I find, unfortunately, this sort of lack of answer to be more common these days. For example, we are looking for a landscape contractor for a large project at our house. We approached 5 candidates: 2 of them said they were interested and would get back to me to schedule a meeting; I never heard from them again. The third one came for a visit and spent a couple of hours with us including reviewing the site survey and taking measurements. Since I hadn’t heard from him in two weeks I called him and left a voicemail; after another two weeks I sent an email, still no response. The fourth one called back to tell me he was too busy, which I appreciated. We are now working with the remaining contractor, who told us he was fully booked through this coming Spring and early summer, which is fine with us as we are happy to undertake the project late next summer and early autumn. We’ve had similar experiences with other”trades”, who don’t seem to want to tell you that they’re too busy or just not interested. I consider a courtesy of a reply to be good business practice. No reply or an evasive reply just doesn’t cut it. Wait until the recession comes and these bozos aren’t flush with work.