Contracts with contractors

[Jacky Johnson]

I recently plan to have a residential project done by licensed contractors. I've read some books on how to hire contractors and some of them taught me that besides checking contractors are licensed, bonded, and insured, I need to have a contract that has written terms allowing the owner/agent to supervise the job, cancel the contract within 3 days, a start date, completion date, model number of appliances, late completion penalties, statements holding contractor responsible for obtaining all necessary permits and inspection approvals, cleanup procedures, payment schedule, waiver of mechanic lien...etc. It appears that contractors don't even have these statements on their contracts these days, or they only have estimates and terms regarding those estimates that don't include these statements. Some personnel working under their owner's contractor's license has never heard of mechanic liens and if I inquires about the above requirements, they're saying I'm asking too many questions and asked if I want the job done or not. 

I'm not sure if I'm going too much by the books because the reality deviates so much from the books. How should I handle this situation when hiring contractors? Thanks!