I hired a A local San Mateo painter named Raul Torres (card says "RT Painting") to start a series of small jobs both inside and outside my home here in Los Prados. During the first inside job, I realized that there was some sort of communication problem, as I had to continually go over his completed work finding things I had asked him to paint were not done. This caused more time in completing the work, but thankfully we had agreed on a fixed price for his labor. When the work moved outside to re-staining my fences, we found a section that had dry rot and Raul told me he knows how to build fences too, so we increased the work scope so he could replace the redwood vertical boards and some of the bottom wood pieces used on the frame. I asked Raul to give me all the receipts for materials so I could reimburse him and he proceeded to do the work which took 3 days, However, when I asked him for the materials receipts, he only gave me two and said there were others for small things like nails, staples, etc. I trusted him and asked for the total amount and he said $50 which made me start to doubt him and his honestly.
My intent here is to warn others about what I experienced and learned about this guy:
1. He NEVER shows up at the agreed-to start time and never even let me know if he was going to be late and when he was really going to show up. I am very busy with intense therapy due to a bad back that partially disables me and this caused the work to drag out from day to day.
2. When he started taking out the rotten boards, I asked if he would put them into my recycling bin and he said he would.
3. We had agreed that I would pay him $400 for the re-staining that section which is about 15 feet long, so I asked him how much more for the added time to replace the rotten boards. I about fell over when he said at least $1,000 - say WHAT? He never showed up until after noon and never worked a full 8 hours, so I offered $800 which is more in line with what we had agreed to for labor for the inside work he did.
4. Bottom line, I paid him the full amount he wanted and pointed out that for $200 he lost the future work we had discussed and a possible fence job with my neighbors. He also refused to put the rotted fence boards in the recycle bin as he said he would and he left my property in front in a shambles - the landscape gravel was messed up with large footprint wells and mounds all over, old paint cans and packaging materials strewn all over the property, etc.
Raul Torres is one of these guys that gives reasonable bids up front and then when he gets the job, stretches the work time out by not showing up on time and never working a full 8 hour day. When something happens that expands the scope of the work, he takes advantage of the situation and slows down his work pace to justify charging an unreasonable amount for the labor. What I ended up paying him was as much, or more than what I would have had to pay the most expensive paint contractors with large companies and overhead costs.
BUYER BEWARE!
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