I hired Jason Smith (aka Black Oak Construction) in October 2016 to work on my house in Oakland…read morewhich needed a new foundation and some work on the interior. I had the single most unprofessional experience working with him and one of his two subcontractors that I have heard of anyone having with a contractor. A job that, according to Jason's own paper contract, was supposed to take 4-6 weeks, ending December 7th 2016, dragged on until February 24th 2017 when I fired him. It was a rainy winter and he started calling his men off the job sometime in mid December because of too much rain, and I, trying to be understanding, allowed it for a few weeks, even though they were already way past schedule before the rain started. But when at the end of December I mentioned the interior still had not been finished and that I didn't understand why his men couldn't work on that if it's raining, he left me an angry voicemail and came up with excuse after excuse, and finally, in early January, rallied his men to put in 3 solid days of work on the interior. They didn't finish, but he had already moved them on to other contracts and didn't have time, one subcontractor kept saying so the few times he'd show up in the week to put in an hour or two at my place, he would often leave abruptly saying he has other jobs to go to. This is after being 2.5 months late on finishing the job I had hired them to do, they behaved like they were doing me a favor by coming once a week, even though I had paid for the entire job at that point, and I found myself begging 50-something year-old men to show up and do their work. It was demoralizing, disgusting, and unprofessional, and Jason was the only one my complaints went through so he is entirely responsible for how the situation was handled. He treated me like a little girl who didn't know any better and so he could make up excuses and reasons I was wrong not to expect things to be finished.
I paid fully for a job that was 300% late in the end, and never finished, and which he refused to partially refund me on when I fired him. His guys eventually had done most of the work, which is why I had paid, but I fired them after I finally got the permit through the city for my new foundation in hand February, because I felt I could safely break ties with his circus at that point without having to hire someone else and start over trying to communicate with the city inspector. I have heard several stories from my friends about dealing with shady contractors but even they were shocked by how blatantly disrespectful Jason Smith was of my time and money, and how openly he lied about prioritizing other, newer contracts when he was beyond late on mine. This guy has no business running a construction "company" and I would caution anyone considering working with him to run the other way. During this whole ordeal I became aware of other customers who were unhappy with his work and with whom he'd had to settle with out of court, and I came to understand that I should have fired him in late November when it became clear he was egregiously late, instead of trying to help him get back on schedule by ordering materials myself. This was my first time dealing with contractors and I will never again, after dealing with Jason Smith. My house was far from a fixer upper for Oakland standards, and yet I lived with their unprofessional mess and trash for 4.5 months and was expected to not ask questions about why nobody was showing up. The only positive thing about the entire experience was one subcontractor, Daniel, who showed up and finished his work and did a great job on the foundation, and, as far as I know, never ran off to other jobs before completing his work.
