We hired Lucas toward the end of April of this year to paint a simple one-story white home (no color change), exterior doors, bulkhead, and railings included on estimate. We decided to go with Lucas even though he was 4000 dollars more than others, but 1000 less than another business. He seemed honest and took attention to detail as he walked around our house to give an estimate .
On the day he picked up half of our deposit, he mentioned finishing up a job in Marlborough and was trying to get a crew together.He also mentioned going to do another quote in Ipswich, MA.That was the start of it all...
Lucas decided to take the Ipswich job ahead of our house and finish up the Marlborough home.Some days later he hired a man named Joe for about 3 days.The day Joe left he broke our drier vent with ladder (I assume by accident because it started to rain That day).
We also gave Lucas time off for a family crisis- what we thought it was, but he went to paint home in Ipswich and other interior projects instead.Good sunny days (what little there was) went to months without seeing Lucas.Lucas was constantly apologizing for not showing up.Finally, on June 29th, a few days before July 4th he said he was almost done with job in Ipswich, and if he could come on that weekend. However, since it was so close to the 4thof July and he probably wasn't finished with his other jobs, I told him that he can start again on the July 6th but to please make our house a priority this time.He also mentioned how cost of supplies went up since April when we hired him (now whose fault is that?).During this time, he asked us if he could get half of the remaining estimate.We quickly declined as he hadn't finished painting house (doors, behind gutters, filling in holes etc.), also he hadn't been to our house to work hardly.
Now we are in July, and Lucas started on July 6th, this time I had high hopes of job completion, but he began to negate on items needing to be completed on our project, and then Lucas began to paint shoddily over things that have not been scrapped properly.We had discussion on his lack of care, and so he tries to again - now he is working on deck but hasn't completely finished painting exterior of home (exterior doors on home- yes, it was on estimate). We have more rain in July, so again Lucas goes off to do interior projects (which is fine- we can understand that, but we didn't understand why Lucas did not come on sunny days).Finally, at the end of July he comes back to finish our job supposedly (adds hinges to shed which wasn't on estimate) tries to scrap paint and spray paints shed with still peeling paint.Doesn't paint but one exterior door but leaves us a full gallon of paint so we can paint the other doors (I guess that was nice of him).
Said he was done on August 11 - we point out things he missed during walk around.He didn't care to fix any items. At this point, we were tired of excuses and paid him. I am sharing this story because I wanted to spear others this terrible experience.Lucas is not that kind of guy - you know the one that actually takes his work seriously.
Maybe he does better interior work, it seems he did a better job for the reviewers below in Somerville and Arlington and they are happy, but it really irks me that our house wasn't taken care of like reviewers below.All I can say, is Lucas probably doesn't like to do exterior work, if he hates working outside so much, I would have rather him never to do estimate back in April.People in Ipswich and Marlborough?Do you care to share your experiences? Are you happy with Lucas work?Because it seems we were sharing one painter since April.I give him 2 stars because he the left paint for us to start painting our house over. Also, if he really did lose his help, he probably should not be painting a house on his own. read more