LOCAL ANGLES: LAW SHOULD SEND IMPOSTER ELECTRICIANS SCURRYING

Gerald "Joe" Martin saw someone perish in a gas station fire once.

Ever since, he's had this terrible fear of being engulfed by flames. The very thought of fire makes him nervous. That anxiety will never go away.

For that reason, and the fact that he was bilked by someone who didn't know how to properly wire his house, Martin would like to see electricians adhere to a licensing and testing standard.

Right now, only plumbers must be licensed and tested. But the Cape Girardeau examiners board is holding public hearings to get input on whether or not testing and licensing should include building contractors and electricians.

The way the system works now, anyone can get a permit to operate as an electrician for $35. No proof of ability or experience is necessary. And the city's inspectors can make an unlimited amount of trips to "nurse" someone along until the job is done right.

The system has too many holes in it. It needs to develop teeth to go after the bad guys, the impostors, the accidents waiting to happen. Martin realizes this. In fact, he wishes he knew a few years ago what he knows now.

"I had this guy do a job that should have taken two weeks but it went on for months," said the Jackson resident, who ended up paying an additional $750 to get the work done right in 1991. The entire job cost him nearly $1,500. "He ended up leaving me stranded, with live wires all over the place and a wide open circuit box," said Martin. "I took 8x10 glossies of how dangerous the situation actually was, but nothing was done to stop this person from doing the same thing to someone else."

After he got a contractor to finish the job the way it should have been done the first time, Martin attempted to recover the money he gave the first so-called electrician.

"I went to court with it, but the judge ruled that I shouldn't get any money back," said Martin. "It makes me sick to think that there was no ordinance in the books that said this person had to be licensed or tested before he did any work on my house or any other house.

"The guy was in the service the same way as me, and he was referred to me by a building contractor, so I trusted him. We swapped war stories and I thought he was a good guy. I never dreamed that he didn't know enough to wire a three-way switch right."

Martin believes his story and others like it are happening more frequently than some might think.

"I always thought that for someone to come in and do a wiring job on a house, he had to know what he was doing," said Martin. "What I found out is, even someone like me, who has had some electrical training in the Coast Guard, could hang out a shingle and collect money for my services."

Safety, Martin said, should be the primary concern for any city allowing contractors to ply their trade. "The very threat of someone wiring a house so poorly that it could start a fire should be enough reason to make an electrician prove he can pass a test," he said. "I saw a man burn to death after he struck a match near flammable material at a gas station and I have never forgotten that. Of all the ways to go, fire is the absolute worst for me. It scares me."

Ron Cotner, who has been an electrician in Cape Girardeau for over 25 years, is also afraid of fires that are started by faulty wiring. "I've never heard of a bad plumber making a house go up in flames. But a bad electrician can make that happen. I'm all for testing if we can make it safer for everyone involved."

There are some who believe licensing and testing will drive up the cost of hiring electricians.

"You look at what happened when plumbers had to have licenses and be tested," said Roger Deimund, who remodels homes for a living. "That drove up the price for plumbers. I'm not against taking a test, but I'm wondering if the same thing won't happen with electricians and contractors."

Rick Murray, who is the city's supervisor of building inspectors, doesn't believe it will drive up the price "one cent."

"I don't see how testing and licensing will make electricians charge more for their work," he said.

Steve Chapman thinks competition will take care of the threat of escalating costs.

"Competition has taken care of that in the past. I don't see why it wouldn't now," he said.

Martin would just like to be able to know that when he hires an electrician, he's not paying for a fire waiting to happen. "I'm all for anything that will drive the impostors out of the business," he said.

Indeed, if the memory of that ill-fated fire can't go away, at least send the impostors scurrying.

~Bill Heitland is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.