Please forgive as this is my first time posting.Back (long) story:My wife is a "starving" artist and she was contacted by this person we will call Sunny about a painting project. Sunny owned a building with multiple store fronts and was in the middle of opening her own Tanning salon in one of the open spaces in the building. My wife ended up painting some Palm trees ect. My wife has a habit of giving ridiculously good deals on her art so Sunny contacted her a second time about some additional painting.Now at this point I should mention how my wife had been working dead end job after dead end job for some time and was yearning to "Be her own boss". Who doesn't want that? She had a friend who did her nails and was also certified to train other girls how to do nails. We discussed the viability of her taking this course but had decided to wait until we had the money to pay for the course up front.So whilst working for Sunny the second time they got chatting about the possibility of Sunny renting a storage room to my wife to do nails out of. Sunny essentially talked my wife into taking the course ASAP and she would give her a spectacular deal for rent. Originally it was something like 10% of what my wife earns to help her get started. My wife couldn't pass up the opportunity and took the course. She passed and was certified to do nails around the end of February.This is when we hit our first red flag. We came to realize that Sunny had a silent partner (her husband). Now it came out that her silent partner was not happy about the 10% deal and stated that it had to be a set amount per month for rent. He decided $250 was what they wanted. Fair enough I thought at the time but kinda lame to wait until she had already taken the course. At this point my wife was committed so she agreed.Like I mentioned, this was a storage closet she was renting so my wife had to spend a considerable amount of time and effort to get this room to not look like a closet. She installed flooring, a sink & mirror, an emergency light, custom made curtains to cover electrical boxes and other unsightly things. I'm probably forgetting other things she had to do as well, but let's move on. She would have had the room finished sometime around mid march and began doing nails then.A few months into their partnership (June) Sunny verbalized her desire to have wall mural painted on the side of the building. This would be the biggest wall mural my wife had ever done at roughly 100 feet long and 20 feet high.Now like I said, my wife loves to give great deals so she quoted Sunny $500 to do the wall mural. I would say this wall mural was probably worth more like $5000 dollars but I didn't get to do the negotiating. There was no time frame for this project and it was supposed to be when my wife had free time.I should also mention that they had originally agreed on a mural theme (my wife has mentioned she has the original sketch still) which would involve all of the other businesses in and around the building (karate, hair salon, ice cream parlor, market) but Sunny's silent partner got involved (another red flag) and wanted additional things added. Mainly, he was a logger and wanted a logger falling a tree incorporated into the mural. This is only relevant because come September, Sunny started giving my wife a hard time about the fact that the wall mural wasn't done but the weather was going to start to turn and opportunities to finish it would run out. My wife explained she hadn't been given a time frame to finish it but she was working on getting it to a point where it looked good for the winter and she could finish it next spring. At this point the wall mural was roughly 90% done and my argument was that if it wasn't for her husband adding the extra stuff the mural would have been done.A week or so later, Sunny let my wife know her rent would be going up to $400 per month which didn't work financially for us so my wife gave her notice at the beginning of October to be out at the end of October. We later found out Sunny's step daughter had been taking the same nail course my wife had and would be taking over the space my wife converted into a nail room.Next, Sunny told my wife that if she didn't finish the mural by the end of October she wouldn't be paying her for it. She then basically said she would pay half if she didn't finish it but that October wasn't a hard deadline.Now at this point my wife was somewhat jaded as between the conflict of the wall mural and the rent increase basically made it so she didn't want to be around Sunny anymore so she started doing nails out of our home even though she had paid for October rent. I also began putting pressure on my wife to finish the wall mural because it was so close to being done and I wanted her to get paid. I ended up helping out as much as possible and we were able to get it done around mid to early October.We took a picture and sent it to Sunny and she said "looks great, thank you so much I really appreciate it. We will chat soon and I have something for you :) "Later that night my wife decided she needed to stop by the salon after her new dead end job was finished to grab some stuff. Again, this is mid October. To my wife's surprise she found her room torn apart and being prepared for the next tenant. It was so bad my wife could barely get in to get her stuff. So she sent Sunny a text message asking her to confirm she did remember my wife had paid for the month of October. Sunny replied "seeing you are inactively using the room, you will need to drop the key off by 4 pm. Thnx so much"My wife replied basically saying not cool and she should give her back October rent and my wife would sell her all of the supplies she installed (sunny had requested buying the stuff off my wife to save them both time and energy when my wife gave her notice) for a reasonable price. Sunny replied "When in actively using the room, you need to return the key. Also if you want to come get you sink ext your more than welcome to come get it. Your time in that room is your own time, and legally you are not supposed to take anything out, whats done is done. You will need to drop the key off by 4 pm today or I will have someone come pick it up today, thank you"My wife replied when she has cash in hand she would return the key and that she still owed for the wall mural and october rent back. Sunny replied "You message me a pic and tell me the wall is finished, not asking if thats all I want, ect. The job is finished when I say" She then went on to say she would pay her $250, which she made clear was not for the wall mural or rent but for the paint and supplies we had to purchase to finish the wall mural.My wife went to the salon to give the key and get her money and basically decided she wanted to call her out for being a bully and a POS to which the Sunny ended up grabbing my wife by the throat and shoving her out of the business. The police later decided Sunny was justified in using such force as she had told my wife to leave but she hadn't complied yet. My wife went and cashed the cheque which Sunny put a stop payment on (duh, should have seen that coming) and cost us for the cheque bouncing.So here we are ready to take her to small claims I think. I have lot's of texts between them which I think proves she owes us roughly $1000. $700 for the wall mural (I have a text from her saying she would pay an additional $200 for the wall mural) $250 for the October rent. roughly $50 for NSF.My questions are: Can she get a lawyer for small claims? and have us pay her legal fee's if she wins? Also, this took a massive toll on each of us and our relationship, can we ask for emotional restitution? if so, what would be a reasonable amount to ask for in this situation.For anyone with advice such as "get everything in writing". we have learned from our many mistakes here.TLDR: Wife did a wall mural for an extremely low price and the person is refusing to pay her for it.
Submitted January 28, 2019 at 09:49PM by kyussdourden http://bit.ly/2HE5MX6
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