At the end of April, we reached out to Nathan. He seemed reasonable, honest, etc. But having dealt…read morewith manipulative and untrustworthy contractors in the past, I was extremely hesitant. I voiced this to him multiple times, and he reassured me. I knew in my gut it was a risk, and I should wait for someone known by people I trust to be reliable, but I was impatient and the very few options we had (more like one) were pushed out a long time. I had had several people come out already, and not even give us an estimate. I felt like I had been waiting already for forever. I will definitely never make that mistake again.
Pretty much from the get go there were some odd things happening, like pouring forms for walls incorrectly because he and his wife actually hand built the forms themselves, then him getting mad at the concrete company when they told him they needed to be redone in order for the walls to be straight and it would cost him (shocking). Just getting the walls up took 2 months. Our neighbor who has been a contractor himself for 30 years, noticed from the moment the joists went in that he was going to be terrible, but I kept making excuses for him along the way, because to be honest I was trying to convince myself I wasn't paying someone thousands of dollars who didn't know what they were doing. And again, he kept assuring me otherwise. Obviously I'm too trustworthy of a person.
After the foundation walls got poured by another company FINALLY after I had to throw a fit because it was taking so long (one of the concrete company guys even said while they were doing so, "I don't think he knows what he's doing" ) and again, we were already a stupid amount of money in at that point, the framing went quickly. However, there were still things we had to point out once framing started. He always had an excuse (as predicted by our neighbor). Some things he'd fix, some things he said he would fix and didn't. Simple mistakes you wouldn't expect someone with "experience" as he claimed to have would be making. Wrong doorway sizes, wrong headers, leaking roof, not enough support around doorways, rafters literally not even secured, insulation shoved in and not installed even close to the right way, uneven floors, crooked roof, the list goes on and on.
Basically, after the third time of his workers (and him, he was supposedly "supervising" all along, as we paid him a fee to do) of coming out to "fix" the finishing in the dining room, we were almost over it. I told his guys (these were 2 new ones he sent out because the first two rounds of dudes we wasted money on paying apparently weren't good enough) after the last time it was good enough because I was tired of dealing with it at the time. I'd have him actually fix it later, which he did offer to do, you know, after the 3 other times he was supposedly going to get it fixed. Which would entail hanging the dry wall the correct way to begin with, not in literally the worst possible way you can do it. I have photos from all along the way, showing it wasn't done correctly to begin with, and yet he still would try to argue with me that it was. "Drywall is never perfect." Well, it sure the heck has got to be better than this. That is, we were going to have him fix it, until the bathroom roof started leaking for the second time, after he supposedly "fixed it" a couple weeks before. Thank God we hadn't already drywalled the bathroom or it would've been ruined. At that point, we were done. We told him not to come back.
After arbitration through Better Business Bureau (somehow he's accredited) that he didn't respond to, he claims he'll come back and fix the dining room. Again. Like we would be okay with that. Despite the fact that he has had multiple chances to already, wasted our money and time, made all these other mistakes, my husband and father in law are now having to finish the job he started and failed, and he also hasn't actually provided proof that 5-6k of our money wasn't basically stolen by him and he used whatever inferior materials he had just lying around (fraud anyone??), he assumes this is acceptable.
Yes, I sound insane. I promise, I'm not. This dude is a quack if there ever was one. And he will immediately untag himself, block me, etc. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. I understand in this current world, labor is tough to come by. I understand learning on the job. I get it. But what is 100% not acceptable, is LYING to someone who trusts you, telling them you know what you're doing, that you're experienced, that you're supervising, that your workers are "good", coming up with every excuse in the book, etc. BE HONEST with people. These photos don't include our many conversations via text and phone. And don't even include all the issues. He just sucks. The End.
Update: I have had MULTIPLE people reach out to me after seeing this who have had many issues with him. Also, he hires convicted attempted murderers/burglars/sexual predators.
