Yes, such a thing was suggested by a few people in the original FB post. I regret not going this route originally, but it’s a first world problem to have, I guess.
I’d have been more than happy to donate everything to them, but now it’s Friday and I need it out by Monday morning. So we’ll probably bust the slab up and remove it this weekend.
Thanks for everyone’s advice. I understand it wasn’t earth shattering, but sometimes I like to get other people’s perspective because I feel a certain way and then feel guilty that I feel that way.
Well it was an accident, the contractor was just doing the job of removing the old kitchen.
He may not have dealt with such a large slab of granite before. Didn’t realise that he should have the person in the middle.
Its annoying that the people who came to pick up the granite didn’t move it out of the way.
There are probably ways to re-use the granite. The relative should do that, it wouldn’t be impossible… Attach them together on the under side , and use it still ? Or have it cut down… The bit around the sink wouldn’t have to be matching. Because its visually “the sink”.
Never put a phone # in the ad, just use the email reply feature, and delete the ad as soon as it’s gone. My biggest problem is flakes, but once I unloaded a bunch of PVC pipe in about 30 minutes.
He’s already made off with ~25 linear feet of base and upper cabinetry, a double oven, a cooktop, and a brand new stainless steel sink and faucet (which are not the right size for my new kitchen). Yes, a few pieces of cabinetry will have to be repaired before they can be installed, but they’re still good, solid wood cabinets. Just not my style.
The reason I’m ticked is that he essentially came and removed (or wants to remove) everything of value, and then wanted to leave me with the leftovers. That means that I’d have to pay someone to come and haul away the other pieces of granite, because they’re too heavy to throw away, which means that I’m now out money. And the entire point of me giving it ALL away, was to get rid of it quickly, with no hassle, and to spare my husband’s back. Had someone come over and wanted to cherry pick any of it, I’d have said no, it was all or nothing.
UPDATE: So I got no reply from my brother after I told him to tell B to forget it. However, last night his wife left me an IM that said, “B will be there tomorrow to pick up the counters.” Plural. So I guess that means he planned on getting them all. Which is fine.
However. She just posted this on FB: “I’m gonna start giving the same amount of time,help and energy, I get from everyone. So don’t ask for shit cause that’s what your getting…”
I take this to mean that B couldn’t find any friends to help him move the granite.
He didn’t hold up his end of the bargain, so yeah, that’s not so far away from stealing. He got a bunch of good stuff with the agreement that he would take everything. It does change things a bit that part of the counter was broken, but I still feel like it’s not right for him to just walk away from it. A decent person would at least help them get rid of the granite, especially since he knows that they need to get rid of it right away.
Something similar happened to my parents. They sold a car, and the person who bought it came and took parts from it (from what I understand, they probably just wanted the VIN number, so I’m not sure what they did was even legal). So now my parents still have to get rid of a junk car and they have to worry about what they can do legally when the car really belongs to someone else now. It’s a rotten thing to do. It’s the same when people buy boxes of stuff at auctions and they take out the one thing they want and leave the rest of the box there. You bought it, you get rid of your own self instead of dumping it on someone else.
I look at it as someone offering someone else an entire living room full of furniture including a piano, and then they break the piano. It’s hard for me to feel responsible for taking the incredibly heavy broken thing, especially when I was originally doing someone a favor.
I chose words to indicate that he’d been enriched from what he’d already taken, in contradiction to needscoffee’s claim that it was a bunch of useless junk. The appliances alone were worth $500, the exact sink retails for $299, and the faucet was ~$100. I have no idea how much the granite was worth, but even if it was just a level 1, was worth a few hundred bucks.
So, yes, he made off on the deal. With my blessing. All I really wanted in return was the stuff out of my house before the hardwood guy arrived. It was his wife who insisted on paying for it, because she’s too proud to accept charity. It was me who suggested B work for it, because there was no way I was taking their money.
As it turns out, all’s well that ends well. His wife called me this morning and asked me if the granite was still theirs to take, because she was hearing contradicting stories. I told her that they were still free to take it, with the condition that if they took one piece, they took them all. She said, “Sounds great!” and now we’re all good. Win/win.
He wasn’t doing me a favor. She circumvented my request for the names of charities who’d come and take the items away. For free. On time. Because I didn’t want my husband to haul it off himself, because he’s got a bad back.
That’s irrelevant. The stuff had value to someone else, and I was leveraging that value to get it hauled off at no cost to me. Its value to me was not in the cash I’d get for it, but in saving the money I would have had to pay to get it hauled away.