This was not a great experience. Initially, I contacted Aaron, the owner, to replace a basement…read moreshower door, after the - likely original - shower stall door started to come off its framing, before my neighborhood handyman (who charges less than half of Aaron's day rate) fixed it. I regret that I didn't simply leave the situation there, keep my old shower stall door/frame kit, and save $1K. However, at the time (June 2024), I had high hopes that Aaron could become my general contractor, for me to eventually hire to renovate my kitchen & bathrooms upstairs. So I hired him to test him, with 5 specific projects:
1) Basement Shower Stall Door/Frame:
- Given I was a new homeowner, I had no idea what I was doing, told him as much, and asked for his help. I measured the shower stall, told him some ideas of that for which I was looking, and - given he's a General Contractor, who told me he's originally from New Jersey, and was hired to renovate an entire house in Mill Valley, CA (posh NorCal) during the pandemic, I mistakenly trusted him. He told me to find shower stall kits on HomeDepot.com, have it delivered to the store, then he'd pick it up at the store in his truck, and remove my old shower stall door/frame. What he failed to do was verify the kit I sent him - before ordering - matched the measurements, after I specifically asked for his guidance/help, and he offered to help me. Then - worse yet - he was unethical, unlike my neighborhood handyman, as he never told me during the install that it was the wrong measurement / size, for that shower, installed it anyway, removed my old shower door/frame/kit, without discussing this with me, told me to get out of his way and go upstairs and "trust him," then I realized after he left that it was the wrong size. Worse yet? He removed the tile, grout, caulk, and new paint, and when I contacted him to fix it in June 2024 - before my July 2024 Breast Cancer Diagnosis, hence the delay - he never replied to come fix it.
2) Crawl Space Access Door:
- Same goes for this. He told me he has a jigsaw, so he could fix the wood frame and install the door properly around it, that I'd already purchased through my HVAC contractor, only to leave the wood in piece meal around it, allowing bugs to enter my home, which was the entire point of his work. Then he sloppily sprayed fire foam around it, and it looks significantly worse than if I'd just hired my neighborhood handyman with a day rate less than half of Aaron's to do it, in the first place, who I now need to hire to fix it, including creating a wooden frame with a proper fit, flush screws, and a cement bottom, to match the wall. My handyman quoted me $187.50 for 1.5-hours for this specific project.
3) Bedroom Vent:
- When my HVAC technician moved one of the vents in my primary bedroom, the base board needed to be patched, as well as the carpet. Aaron bought the wrong base board at the wrong Home Improvement shop, told me that was the only option, only for my neighborhood handyman to tell me - yet again - that Aaron was wrong/lied to me, and that my current baseboard is still replaceable with an exact match, so yet again, I need to hire my neighborhood handyman to fix Aaron's work.
4) Kitchen Calendar Wall Hook:
- I know this was simple, but while he was here, I thought he could help me make this more secure, but - yet again - my neighborhood handyman had to re-do it.
5) Flag Anchor Front Porch:
- Yet again this was done with the wrong hardware, that was not aesthetically pleasing, so my neighborhood handyman re-did it.
Overall, it's not just the fact that Aaron's rate was near double my neighborhood handyman, it's not just the fact that he made numerous mistakes, after reassuring me I could trust him, as I told him these were test projects for bigger scale work, it's the fact of how Aaron handled the mistakes, by ignoring me, hiding the shower door mistake, and refusing to fix the mistakes, over 1-year later. Whereas, my neighborhood handyman has made mistakes before, and he owns up to them, and fixes them without any issues. We're all human. :)
