I was moving from my home and getting my house ready for renters and needed any safety issues/ugly things repaired. I've got some good and bad experiences all around in this endeavor.
The Good:
- When I was looking for a handyman, I was really struggling to get someone to commit to the work and show up. Bert came out promptly, gave me an estimate, started right away. Even met me at work to get keys, down payments, etc. because it was convenient for both of us.
- My new fireplace mantle looks amazing! I do wish he would have sanded the log top though; it's not nice to the touch or to sit on.
- At the completion of the job we went through each item on the bid sheet, which was very easy to understand.
- The quality of the work overall was pretty decent. He had to contract out some of the electrical work out but the newly installed switches and thermostats looked great, as well as the new stove vent hood.
The Bad:
- Part of the work included mowing the grass, cutting blackberries, and trimming some GIANT hedges. Because I had moved out, my lawnmower was no longer at the property. The overall project took so long the grass got a foot tall. It was mowed, but it was about the worst mow job I've ever seen. There were grass clippings everywhere, and it was still too long. After the project wrapped up I had to bring a mower and do it all again myself.
- At no time in the project did I ever feel like my project was a priority. When I asked about timelines Bert would say he got tied up in some other property, or had issues somewhere else that needed resolved. I lived over an hour away, and he wanted to meet on my weekend. After driving through heavy traffic for two hours to meet him he cancelled on me, because he was still working on another job after he assured me earlier that day he'd be there.
The Ugly:
- It took 3 months to finish the project. I hired him in June, and it wasn't done until September. I had assumed it would take two weeks tops, maybe? He was completely unsupervised in an empty house, so its not like he had to work around my schedule or quietly. Why did this take so long? I lost 2 months of potential rent waiting on this project to be completed. The timeline got pushed back every time I saw him. I checked in about once a week and there were numerous times two weeks would go by and nothing had been done. Overall, The value of the work was probably worth what I paid but losing the potential rent negates that.
The Inexcusable:
- Was ready to charge me for work he didn't do until I called him on it. A major part of the bid was to trim some overgrown laurel hedges. It was reported and confirmed that my 80+ year old neighbor spent 3 days doing it. When we got to that part of the bid and I flat out said, "you didn't do this work", and he says, "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat!" (extended noise as he thought up a lie). "I had one of my guys out here that day and he said he did it, I'll have a talk with him." He took $250 off the price but it's still messed up that had my neighbors not said anything he would have taken the money without a problem.
- To make matters worse there was also damage to my house that was not fixed or mentioned which I found only after the fact.
If not for these integrity issues he would have been given a 3 star rating. read more