contractorsfromhell.com

My wife and I hired a contractor to do the upfitting for a business in a strip mall. After looking at his bid we decided to go with him since he had been involved in building other restaurants such as ours. We were to pay him 25k per a stipulated sum agreement and then pay the subs directly. Our first problem started when he misread what the landlord will provide and left out a 40k HVAC unit and duct work on his bid. There was no change order signed and we had to get an increase on our SBA loan. All in All the job cost us 80k more then his bid with NO change orders signed or alterations in the contract. He has already admitted to stealing from another business owner due to double billing. We have found out the he is President of this company and it is licensed however he was overseeing the project and he is not a qualifying party to oversee the project considering he has not passed nor taking the state exam to oversee a project. in the mean time he states that we still owe him money even though we paid 80k more with no change orders. The SBA and us did ask for a breakdown of all invoices which he impolitely refused. He has placed a lien for another 42k and we do have an attorney. Our problem is he NEVER provided any labor or materials. Is there a something that protects the consumer from a contractor the bids low and then increases the price without approval and then invoices you and says you don’t question just pay? We have paid ALL the subs and know the Electrician who is the HVAC as well sub and plumber are into his scheme.

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I hired a Licensed Siding Contractor to install ColorPlus siding on my home. The product carried a 50 product warranty and a 15 year finish warranty. The finish warranty, as a single women homeowner is what made me buy the product, it meant freedom from painting my home for at least 15 years. The finish (painted surface) is baked on at the factory, will not fade or peel and can not be matched by any on-site painter. The 10 day job went on for 3 months. I had 3 different crews all trying to correct the mistakes of the previous crew. Due to improper handling and installation, the end product was they scratched & mared the surf ace of the finish and it can not recieve a warranty. (the new siding looked like it needed a paint job) The crews used touch up paint with a roller to “cover” their damages to the siding. The end result is my entire home is a two toned blotched finish. I contacted the manufacture of the product and was told touch up paint was ONLY for nail heads and cut edge and if they had to use a roller the entire plank had to be replaced. The contractor refused. I opened an investigation with the manufacturer and it end result was the Contractor misapplied touch up paint and misused caulking on my entire job. The caulking is now bleeding through the touch up paint so now my entire house is two toned (flat and semi gloss touch up paint) with at least 80-100 1 inch white blotches that continue to bleed through the paint. So i looked 2 toned with white spots all over my home. Contractor is totally unaccountable and an ass. Finally claimed there was touch up issue and on the $16,000 job  so he and his attorney generously agreed to refund me $1,333.00 so I can go buy paint and hire a painter ($7000 bid) to repaint my NEW siding! Contractor put mechanic lien on my house and hired a bully attorney who just served my summons. I am single mom, work 2 jobs and cant afford attorney. I need to reply t summons…any suggestions….sincerely I am in Hell! THanks, Blotched spotted homeowner.

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I hired a contractor of excellent reputation. A family business of >20 years. The large job started, NO PRELIMINARY NOTICES were delivered to me. I paid him directly- he paid no subs. Turns out he was on methadone for ‘chronic pain’, the reputation was from the father, and brother who had both left- they did not respond to any of the complaints I raised. A sub has filed a lien against my home, I am going after him for huge penalties for filing a fraudulent lien. The contractor and his drunken wife and stoned kids all moved to Montana. Watch out!! George Powell was the thief contractors name.

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The State of Florida is known for warm winters, constant sunshine and beautiful beaches.  That is all true.  That is what brought my husband and I here to retire.  However, before deciding to relocate here, you must be informed of a very dark side of the sunshine state, the construction industry.

We invested our life savings in the construction of a new home in Panama City, Florida.  We thought that we were careful when hiring a contractor.  We verified that his contracting license was up to date and that there were no complaints with the Better Business Bureau.  We thought that was enough. We were wrong!

We had a horrible experience with a building contractor and later discovered that he is an ex-convict with felony convictions for grand theft and violence.  How could he have a contractor’s license?  Neither the State of Florida nor the Bay County Contractor Licensing Dept. makes any connection between past criminal behavior and the risk that poses to unsuspecting homeowners. We didn’t do a background check as we believed that he must have already cleared background checks prior to licensing.

What is the gist of our story?  His past offenses of theft and violence are now used as the dirty tricks of his trade.  Our horrible experiences with this contractor comes under the catagories of Theft and Violence!  The regulatory agencies who licensed him without considering that his past offenses could easily be repeated in his contracting business have refused take any responsibility and he has their blessing to repeat his actions on other unsuspecting homeowners. The Better Business Bureau of Northwest Florida refuses to inform consumers that a complaint was even filed!

IF YOU HIRE A BUILDER IN PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA, do atleast a free background check at the Bay County courthouse.  www.baycoclerk.com (case search) check both civil and criminal, I sure wish that I had!

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1. It’s a professional relationship for them, though it feels deeply personal for you since it’s in your home – keep a professional distance
2. No physical contact, no hugs
3. No long personal conversations
4. Try not to get caught in your underwear, or leave personal clothing lying around
5. Go to a hotel if you can and if you don’t feel the need to supervise
6. Don’t sleep with the contractor or crew
7. Realize that they’re being professional and polite to the client so any compliments or opinions are influenced in that manner
8. Don’t loan them any money or hire their relatives
9. Visit your own friends and have them over when the contractor isn’t around. Keep a life of your own.
10. When the contractor leaves, let go. Don’t try to make the relationship personal no matter what was said at the end of the project. Realize that their livelihood came from you so any personal relationship was influenced by money. You may or may not be friends, just like you have to be friendly to coworkers you don’t like.

…More Suggestions for Single Women Handling Contractors

  1. Don’t hang out at their office or next job, even if they invite you.
2. Don’t mistake professional courtesy for a deep caring for your personal problems.
3. Don’t use the crew as girlfriends or psychologists
4. Don’t gossip with the crew about your lovelife
5. Don’t attend their family functions, even if they politely invite you; Don’t assume you’re a member of the family
6. Don’t date the crew’s relatives if they are a family-oriented business
7. Don’t start working for the contractor, i.e., doing gratis computer work while the contractor is working for you; Don’t create a project to remain part of the company when they leave
8. Don’t put up with sexual harassment and mistake it for flirting
9. Don’t sexually harass the crew
10. Don’t schedule your day around the crew’s work schedule. Observe, relay your wants and opinions to the lead contractor and get out of the house if possible.
11. Don’t introduce the crew to your 19 year old daughter as if they’re good friends or family
12. Don’t assume you can trust anyone the crew says they are related to without checking out that individual yourself – it could be cousin Joe fresh out of jail
13. Don’t try to become one of their culture – hang on to your own individualism, set your own boundaries
14. Don’t let them bully you into buying more than you want to – such as another extension of a fence that would cost you 3000, but they say would make it “perfect”
15. Hang on to your house; don’t let them take over and call it their house because they’ve done so much work there
16. Don’t go to their parties – unless you want their women to confront you because they’ve talked about you so much
17. Get professional counseling for your psychological problems such as loneliness from empty nest syndrome; don’t use them as your surrogate family from 20 years ago
18. Don’t tell them how much you spend on the things you own, they may think you’re rich and they’re entitled to part of it, even if you worked 35 years to get where you are
19. Listen to your male friends and family’s advice about protecting yourself – they are the ones who love you and will be there long after the contractors have moved on to their next projects (and they understand men better than you do!)
20. Talk to at least one independent male friend about conversations that occur and things they say that you don’t understand; Don’t keep secrets “to protect the contractors” and don’t tell the contractors about that independent male friend – if they are unethical they will reveal themselves because they’re not afraid of you and they think they are the number one males in your life (but you have that ally who will tell you what’s going on and help you when and if you need it)
21. ENJOY THE PEACE AND QUIET!!! THE CONTRACTORS ARE GONE! YOU HAVE YOUR PRIVACY BACK…have a small dinner party for supportive neighbors or friends.

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My contractor and I aren’t speaking anymore.  A month ago I was invited to a wedding for that family.  My contractor had been talking romantically to me for about 2 weeks before that.  He didn’t expect to see me at the wedding and came strolling in, hand and hand, with his girlfriend.  When he saw me he dropped her hand and ran across the room.  Apparently I walked by him 5X without seeing him, and then I left with a cousin.  The following Monday, when I saw him, he immediately said “She’s not my girlfriend!”  The next day another cousin told me that the contractor had been falling in love with me, but that I had blown it by leaving with the other cousin.

I’m exhausted just writing this.  That was 5 weeks ago.  The past month the contractor has promised to come by 3 times and never shown up. I was compulsively emailing and leaving messages on his phone.  Last week he stopped responding entirely.  I was lucky.  I know how to go cold turkey.

That’s given me some perspective - I don’t want them to show up, and I’ve started doing a lot of things myself again.  I had fallen into a helpless mode where I’d look for help!  So I built a little fence around my hill, replaced a solonoid and rewired some of the valves on my sprinkler system. 

I didn’t sleep with the contractors, that’s about the only thing I did right, I certainly got to close to them due to loneliness and empty nest syndrome.  I loaned them some money, but I have a promissary note and I’ve contacted an attorney who says we can recover the funds.  I’ve given them a deadline and told them not to come to my house.  I’ve told them that their office assistant can deliver the check or they can mail it.  This is a large Mexican family and the last delivery was made by the youngest sister who acted like she wanted to kick my butt.

I was very embarrassed to admit that I’d loaned them some money.  I’m a middle aged lady who was flattered by the attention of young men more than 20 years younger than herself.  I was fat and didn’t date for 10 years.  I lost 50 pounds, my kids just left, and suddenly I had 10 men in my back yard to wait on me.  The attention went to my head.  Hopefully I’ll be able to recover that loan by my deadline.  If not I’ll submit a case to civil court with my attorney, contact the BBB and the CSLB.  Apparently they only attach construction related cases to the contractor’s license but since part of this loan was made as payments on a credit card to their company it can be construed to be construction related.

They never finished all the work, but the things that are left (hanging mirrors, vent in the fireplace) are minor, so I’ll finish them myself.  By the end of the contract they were telling me what to do and running my house, so nobody wanted to help me with my little inside jobs.  I made lists, showed the contractor 3X what I wanted done, but they considered it “girl work” and none of them wanted to come in and help me finish.

As I write this its hard to believe I was so foolish.  I never wanted to be one of those mid-life crisis women who get flattered by a younger man, but I did.  I started writing this as therapy for myself, and with the hope that some other woman would see it and it might help her.

The entire time they were at my house I was sharing all of this with a coworker.  The contractors didn’t know about him, so I was receiving an objective opinion as I became steadily more isolated.  I had a party that my contractor was supposed to come to, but the wedding was a week before and he didn’t show up.  His girlfriend, who had confronted me at the wedding, told me they couldn’t come.  For weeks he had promised to come to my party and he didn’t show.  My coworker was there, though.  I’ve since thanked him for helping me out. 

They gave me a week off from work to straighten my life out as they knew something was wrong.  I was flaking out.  But I work with a group of men who care about me and are very supportive - when I tell them what was going on.  I was ashamed of being so stupid, though, but I knew the only way out was to talk.

I’m not going to have any further physical contact with that contractor and in the stages of grief I’m into the anger phase.  The loan was for over 10000 so it will be a civil court case if it comes to that.  I’ve used credit cards to live on for two months - at the contractor’s suggestion, of course.  We envisioned it as me being the one who finances the beginnings of a great company - like millionaires in the making.  I was going to create a web site for them, too and I’ve given them some free computer service. I ended up working for them!

Luckily, the contractor quit talking to me because I had started to ask him point blank questions about what was going on.  He had said we were “Best Friends” and best friends talk, don’t they? I guess this means we’re not going on that cruise he talked about (I’m being sarcastic now.)

I’ve begun to move forward on my own.  I’m reading about empty nest syndrome, addressing the 10 pounds I’ve gained, and thinking about school again.  In other words, I’m looking at what I want to do with this great piece of time I have now.  I didn’t know how bad it was until I wrote it out.  When the contractor quit responding I started writing letters to him, but not sending them, as therapy.  When you put it all on paper it’s hard to hide from.  Plus I had a friend that I was confiding in that was totally removed from the situation.  And most of the work in the house is beautiful. 

The first two months were as they should have been.  Then my brother came down to check them out .  He said they seemed like good guys and left.  After that I told the contractor how lonely it was when they left on Fridays and he said “It doesn’t have to end there.  You can come over to my house for dinner and we’ll go on a cruise in October.”  He never mentioned visiting his house again, and the following Tuesday when I called him he said he was at his girlfriend’s parents drinking beer.  That’s the only time he slipped and called her his girlfriend.  When I asked him if she was any other time he either didn’t answer or said “supposedly”.   The entire time they were at my house I have never had a cup of coffee, a meal or ridden in the truck of that contractor.  It’s always been business - though we talked many times of going to a casino, going out to eat, etc.  Anyway, when he started suggesting personal time together that’s when I got a crush on him and the relationship changed, though we never did anything.   I was going to work and they kept business hours. They would disappear at 5 and over the weekends - just like married men.

 The first two months he was on 24 hour call for any of my problems, then he assigned one of the cousins, and now - well, it’s over and time to Let Go and live my own life. I’ll get my money, pay off the credit cards and hopefully be a little wiser.  

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My problems are relatively small compared to many here. But they’re still causing me tremendous frustration.

I hired these guys to replace my roof. I think they may have actually done a decent job but I realize now I have no way of being sure. I didn’t have any doubts until I hired them to also paint the outside of my house. That’s where the trouble began.

At first they started out by setting up scaffolding, removing my storms and screens, and beginning a “power wash” of the outside. Then one day, halfway through this process, they simply stopped. It’s going on six weeks now and I haven’t heard a word from any of them. All of their stuff is still here - ladders, scaffolding, etc. but they haven’t responded to any of my numerous phone calls. My life has been in a holding pattern since I’m reluctant to have people over or take a trip somewhere while all of this is still in limbo. To make matters worse, I’ve already paid for all of the paint. Not to mention that I have no storm windows or screens since they’re all still lying out in the yard.

So what more can I do? There is no written contract for this (there was for the roof). But it’s obvious that they’re supposed to be doing work since all of their stuff is here. Can I confiscate their equipment? For that matter, how would I even go about dismantling it? I’m still hoping to resolve this somehow but it’s hard to excuse someone vanishing and not returning a single one of your phone calls while leaving your house looking like real crap.

Any advice would be most welcome.

Jason

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While our experience pales in comparison with others who have posted their home improvement debacles, we thought we should let fellow consumers know that one can experience problems wherever they go for home improvements. We contracted with the Matthews North Carolina Home Depot [HD] store [No. 3602] to remodel our master bathroom on February 23, 2008. We thought that HD was reputable and that we would not encounter any hassles or have to do very much to get our remodel completed. While we didn’t know it at the time, we were lied to from the beginning by one of the associates and did not receive adequate information from another. Our project included a new: vanity, countertop, mirrors, tile floor and a tiled shower. The project totaled in the $12,000 range — we did some of the tear out and had other companies perform work that HD contractors would not. When our tile was delivered, there were three different die lot numbers for the tile, the bull nose and the border. Obviously, the colors of the tile varied and would not look proper if used. The associate told us that we would get the die lot number that we had seen in the store — obviously a fabrication. After considerable complaining and a visit to the store, we received consistent die lot numbers. There were many other problems [far too many to discuss here] that we encountered during the entire project the major issue is discussed below. When the tile installation started our problems began. [as we understand, all HD stores in/around Charlotte NC use the same tile company] — don’t know if this is the case elsewhere. It is our understanding that this tile company then contracts with self-employed installers. The installer that was sent to us was supposed to be the best this company had to offer. Oh boy, was that an illusion on the part of the owner. After complaining to the Customer Care Line, a manager from the company came to look at the job, along with the HD Area Services Manager Some of the problems we encountered were: the tile on the shower walls was not level — the company manager said our tile was level but we had to show him that he was evaluating plumb and not level. Surprisingly, the HD Area Services Manager who was also on-site did not know the difference either. the tile was not tall enough to allow for the shower head to be within the tile the front riser was not level the tile pan was not level the grout lines did not match from wall to wall – the installer built one wall and then built the other. He should have built both walls simultaneously and used spacers to assure all grout lines were equal there were also problems with other parts of the tile work around the garden tub. After the tile company manager and the HD Area Services Manager visited, the owner and another manager came to our house. The owner could readily see that our concerns were valid. Ironically, while they were in our bathroom walking around, floor tiles began to come up. What a day it was for us — he could not weasel out of the situation even if he wanted to at this point. Ultimately, the owner realized the job was so bad that all of the tile was removed and other installers redid the job. Before and during the tile installation, we were not given adequate information by one associate concerning plumbing products. We had Moen plumbing trim that was installed by the builder. We purchased Kohler trim which is incompatible with Moen rough-ins. Had we received adequate advice from the HD associate when we purchased the trim, we would have purchased the proper Kohler rough-ins, hence saving much time and frustration. In summary, I advise you not to place your faith in Home Depot just because it is a huge company. After talking to folk from Texas, Canada, and even within the company itself, Home Depot has major problems with its home improvement departments. If you want to get the run around, sub-standard service, being called a liar, ignored: just contract with Home Depot. A word of advice if you encounter major problems, don’t settle for their standard $500 gift card —hold out for real dollars as we did. We finally settled with Home Depot on July 8, 2008, but only then after threatening a
lawsuit.

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We recently hired a contractor in Dallas to replaster and paint our entire house…approx. 6500 sq. ft.  He said he would only do it on time and materials basis and it would take about 3 weeks.  Our mistake to accept those terms.  His entire crew were Mexicans..only one spoke English.  they took 3 1/2 months…at $41,000 until we kicked them out for Christmas.  We found numerous empty liquor bottles amongst our Christmas decoration boxes, under sinks, and in cabinets, closets etc.  He said they’d be back to finish the work.  After the holidays we tried to schedule him to finish.  He no showed repeatedly.  Then to our amazement, when we went to relocate an oil painting to another room, we discovered they painted around the pictures without removing them from the walls.  They took all the paint, and sealers and we have no idea where they got it or what code to use to get touch-up and finish those areas they didn’t complete.  He provided a fake tax ID, a phony address.  Upon doing a background check for $40 after the fact, I discovered the guy has a history of ripping people off and has done jail time for such offenses.  So, not only do we feel stupid for allowing this to happen we feel foolish for not following our instincts when we suspected something wasn’t right the first week. 

In Dallas, it is virtually impossible to get English speaking Americans to do this kind of work.  Even if you hire an American contractor, the workers show up and none speak English.  They grew up in a third world that have no standards of contruction and craftsmanship as we do in the U.S.  I fear everything they’re building in the border states will collapse from shoddy workmanship. 

In addtion they stole my 6 foot ladder, used my step stools and got paint all over them, tracked paint all over the patterned concrete driveway.

I’m tempted to place a sign in my yard that reads, “willing to hire Americans.” 

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