“I’ve had people that live in a trailer house and don’t have a pot to pee in get out a shovel and try to do it themselves before calling me. If they can pay $100 or $200 a month, I’ll work with them,” Trippel said. “This wasn’t like that. And I guess I have an issue with someone not paying me for something that was being done just because it was important to pursue for that person.”

Trippel expected to be paid promptly. He said the Quists seemed to want special treatment.

“Both of them, they definitely had a sense of arrogance about them, because he was doing concerts and he was a singer and yada, yada, yada,” Trippel said. “And I don’t care. He’s just another dude to me.”

Two months after the work and Trippel’s attempts to collect, the Quists wrote him a check for $1,000. As September came to an end, the contractor filed a lien, which stayed on the property until January 2002.

Quist said his wife’s health played a part.

“Bonni had some issues herself, I think she had a thing where she had a mercury filling out and somehow infection got into her blood and she had to go in the hospital as well,” Quist said. “I think she had to go in the hospital for 90 days and I think I was out on the road. I think a bill just didn’t get paid on that.”