What can I say--I feel you pain. My MIL has been with us for a little over a year now. I have recently quit my job of 9 years to stay home with her. She is 85 and her mobility is not good, confused on a daily basis, short term memory is bad and right now trying to keep her dressed seems to be the new thing with her. All in all she is a joy--pleasant and loveable but a real handfull sometimes. She stayed alone while my DH and I worked for nearly a year. I lived in fear that she would fall or get hurt while we were gone. We came home and found the house full of smoke and we knew we were really pushing our luck with this. She (for some reason) filled a skillet full of oil, placed it on the stove, turned it on and walked into the other room and forgot it. She didn't even see the smoke. She apparently fell asleep cause she said a loud noise woke her up--smoke alarms. And she still didn't notice the smoke. We came in just in the nick of time. I didn't go back to work. The first week I was home with her I was amazed at how good she was at "hiding" her confusion. Somedays she shines like a little star but others not so good and we are having a lot more not so good right now. I'm really suprised she didn't get hurt--we were so lucky. I REALLY miss going to dinner and running to the store or just going somewhere. It seems like my life revolves around how she is today. I miss doing things with just my husband or daughter. We sort of do shifts--one of us stays with her so the other can get out for a while. Like you we couldn't get any straight answers about the legalitys of leaving her home alone--and still can't . I guess we just have to go with our judgment with this. I keep telling myself how wonderful she's been to me through the years and how I"ll be in that shape one day. It's not easy.

Live Wire Oak & Ideagirl2 & Rockybird have said it best..... Go Legal - but WITH an Attorney driving your ship through "legal waters" - NOT YOU..... I work as an industry expert witness in the Natural Stone Industry, and I can tell you from 26 years of doing what I do, is that you do have a case, but you can very easily derail any chances you have of actually WINNING - if you attempt to do this "DIY" style. You need an attorney to help you on this.... IMEO - You have a contract, and IT governs how your GC gets paid by you, USE the contract language and any clauses or exceptions that would influence what you want to do (retainage & withholding final payment, cancelation of contract, penalties, etc) - to YOUR advantage, however - IF your GC wrote the contract that YOU signed, it's (your contract document) prolly written in HIS favour... :-( You can start this process by re-reading EVERY STINKING WORD of your contract, and start identifying ANY conditions that effect final payment - or penalties that would be visited on either party for "non-performance" as an example. Get with a real live attorney before you do ANYTHING else. Don't go inventing reasons to withhold monies (even if your reasoning is sound and 100% logical - and 1000% ethical) - if it's not LEGAL under the contract agreement that you signed with your GC - YOU CAN'T DO IT AND WIN IN A COURT OF LAW !!! Consult with an attorney that specializes in contract litigation and spend the money for an hour's worth of advice..... it'll be money well spent to help you find a solution to this issue and help you wake up from the nightmare you've been existing in.... The good news here is this: You DO have some Options - but they will ONLY be effective with the skills of an attorney that is better versed in these matters than you are - unless you happen to have a "doctor of jurisprudence" degree laying around in one of your drawers or shelves ! LOL!!!! If you do, then you don't need my advice! HA! Remember this going forward - "What's RIGHT and what's LEGAL are often too completely different things" hth kevin

here is my story, what do you think? my little brother from my fathers second marriage needed a car and my dad builds kitchen cabinets for a living and we were thinking up upgrading to a van so he talked us into upgrading our kitchen cabinets in exchange for the car. we started work on the cabinets, I did most of the work except spraying the finish while he worked on other peoples cabinets instead of helping on mine. I drove back and forth a couple times a week 30 miles for just about 4 months to his shop working on the cabinets. My brother is driving the car the whole time. My brother goes off to college and no longer needs the car so my dad wont help me finish the kitchen and says I owe him for the work he did and gives the car back with 20k more miles lots of stains on the seats and a flat tire. We suck it up and sell it on craigslist. He says the work he did do on the cabinets I can just consider even for use of the car. I dont have the cash and things pick up at work and dont have the time either so I let it sit for a year. I save up enough to start work on the cabinets again and he is really hurting for work so I told him I would pay him to finish the cabinets. He is happy and agrees to $15 an hour cash and says It will take about 40 hours labor to finish them and help me hang them if I gut the kitchen myself. When I go to the shop to see how everything is coming along I find out he used about 250-300 board ft of my maple that I paid for on other peoples kitchens and cuts up half of my drawer fronts that were already planed, sanded and routered ready to be stained sprayed and put on. He has no wood to finish my cabinets and I order 200 more board ft of maple. Two weeks later he says I owe him for 70 hours already and he's only about half done with what was left to build. This is what was left- 3 drawers 11 drawer fronts (4 to replace ones I had already made and he cut up) a pantry a file cabinet and one upper cabinet. chair rail stain and finish crown moulding spray 1 lower cabinet Here is what he did get done- 3 drawers Pantry with 5 pullouts which were 1" too wide for the pantry so he just cut one side off and slapped a board on them and glued a small strip of wood on the bottom to make it look like the bottom was dadoed into the side. stained and sprayed the crown moulding, sprayed one lower cabinet I had stained last year, and routered stained and sprayed a board for the chair rail. He cut the sides for the file cabinet 2" too short of what the plan said and now I need more plywood too. made the face frame for the file cabinet that is too short and has to be remade too. He wants to just raise it and put trim around it. I dont like the idea because the top two drawers are only 3" and should be 4" and I want it made to the correct hight and so my chair will fit under the counter that goes on top of it. 8 of the most horrid drawer fronts I have ever seen. I dont know why he even bothered to stain and spray them. I told him they looked horrible and needed to be redone and he told me he would, but said they were the best he could do. (all the ones I had made that he cut up were just fine they didnt chip out on me at all because I was careful and I'm not even a cabinet maker) Christmas was comeing up and I knew he was really tight on money so I paid him $750 for 50 of his hours to start with and he said he was going to keep working on the rest that was 4 weeks ago and he hasnt touched anything for my kitchen since. In the meantime I was off work from christmas through january 10th so I could install the kitchen and get everthing done. Its now the 16th, Im back to work and the kitchen has been ripped apart for almost 2 weeks now because I am doing everything myself because he is busy workin on other peoples kitchens. He said he was going to order the cabinet doors for me two weeks ago and let me know how much they were. I just found out today he didnt even call yet. My wife is due March 14th and I am really hoping I can get everything done before the baby gets here. I dont know what to do and wish I had never started this project, especially with my dad. If it was any other contractor I would have told him where to stick it and went somewhere else, but I'm kinda screwed because nobody else is going to want to finish my mess of a kitchen. I never thought my own dad would do this to me none the less do shoddy work for me. I doubt he would have given that type of work to one of his customers. I dont have anything in writing because I didnt think I needed it with my own dad. here are some pics-

Everyone has such a different take on this subject. I'm one of 8 children. When Dad was alive, we'd make an effort to get as many of us as possible together at his house a couple of times a year--he loved this. This would result in multiple cars at his house for a few days--two in the garage, three in the driveway, 2-4 more out on the street in front of his property (he had a double lot, so there was room enough). Some neighbors would comment to us that Dad must be happy we were all visiting. Some neighbors would nervously inquire if Dad was okay--all the cars made them think he must be dying or something. And the guy who parked all his cars in front of Dad's empty lot most days would complain that we were taking up all the street parking. Cars are part of day to day life. It strikes me as odd that seeing a car on a residental street could be seen as wrecking a "view." People have cars; they need a place to park them. If seeing a neighbor's cars really bothers you that much, then probably best you move someplace where that is regulated.