Feds sticking it to small business again

Well, the Lord is saving me and my small business contractor again. My husband works with someone who has a small business on the side. He is a contractor and paints and does small construction jobs on the side to earn extra money. We hired him to paint the master bedroom in the house we're trying to sell. He already painted the rest of the house for us last year. He and his brother did a great job. But my husband's mother was holding out on the master bedroom. It had been "professionally decorated." ...In paisly wallpaper. Yuck. No one liked it according to the reviews we were getting, so we finally convinced her to have it painted. It's hard to divorce her from this house. She doesn't want to sell. We had bought it together, and we moved out. We're tired of paying 2 mortgages and had to threaten to stop paying our mortgage on the house and have the bank come reposses it. You can't reposses half a house.

So, yesterday, our contractor came to try and get the wallpaper down. It's stuck on so well, that it took off some of drywall paper. He had already decided to just paint over the wallpaper.

I just got a call from my realtor. Back in April they came out with a new law. You have to be a lead based certified contractor to paint anything bigger than a closet now.



According to her email,

Lake Cities Association of REALTORS®
Education Source

Learn to do it Right!!

Since April 2010, federal law requires contractors that disturb lead-based paint in homes, child care facilities and schools, built before 1978 to be certified and follow specific work practices to prevent lead contamination. Ask to see your contractor’s certification.
Federal law requires that individuals receive certain information before renovating six square feet or more of painted surfaces in a room for interior projects or more than twenty square feet of painted surfaces for exterior projects in housing, child care facilities and schools built before 1978.

___________

At the end of that, it states that "individuals" receive certain information before renovating. I don't know if that means we can go to Home Depot and take a class on it, or if we HAVE to hire a contractor who is lead based certified, but it sounds like a racket to me. My husband's associate, I can guarentee you, does not know about this law. He will tomorrow.

This is nothing short of a way to drive out small business. Apparently there are heavy fines. If you fine heavy fines, men like my husband's associate will not be able to operate. And President Obama says he's FOR small business? This law proves otherwise.