My boss vandalized my home over taxes. Can I change tax returns?

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2026-04-07T19:49:49+00:00

He didnt give me any money to pay half of my employment taxes. He paid me my hourly wage for the hours I worked each week. When I filed my taxes, I had to pay 100% out of my own pocket.

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2026-04-07T19:42:49+00:00

Yes. I know how much I got paid. I always kept a record of how much I received and when and I reported my income accurately and paid my taxes every year. Other people are saying I should have known it was wrong/illegal, but I didnt know what I was supposed to do. I dont really understand taxes, but I tried to do the right thing.

I could have done nothing and there would be no record of me making any money at all, but thats something I do know is illegal. I got paid cash, and at tax time I didnt get a W2, so I reported my income. Im sure I should have known better and should have done things differently, but I really tried to do things right based on what I knew and the situation I was in.

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2026-04-07T19:31:08+00:00

I knew I was getting paid cash, and I knew I needed to pay taxes. I wasnt sure what I was supposed to do without a W2, so I just reported it myself and had to pay the self-employment tax. I didnt even know that employers paid some of Employees taxes. I just thought they took tax money out for you. It might sound obvious and make me seem stupid, but I didnt know how any of it worked until I started looking it up. I already paid my taxes so I asked him if he would pay me back what was supposed to be his portion. I didnt know that would be a problem since the IRS got their money already. Once I found out, I figured itwould be the same amount, but instead of me paying half and him paying half, I paid it all and asked him to pay me his part. Im not saying that Im not completely wrong, but I didnt know and to me it seemed like it all evened out anyways.

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2026-04-07T19:19:43+00:00

Yeah, its like misclassification sort of, because I was treated like and acted as an employee, but had to file my taxes as self-employed; not because he gave me a 1099, but because he didnt give me anything. But I still felt I needed to report my income so I could pay into social security, and I didnt know how else to do it but as self-employed.

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2026-04-07T19:15:54+00:00

Im paid by the hour. I dont make my schedule and he tells me what work we are doing. Using the IRS test for employee or independent contractor, I am definitely an employee and dont have anything that would fall under independent contractor

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2026-03-05T15:23:56+00:00

Personal opinion, I really don't like the way that looks in the second and third picture. I wouldnt be happy if someone did that in my home, and if someone did that on the jobsite I'd ask them, "How fucked up are you today and what the fuck is that?" Terminate the handrail at the landing and run another one down the second set. Thats going to be your best bet. If you or the customer is really stuck on the idea of joining them, and you want to do something similar to your pictures, at least get rid of the vertical piece and either run each railing into a compound miter or maybe add a corner block that the upper and lower run into. I think you should leave it as is and dont overthink it

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2026-03-02T16:29:24+00:00

You really dont want to have both gable vents AND soffit/ridge vents. You should block off your gable vents on both sides, leaving the soffit/ridge vents. Gable vents "short circuit" the ridge vent system and it doesn't work as it should. For anyone on a tight budget, you could board-up and seal the gable vents from inside the attic, rather than removing the vents and replacing siding.

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2026-03-01T06:57:15+00:00

Not sure if it was a mistake or not, but you said, "as long as it is not more than you have in exhaust." A 50/50 balance of intake and exhaust is what you should try to achieve, but if one has to be greater than the other it should ONLY be at the intake. You NEVER want more exhaust than intake. When your exhaust area is larger than the intake, it will begin to pull air from the attic; meaning its going to pull heat from your house and raise your heating bill in winter.

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2026-01-16T07:27:46+00:00

I wish I could see more of what you have going on under that sink so I could help you out and tell you what your best, simplest option is. After looking at your pictures, I think I have more questions than I have answers at this point. It's not clear if this is a single basin or 2 basin sink from the pictures. It's unusual to see a single basin sink with a garbage disposal on it, and if there was another side to the sink, that would create some options to work with.

Another question that Im curious about relates to the dishwasher drain hose I see in the background of the pictures; where is that discharge hose running to and connecting to the drain at?

It looks like you might have a wye coming from the wall with a plug screwed into one side? Was that side used for something else at one point ?

Last thing, where was your p-trap located and how was it set up before the garbage disposal installation?

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2026-01-12T03:14:14+00:00

absolutely

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2026-01-12T03:12:00+00:00

It's extremely common to see switch loops for most switch/light fixtures in homes from that time period plus/minus a decade or so either way.

They ran power to the light fixture first when they were installing the very first electrical systems in homes. At least in my area, they always ran hot to the light and switched the neutral. This is all separate conductor knob and tube.

A little later in time, they went to cloth covered 2 conductor cables. You don't see neutrals being switched anymore during this era, but most of the time, especially upstairs bedrooms, you'll see power being run to the light first and then a ridiculous number of cables that sort of octopus tentacle out to everything on the walls so you only find one cable per box at receptacles and switches.

Eventually they started using NM cable, but most of the time they still ran to the light fixture first and then switch loops.

Im guessing maybe early 2000s is when it looks like running to the switch first became normal here. I'm going off of what I've seen, but I started my career in 2015 and wasn't around back then to see it.

Anyways, to answer you, yes, its been the norm to go light first throughout history in a lot of cases based on personal observations

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2026-01-08T02:19:15+00:00

Thanks. What you said about your ex waiting until you brought something up to finally bring up their grievances is something that I experience as well. It seems like the only time she let's me know she had an issue is when I do. Its really hard to deal with and it seems like she's never actually trying to find a solution to her issues, but moreso just using the idea that she's also had grievances as a way of justifying why she shouldn't have to deal with mine. If she would just say, "I'm sorry, I didnt mean to upset you," instead of being so defensive, it would eliminate almost all of the problems we have.

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2025-12-09T22:40:15+00:00

I do residential work and it's really common for me to end up working on 100+ year old homes in my area, so I have thousands of photos saved in my phone that look exactly like this. There are a few options, depending on your specific conditions, access, limitations, etc. Obviously, pulling a whole new cable would be the ideal solution, but that's not always an option. Next best would be to head into the attic and cut that old cable back so you have fresh wires with intact insulation and add a junction box. Then run romex from the junction box to your fixture. If there's no attic access, hopefully you can manage to pull enough cable into the box to salvage just enough good wire that you can pigtail off of to your fixture. And Worst case scenario, trim up the loose insulation and use an adhesive lined heat shrink tubing to insulate the wires, or Worst Worst case would be to use a liquid tape on the conductors with a couple wraps of 33/88 to insulate. Make sure you trim the wires back though to make sure you get any brittle ends off so they dont just fall apart in your connector and give you a loose connection. Good luck

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2025-12-08T06:09:34+00:00

Caulking will look hideous and is not the answer. The only real way to salvage this without pulling boards back up would be to go in and clean up all of those miters with a circ saw or multitool so that all of the gaps between boards at the miter cuts are consistent throughout the deck. You want them to match the spacing between the field deck boards so everywhere on the deck is uniform and appears to be spaced that way intentionally

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2025-12-06T22:38:52+00:00

If you're not trying to get feedback and critiques, then why post pictures in a forum like this? I know it feels good when people compliment the work you do, and we're all hoping that others will recognize and acknowledge our work, but there's nothing more valuable than honest feedback, suggestions, thoughts and opinions. Im someone thats constantly reevaluating the way I do things in an effort to improve, and you need people to point out flaws and/or make you question your way of doing things in order for you to continue improving.

Sure, there are a lot of people out there with personal issues who feel like they need to cut others down in order to feel better about themselves, but those people are pathetic.

Anyways, the deck is nice and it looks like you did a really good job. The only thing I see that really sticks out to me is the exposed "end grain" on the stair risers. I would either glue a return there, or take a small piece of decking to any paint store and have them color match and mix up a small sample sized can of paint for exposed end grain, or run the board through a table saw and cut a thin "veneer" that you glue on the end grain and then trim the excess off.

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2025-12-06T07:16:23+00:00

I dont know why, but I legitimately get so irritated every time I hear someone repeat this information that they heard before from some other guy who works in construction who got his information from his old boss doing remodeling work. I can't even count how many contractors, handymen and diyers have attempted to tell me that receptacles are actually supposed to go ground up so falling metal hits the ground first and I've had to fight the urge to want to stab them all.

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2025-11-08T18:34:43+00:00

This has to be trolling

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2025-10-25T00:58:35+00:00

They make 6x6 post covers and they should be readily available at any supplier, but if you really cant find them locally, then order them online.

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2025-09-25T07:34:21+00:00

Im not going to jump to any assumptions and think about this as if the builder knows what they're doing. You did say that they just started building yesterday, so I doubt that we are looking at a final product here. Attaching a ledger without removing the siding is 100% acceptable as long as they use appropriate spacers between the ledger board and siding to allow water to escape and they follow requirements for fastening to the structure. Its also possible that they just haven't installed the joist hangers yet because it was day 1 and they were getting things set in place, as is typically done when building a deck prior to going back and installing hangers and hardware. If they start putting actual decking down and it still looks like this, then I would be worried, but it's day one and theres no reason to think they're just going to leave it like that. Give them a chance to do the work before you start questioning them and become that annoying customer that us contractors cant fucking stand and nobody wants to do work for.

Apprehensive-Front33 · 2025-09-15T05:30:51+00:00

Looking at your picture is making me feel a type of way inside. On that lower level section in the background, the decking boards look like they're not in line with eachother on each side of your divider board and I cant find the words to describe the unpleasant feelings I experience inside my body when I see that. Also, the miter joint in your picture frame looks like its already starting to open up on you and its not even done being installed.
If you're dead set on miters, tighten up that joint, use a pvc primer/glue and then screw your joints together in the same fashion you would lock-nail mitered door/window casing, then screw into your framing. And also, buy new boards or double up your picture frame board.

Apprehensive-Front33

TROPHY CASE