Avoid this contractor! In late Feb. 2022 I hired J.A.C.K. Contracting to paint an apartment, and install a new sink and dishwasher in a kitchen island where there previously was no dishwasher. I paid a 50% deposit, and was assured that this work would be done by my move-in date of June 6. I ordered paint right away, and Jeremy Murphy told me that they would get started painting in early March. He later changed his bid for the painting job, claiming I had given him incorrect measurements. (He had sent one of his own team members over to measure, but I really wanted to get this project going, so I agreed to the new bid.) I heard nothing for a while, and would email every few weeks just to say, "Hey-I'm moving into this apartment in early June-just want to stay on your radar." I always got a reply within a few days that they would be starting soon-not to worry. This continued right up until the last week of May. When I sent an email saying "We're moving in a week-these jobs need to be done immediately" Jeremy said I had told him our move-in date was in mid-July. I sent a registered letter and email asking for our deposit to be returned, which went unanswered for a week or so. It wasn't until I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau that he contacted me and told me the date mix up was due to a secretary's mistake. (I never communicated with a secretary, only Jeremy via email and phone.) He said that he'd been in the hospital and that was also part of the reason for the delay. He promised that they could paint after we moved in-moving our possessions, draping everything, etc. My husband and I had to leave town for a conference almost immediately after moving in, so I boarded our cats, and told Jeremy that the apartment would be unoccupied for four days, and he could get in and paint. He said that would work. We returned from the conference to find the painting was still in progress, so we had to stay someplace else for a week while they finished. At the end of that week, Jeremy texted me that they had finished and asked if I could drop by payment that day. When I arrived and paid him, I should have done a walk-through, but I didn't. The painters weren't actually quite done yet, and I didn't want to get in their way. After I paid Jeremy, he left in a hurry and did not return. Later that day, when the crew left, they left trash bags in my yard, and ladders, scaffolding and other supplies on my deck for two weeks. There were paint drips down the walls, speckles on our furniture and other belongings, and paint on the carpet and trim in some places. They used only of the amount of paint Jeremy had told me to buy, but it had been purchased months earlier and I couldn't return the extra (about $500 dollars' worth of paint). I expressed these concerns to Jeremy, and he told me he would fix everything when he worked on the kitchen island, which was held up waiting for new countertop, because he didn't tell me what size to order until he was onsite painting. He explained that he had been robbed of the cash I had paid him when he went to a gas station the day the job was finished and was preoccupied with that, rather than checking that the paint job was finished. After seeing the shoddy quality in the painting, my husband and I decided we didn't want this company working on a more complicated project in our home. I asked Jeremy for a refund of my deposit for the kitchen island project. After a couple of emails to this effect over the course of a month, he responded that he had tested positive for Covid and couldn't get to his workplace to create a list of what materials he had bought for my project to deduct from the deposit. (I purchased the dishwasher, sink, faucet, garbage disposal and all connectors that were advised, so I wasn't really sure what this might be, so I asked for an itemized list, and to be given any of those items.) A month later, the $1,382 deposit still hasn't been returned. Between May and August, Jeremy claimed to have had to fire his secretary for making mistakes, been in the hospital, robbed, positive for Covid, and unable to return our deposit because of a family emergency. Either this guy has the worst luck ever, or he's full of excuses. read more