Moises gave me a bid for repairing the drywall in my home (three ceilings, two skylights, over 50 holes and patches, and a couple walls). He also included in his bid drywall up to the very detailed reglet reveal around every exterior door and window in my home, since I had just replaced them all. I have had some bad experiences with contractors, and I wanted to make sure Moises did a good job before giving him the whole contract (over $4700 for drywall repairs), so we decided that he would do the drywall in one of my guest bedrooms. If I wasn't pleased, he said he wouldn't charge me; otherwise, I'd pay $200 in labor + materials. Moises told me he estimated 4 or 5 hours to do the repairs. He arrived at my home at 8 am on March 12 and proceeded to do the repairs. He asked me to look at the drywall partway through the day and said he was having difficulties. He blamed the window installer and said the windows weren't level, but I had the windows checked by my oversight guy after they were installed. It is a difficult reveal because the drywall and trim piece needs to be straight, so I wasn't too surprised that he was having some difficulty. He decided to redo the trim piece again to do a better job.
I had a vet appointment for my dogs at 3:30 that day, so I needed to leave by 3. I told Moises this, and he expressed that he was upset because he would have to come back to finish it. I had based the time on what he had told me, and he had the upper limit (5 hours) of his estimate. He then told me that if I decided to go with him for all of the drywall that I would have to give him access to my home whenever he wanted so he could set his schedule. I do not leave people in my home I do not know, so that rubbed me the wrong way. Still, Moises had generally been very nice and respectful, so I let it slide.
Moises came back on March 14 at 8 am to finish up that morning. I was pleased with the drywall after he fixed it, and I was planning to use him to do my entire home's drywall. He does multiple repairs, and he said he could paint, too. I had him give me a painting bid a few weeks later, but it was ridiculous ($31,500), so I was just going to do the drywall with him. I was waiting on other contractors to finish their work so Moises could begin, and then one contractor had to file an insurance claim because he messes up so many things on our home. This also affected the timeline for drywall. Because insurance can take a long time, I called Moises and told him that we were going to hold off on the drywall for now and that I would contact him when we were ready. I asked him to send me an invoice at this time because I had not yet received one.
I was confused when I received an invoice for $650, so I emailed him back reminding him of our agreement. He called me and was very aggressive, saying that $200 was nothing and that he spent more than that on gas to my house (I live 13 min from downtown SLC). He also said that I cost him time because I made him leave and come back another day. That was not my fault, as he said it would only take him 4-5 hours. He offered to "work something out" for around $450, but I see no need to work anything out when we had already agreed on a price that HE SET. I asked him what the materials were so I could send him a check, and he said he didn't want $200--that his time was more valuable than that. I found this to be ridiculous and thought I may have misheard him, so I emailed him after we got off the phone. He emailed me back still demanding the $650. It is obvious to me that he underestimated the job and then wanted more money than we originally agreed upon. That likely means my bid for over 4700 would probably become 15k or more. Dodged a bullet. read more
