A couple of decades ago, there was a guy doing a lot of work in the coop apartment in which my wife and I live. Apparently the co-op board didn't check this guy's credentials. He did such a lousy job in our bathroom that I fired him and hired someone else. I won't go into the lurid details, but suffice it to say that he also did some work for the woman who lived two floors above us. A couple of months afterward, the hot water pipe to her bathtub let go and flooded the two apartments below with hot water. We were having dinner with friends, and when got home, we found our apartment door open and discovered that several of our neighbors were our apartment and were trying to clean up the mess.

Wallpaper hanging loose off the walls, plasterboard on the ceiling dangling in big chunks, carpets soaking wet, several pieces of furniture ruined beyond repair. . . .

The same thing in our upstairs neighbor's apartment. The two apartments below the third floor apartment were inundated.

The licensed plumber who fixed the offending bathtub pipe said that the guy had not used the correct connector and had "improvised." I believe he mentioned something about duct tape!

It cost us a bundle to fix the damage. The "plumber" himself had disappeared, but we found out that he fancied himself an "independent contractor" and didn't have any of the required licenses, either plumbing or electrical.

Sue? How? He had moved out of state and no one knew where he'd gone.

No bloody sympathy on my part!

Mary, you wouldn't go to a doctor who worked without the legally required licenses or training, would you?

Don Firth