I approached Yafa about painting and patching two bedrooms, replacing a door to one of the bedrooms, installing a closet door, and installing a vanity and mirrors in our main bathroom. The painting and patching went smoothly. The door installation appeared to be fine to my layman's eyes, except the contractors she sent over did not reinstall the door lock they removed from the old door. I mentioned this to her, but knowing how to install a door lock (I've done it many times in the past), I didn't think it would be an issue to do it myself and said nothing more of it.
The vanity was a troublesome experience. We had a large mirror that covered the whole wall where the vanity was installed. This mirror was removed per our request and was to be replaced with two smaller mirrors. At this point, the wall behind this large mirror was left full of glue and in a severely unfinished state. Once again, being a layman in this industry, I assumed this would all be handled later as part of the plan (after all, who would request a mirror be removed and two hung on a glue-laden/unfinished wall?).
The vanity itself was ultimately installed incorrectly (the backsplash that came with the vanity was installed too close to the back of the sink, resulting in the sink's stoppers from being able to be pulled up. The contractors showed me this after they installed it, and in retrospect, I should have been more forceful about accepting such work, but the bulk of it had been done, and so I decided to simply eat it and not complain.
At this point, a bit disappointed, but ultimately happy with the rest of the work, I anticipated the final phase, hanging the mirrors and finishing the wall. Except, that's not what Yafa had in mind. Apparently, her job was done. She explained, even though we had had a clear discussion about hanging the mirrors that came with the vanity, that such work was not part of the contract. Her "contract", by the way, was a simple email stating in no clear terms what she was going to do - so this should have been my first red flag. It was definitely my own mistake for not requiring all of this in much clearer terms - her verbal agreement (which I'm sure she'll dispute here) was not honored.
Regardless, she and her men left our bathroom in an unrentable state (photos attached), with two mirrors unhung, the wall unfinished and in a worse state than before she started.
However, I am a VERY patient man, and ultimately I just sucked it up (after all, I didn't get our verbal agreement about the mirrors in writing, so I had myself partly to blame, too!). So I was forced to hire another contractor to finish the job at an additional expense I had not planned to make.
So a couple months passed, busy with work, I finally got around to installing that door lock I mentioned earlier. Upon installing it, I closed the door and...it didn't close. Specifically, the door lock didn't latch closed. Why? Because the hole that had been drilled into the door by Yafa's men was not measured properly and had been drilled too high. The door would not even stay closed, the pressure from the latch pushed it back open.
Disappointed and frustrated I had to deal with Juniper Construction again, I begrudgingly texted Yafa with a photo of the issue and respectfully requested she fix it. She responded, [sic]"Hi David I'm out of town until January 5 when I'm back I will definitely come check it out and fix it in the meantime have happy new year"
"Great!" I thought. It had been a few months since she had done the work, but I had simply not gotten around to adding that door lock and therefore had not seen that an issue existed until then. Thankfully she had seemed willing to stand by her work.
I was wrong. I waited and waited, two months passed, she never got back to me. I should have reached out sooner, but being a busy man and hating to be "the pest" I waited. I finally reached out again and asked her when she would be able to send someone out. She responded, [sic]"Hello it's Passover for me I will be able in two weeks". Great, so I waited two weeks - set a reminder, and two weeks later I reached out again.
This time, she asked what needed to be done. I reminded her of our prior texts, and she began pushing back. She said I was at fault for installing the lock her men failed to install, and that I installed it improperly (without inspecting it herself) and it was therefore my fault. I explained if she liked, I'd uninstall the lock (thereby restoring the door to exactly how her men left it) so she could fix her mistake and she refused. She even suggested I was lying about the whole thing and attempting to have her fix MY mistakes.
My only mistake was hiring Juniper Construction!
So now I am here, writing to warn all who do business with Juniper Construction - look elsewhere. If you insist on using them, get every detail written down, and don't let her leave without everything being 100% complete. read more