to some of the businesses out there. Some of them will be honest and give you what you ask for at a reasonable price. While the next company will do whatever they can to mislead and cheat you. Case in point...

My kool deck has large spots that are popping off, revealing the cement beneath. The first company that came out gave me a bid around $6,300. He hardly paid attention to anything other than the contaminated areas. Did some measuring but did more of a guess of the square footage.

The next gentleman beat the first quote by almost $1,000. He further told me that where one of the cement pads had sunken that he could jack it up where it should be. Boy was I impressed. The first guy didn't even pay attention. Both companies had told me that they could put the same surface application on the table in the pool, and both would do it for free.

The third company gave me a quote for $2,800. Now, this guy spent a good deal of time actually looking at what needed to be done. He said if I "jacked up" the cement pad that I would affect the integrity of the pool wall, which made sense. He also found a crack in another cement pad and told me he would remove and replace it. Additionally, if I had him add the surface application to my table that in two years it would start peeling off where it was submerged beneath water.

I think it was a no brainer which company I went with. What I did learn when I asked why such a discrepancy in quotes is that when we had a really bad hail storm here everyone increased their prices to jab the insurance companies. The first guy even asked if we had some hail damage at our house. I told him, "No."

More recently our front doors have separated so that the sunlight comes freely in, which means all our cool air seeps out. So... My husband calls a door company. The company gives us a time they will be out and proceeds to miss the appointment, while we sit patiently waiting for them. We call and they have the nerve to say they came out and we didn't answer our door. Frustrated, we give them one more try. They send a man out who says our doors are warped. We need new doors. Now I have to tell you that our doors cost around $1,200 and that was fourteen years ago. For the moment we put this expensive project on hold. Instead we focus on our kitchen.

Changing out our countertops was the new project. With the cost of granite when they gave us a quote for $750 to tear out our current tile my husband and I said, "We can do that." Well, let's put it this way. It isn't as easy as you might think. In fact, it was a b*tch. Towards the end of the project my hand slips. I slice the skin off my knuckle and have to go to Urgent Care to get stitched up (I chose glue instead). And, the horrible job we did required us to replace the drywall, but that's a different story. The point here was that the gentleman I hired to shorten the height of my bar said he could fix my door. He further said that the doors weren't warped.

Today, this man came with a Wonder Bar (crowbar), a hammer, and some shims (small pieces of wood used when framing a door). He removes the trim around the door, uses his Wonder Bar so he can cram several of the shims into the framing, hammering them into place... And walla! The door was put back in place. It took him less than fifteen minutes and cost me $50. I was so excited I hugged this perfect stranger.

There are times that sit back and just ponder right and wrong, etc. During this terrible downturn in our economy how can people take advantage of others? Or do they have so much work that they don't have to be competitive? I have to ask myself does what goes around come around? Will these people get their comeuppance in the future.

Moral of this story... It pays to be a smart consumer, especially in hard times.

Mac