Me too...pray tell....????
oh no...did I miss a drama?
That is a sad fact of life Catharine.
Jane, if you are convinced that the lady in question is a danger, to herself or others, are you not morally duty bound to let the appropriate authorities know?
I have been ill for most of my life, by the same token have kept many contractors and employees gainfully employed, none, I hasten to add ended up with their skull cleaved open.
in answer to your question 'is there anything we should do' I would ( if I had the skills )
i) Point out your concerns regarding your assumption of her well being.
ii) do the job
iii) I'd do the job as a matter of urgency and at that at cost, mind you I'm a nutter.
The point is Ron - when people behave in a ‘nutty’ manner ( as evidenced by an ex-SFN member over the last couple of days) - they lose all credibility as the vast majority of us simply do not have the time to deal with it / them.
That is my definition of craziness and I was only interested in the law on refusal of the work; not a psychological study of the word and its meaning.
Thank you Wendy.There is a gendarmerie in the town she lives in, so I will do that.
Thanks Patrick. Amazing but we have terms and conditions and have never needed to refer to them until now; and yes; again; we have the 30 days expiry and it was after the 30 days. It was only for work she wanted done and the house is wired OK. But I now have sufficient information from the help and suggestions on here to sort this out. It sometimes helps for someone to see from the outside.
I am sorry that is your opinion Ron but
a) someone behaving as she has without provocation I feel she needs a psychiatrist.
b) Yes; in this case it does preclude her, we have a living to make, which is hard enough here with cotisations without other problems that could arise from doing this work.
c) Nothing wrong with a full order book, that is to do with the fact that he is actually a qualified professional, which appears to be rare out here. So why is that a negative.
d) Putting the phone down on someone works both ways. Yes; I put the phone down on sales calls too.
e) A paramedic does life saving, an electrician does not, unless he is repairing some P&O job, which this one wasn't.
f) No problem with working for difficult customers, they have often turned out very nice.
g) There is nothing wrong with feeling uncomfortable around people with psychological problems. I do not want my husband put at risk over one small job. The woman was totally irrational. Goodness knows what could have happened, just as well she carried on before he got in the house.
I do not regard myself as ignorant because I know people with bipolar, although that seems to be the latest buzz word for it. She is, in my opinion; dangerous.
I know nothing of French Law however . . .
If a Devis is a legal contract, then I think you should be careful of falling foul of the law. However, in UK, employees have a right to carry out their jobs without having to face abuse, physical or verbal. But from what I've read, it would be your husband's word that she has indeed been abusive, against hers (potentially) that he has failed to carry out the contracted work. So might I suggest that he arranges a new date to carry out the work and takes an 'assistant' with him - someone who could witness the abuse, if it reoccurs? This might also buy you some peace of mind.
One other possibility - have you considered approaching the local gendarmerie to enquire whether there is a known problem with this person that might place your husband in any kind of danger if he were to carry out work at her house? I only ask this because we had a crazy client last year (totally different business and circumstances) . . . to cut a long story short, it turns out that she was well known to the gendarmes and was, in fact, an escaped mental patient suffering a psychotic episode . . . so I use the term 'crazy' quite legitimately although it is a derogatory term I would not normally use for those misfortunate enough to suffer mental illness.
Just send a registered letter stating the previous circumstances and clearly stating, he is not willing to accept the job as being abused is not part of his job description.. As a self employed artisan, without having taken a deposit or signed a contract ....I cant see any legal responsibility. If she is local, maybe talk to the mayor? she may be well known as the local 'colour'.......you are right about him not accepting the job, it would be nothing but problems start to finish I expect. I think as Brits we are often hung up on the legality of issues....I have found that there is less expectation of legal fulfilment in France....
The title of the Post reads as follows
Crazy Client - do you think there is something we should do?
The question asked was if one is within one's rights to refuse a job, not how to define a nutter, or whether the client is right or wrong
Hello,
A couple of things, only my view.
a) The term craziness is being bandied about like some of the commentators are Psychiatric clinicians?
b) Which pre-supposes that if this lady is a nutter, what excludes her from the rest of society, such that she should be refused the same quality of supply as the rest of us?
c) Your husband is lucky to have such a full orderbook.
d) Putting the phone down on someone is plain rude, NOT a sign of lunacy. Have you not had any sales calls recently?
e) There are certain professions which, by definition, are more 'duty' driven the Paramedic doesn't refuse assistance because the client may have HIV or be mentally ill? Or just difficult.
f) In my day, Customer was King, here it seems 'only if it suits me'.
e) As to the phrase "this person needs locking up", perhaps we should all have our heads tested from time to time... very much the sort of ignorance and prejudice some of us are trying to stamp out.
Ron Birks
Bipolar Group.
Did your Devis have standard terms and conditions attached (required by law)? If so there is nearly always one that you can use to refuse the job.
Did the Devis have an expiry date (usually 30 days) ? If so did you recieve the signed copy before or after the expiry date?
Did the devis have the payment terms ? If so did you recieve the deposit as per the Devis ?
Did the the devis have a clause whereby if other neccessary works are discovered, a seperate and additional Devis will be issued ? If so can you prepare a knock on Devis that will make her cancel the job.
Is there anything about her electrical installation that is not in compliance with current rules and regs ?
Does she have a certificate of conformity for the electrical installation ? If not can you use this to get out of doing the repair ?
If she is not kicking up a fuss, then forget it. However a Devis offered, and returned signed is a binding contrat under French law, so be very careful what you write. An estimate on the other hand is an estimate, and not binding.
Not sure about signatures or lack of ... but would definitely send a registered letter, stating that access was denied from the house and inviting the client to get in touch within a set period and if no contact is made, that the contract to do the work is null and void. was there a date on the devis that held the price for a certain time.
ultimately, having sued a builder (and won), it is an expensive and lengthy exercise and since your husband didn't even touch her house, where's the case ?
good luck with it and don't stress ...
Just ignore her would be my advice. She’ll find someone else to project her craziness onto no doubt. At best, if she seems like someone with a genuine mental health problem then compassion would perhaps dictate making a phone call to her local assistante sociale at her mairie so that they can follow-up. Otherwise just leave well alone or you’ll regret it I feel! 
Not quite literally, however we tend to find that when we have bad feelings about a client they tend to be right and as much care as possible should be taken.
Alex, I like that idea except for one thing. I really dont want him to go back there. She is nuts. First one in more than 4 years, so I suppose it had to happen some day. We havent heard anything from her but I wonder if we are not the first. We can cope with eccentricity but I dont think he should be subjected to abuse, who knows what she might do to him when he is working there.
It definitely wasnt her just having a bad day because he sent her the Devis originally in August and she ranted on the phone to him then once he said he could not do it the next week, but she hadnt signed the Devis, so we thought that was the last of it. Then a few weeks back she phoned him and said she was sending the signed Devis which she did, with an agreed mutual start date. And that was the day he turned up when she couldnt be asked to get out of bed, shouting at him.
My husband is a very tolerant person but he just had to walk away from her. He had purchased materials for the work but fortunately canuse them on future ones. He hadwasted time getting his ladders etc off the van.
Perhaps we can send a letter explaining that due to her unco-operative attitude the contract is annulled by lettre recommande avec avis de reception, of course? If he gave her a date for the work it would have to be months ahead anyway as he had tried to squeeze it in to his schedule. He hasnt been home before 8pm for weeks now.
Tracy, I hope your crazy one wasnt like her. I am sure this lady needs locking up.
As far as I am aware there is no need to sign the devis - simply by drawing up the devis, the supplier is agreeing to offer the work/products at that price. The customer is agreeing that work by signing it so legally you are obliged to do the work. As we point out - a devis is a two way contract in French law.
Alexander gives good advice and I would follow it if I were you as by simply walking out you are breaking the contract. As is usual in France, 'document, document,document'.
It's so lovely to hear someone ranting about a crazy client instead of a useless builder. We have had one of these this week as well - crazy client that is!