I've had some bad experiences with contractors in the past, but this was by far the worst. It began…read morewhen during our initial meeting, he called me a "potty mouth" in my own home in front of my family. Despite that, I did not expect the frustration, sexism, and rudeness that continued while working with him.
We hired him to create built in bookcases among several other contracting tasks. I offered to show him pictures of what we wanted, but he declined to look at them. When I asked him for a sketch, he told me it was a really simple design and he didn't need to do that. When my father called, he agreed (a pattern where he would not listen to me, a woman, but would listen to my father.) Well, eventually. He first needed to tell my father that the rest of what he'd been hired for would not "be worth it" for him to do if he didn't do the bookcase project for us. He also felt the need to say that he's been doing this job for 30 years and he does great work. I guess he couldn't stand his competency being questioned, but anyone who needs to say that and can't prove it by their actions and the way they treat people? Yeah.
After that, an architect came out with Joseph to look at the space and work on a sketch. During that meeting, I asked again if he wanted to look at pictures of what I wanted, but he declined. I tried to explain verbally, but that also went poorly. For example, I asked if he could install a shelf above the television, and he told me that was impossible and would look terrible, which was baffling to me as this is pretty common. After trying for several minutes to explain, and receiving very dismissive and hostile comments from Joseph, the architect took pity on me and tried to explain to Joseph what I wanted. When the architect explained it, Joseph agreed that was probably possible and he guessed he could do it. After this meeting, he told me that he'd call in a few days to schedule a time for install. When I hadn't heard from him, my father again called and he promised he'd get the sketch to us within 10 days of the original meeting. After 11 days, I call him to ask what's going on and he tells me it'll be a few more days, but he can give us our deposit back. He's not very nice throughout this entire phone call. I call him the next day and ask for the deposit back because frankly I'm tired of the sexism and rudeness, and don't trust him to do good work for us anymore. He seems to have changed his tune as he now tells me he doesn't understand what the problem is since it's only 2 days after he said he would get the sketch for us, "But if that's what you want to do, fine," and hangs up on me. He calls a few days later to say the check is in the mail and to assure me that "I don't have a problem with giving this project up." He does not apologize or give any indication that he's caused us any hardship or treated us poorly, but no surprise there. During that call, he also mentions that he may need to charge for the sketch if it has already been started. Apparently, it is now finished (amazing how money can motivate), and charges us $150 for this, which is ridiculous given that every company I've been interviewing since has given this to us for free before we even hire them. Also, if he had the sketch already, why couldn't he just give it to us on time? Joseph called back a couple hours later, which I didn't answer because I was frankly tired of the verbal abuse.
Joseph is associated with both HLF Construction and North Coast. I would never use him or any company associated with him given the abysmal way he treated me and my family during this process. Forget the $150 he wrongly charged us, I'd just like back those 4 weeks of my life where he did absolutely nothing and treated me horribly. Save yourself the money and the trouble- he and his companies are NOT WORTH IT!
