Disorganized, dishonest, and disrespectful. I hired them to do a home remodel with the…read moreunderstanding that I had a relatively tight turnaround - I approved the estimate on August 14 and was clear that the project had to begin at the end of August and be done for me to move in by October 1. I was assured that it would take 2-2.5 weeks. I prepared a meticulous spreadsheet with all materials, links to where to purchase, and detailed notes for every room; from the beginning, there were constant mistakes that *I* had to correct because the actual contractor almost never came by the supervise. And when I say mistakes, I mean things like painting an entire room the wrong color, and painting walls in a room the opposite of what was clearly spelled out, and installing shower tile in the kitchen. Which meant wasting materials and wasting time.
There were periods of 3, 4, and (on one occasion) 5 straight business days where nobody showed up to work. The contractor was uncommunicative, dishonest, and extremely shady about expenses - I asked countless times for receipts and price comparisons for materials, and *not once* did he ever provide them. Two examples:
There was specific bathroom floor tile that I picked out on Wayfair and listed on the spreadsheet mentioned above. I gave a 50% deposit ($11,000) on August 14 for him to buy materials. Tiles never arrived. I kept asking and he finally said that he had ordered them but they were broken so he returned them. This happened 3-4 times. He then said that he made an order and would drive to the Atlanta warhouse to pick them up personally, but that it would take 7-10 days. Finally I called Wayfair, who told me that an order had never been placed. (Incidentally, after I fired him, I order the tiles myself. They arrived in 48 hours in perfect condition.)
I wanted to install some time of sound mitigation in one room, either spray foam or quiet rock; I asked him to price both options and let me know. I asked again and again, and was assured that he would let me know tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Finally he had spray foam installed without my approval.
His crews left trash all over my property. They removed my garage door and the front of the house sat unfinished with particle board for almost a month. This resulted in a fine from my HOA.
When the job still wasn't finished in mid-October, I pulled the plug and fired him. He sent me a bill that was $5000 over budget with no explanation (bear in mind that this did not include all the tile and labor to install it, nor the siding that never got put up around the french doors that replaced the garage door). When I wrote asking for all receipts, he sent back another bill with a different figure, still far over budget, with no real explanation (and only included a few receipts, which were difficult to read because they had my materials mixed up with materials from other jobs).
I heard from some of his subcontractors that he owed them up to three months of pay; that he was calling people in late September/early october to come the next day to do work (because he had never scheduled them in the first place); and that his business partner left in the middle of my job because of his mismanagement. He had me create a BuilderTrend account to keep track of the work schedule; not once was it followed, and he only updated it once despite all the delays.
I wound up having to stay in a hotel with my two children for weeks because the house was filthy and under construction.
When I didn't pay the balance immediately (because I asked again for receipts so that I could be sure I wasn't being defrauded), he sent his mother (who said that she handles the finances) to my home to demand a check from me in person. When I explained that I'm waiting on receipts and other documentation because I've been lied to repeatedly and I don't trust them, she threatened to put a lien on my house.
I just want to know that I'm being charged fairly. The quality of the subs' work is excellent - kudos to those hardworking people, many of whom are immigrants from El Salvador, and really top-notch tradespeople.
I've reported them to the BBB, DPBR, and the AG's office.
