When Theodore R. Jones came home from work last night and found a crew putting the finishing touches on a new shingle roof, the scene was all terribly familiar.

In 1961, he said, he had paid Sears Roebuck and Co. $510 to roof his house at 2456 West street in Berkeley. The job had been guaranteed for ten years, and he had no cause to complain — and no cause to ask the roofers to come back.

"The roof didn't leak or anything," he said, scratching his head in bewilderment.

The roofers were no help. All they knew was that they had a work order to shingle the roof.

A spokesman for Sears' Oakland store didn't know anything about the roof either. The store had no record, he said, of Theodore R. Jones.

"Perhaps," said the spokesman, "Mr. Jones bought his roof from one of our other stores."

Jones, a 59-year-old telephone equipment repairman, couldn't remember.

"Seems like it was Oakland or Berkeley," he mused. But Sears has no Berkeley store.