I don't understand how a contractor can make a living this way. Sounds like he works more at creating excuses than doing actual work. Returning your calls only to give more excuses tells me he wants the job, just doesn't want the work. DH and I have learned to do almost everything ourselves because of this very reason.

Sounds like all the contractors I keep bumping into. I wish I would meet a handy guy and get married and he and I can learn to do all the handy work ourselves.

I think the majority of contractors have the "bad customer service" gene. Lynn, LOL and good luck with that!

When I hear stories like this I cringe and also wonder how they make a living. My DH is a general contractor and the fact that he has the same customers for 20 years speaks volumes of how he runs his business. He does not ever run 2 jobs at once. He starts a job, he finishes that job. The only way he'll leave a present job is if another customer has an emergency like a hot water heater leak or something of that sort. I'm so sorry you are going through this.

The only person I have to hire our is a lawn guy and I've been through 6 in order to find one good one, not excellent, but good.

We did hire out the floating and painting of our new house because my poor husband of 68 yrs. was just worn out after having to hang all the sheetrock. So we hired a guy who came highly recommended. He had a crew and then we learned the crew was doing most of the work unsupervised, he had given our key to a "crew member" without our permission. He had excuse after the other. Low and behold he finishes and a couple of months later as we look closer we find all kinds of mistakes. DH realized he had not even painted the master bath with two coats. I contacted him and he never called me back. It's his loss because DH was going to hire him to paint the interior of this house when we were ready to sell. Not to mention all the referrals he would have received through my DH. So he just hurt himself.

It has been my experience that when you have a contractor who can't commit for more than a day he either has a drug or drinking problem. He can't focus or stay in one place too long. That's how this painter was. I told DH I noticed how his hands shook all the time. So I'm sure it was one or the other.

If you want this guy to finish you will have to put your foot down and stop being so "polite".

Oh, speaking of concrete contractor's. Many years ago we hired a guy to fill our garage that we turned into a den. He did a great job so when it was time to do all of the carport, drive and sidewalk, we called him back. He and his crew came out and did the job in a day. We were happy until....... a month later I recieve a certified letter telling me this guy didn't pay the concrete supplier and the concrete supplier was putting a lien on my house. In the letter it included a list of people who this guy had screwed over. So I called a couple and found out the guy had gambled our money away, over $100,00 to be exact. Well, one of the customers was a bit more upset then the rest of us and he told the guy he'd kill him if he didn't make good on the debt. Well, thankfully the contractor took that threat seriously, paid his debt, went into rehab for his gambling addiction and my lien was lifted. Whew, I learned a hard lesson there.

Good luck with getting your job finished.

Brutuses... WOW! That sounds like a relative to our concrete guy. When we checked his lisence he was in process of renewal and had one complaint that was no biggy so we hired him. Turns out board did not tell us that lisence was not going to be renewed due to new issues. Turns out we hired him and job needed to be fixed. He splattered concrete along bottom of siding and big chunks landed in yard, luckily it was just dirt yard. Halfway through fix his helper said he was not getting paid and contractor was flaking out. Turns out he took our money to the concrete company and they applied it to the last job he owed on instead of ours. They said that is how they work thier accounts. He then flaked on us leaving a mess and horrible job, about $10,000 in damages. We sued and learned from our lawyer that another lawyer in firm was also suing this guy. Turns out he did same thing to about 7 customers. We all got liens on our homes from concrete company. We went to mediation with bond company. DH would not let me go because he thought I would not handle it right. We ended up getting the lawyer and lien paid for and that is it. The other attorney was actually awarded money even though he suffered no damages. I work in insurance and told DH that he should have sat there until bond company agreed to pay for all our damages. Looking back, knowing what I know about insurance, he wished I had gone. I am ruthless when it comes to stuff like this and would have sat there until midnight if I had to. So we ended up with nothing basically except with a better understanding of how the world works.

It is 920 on Friday and so far Mr. Flake has not called since he left last night. He did leave his stuff so he should be back. We were thinking of having him just finish the caulk and touchup painting and then ask him to leave. The bummer is that we agreed to trade our old car for his doing the rest of the house. But those rooms are regular ceiling height and we can easily do it ourselves. The advantage of him doing it was to save us time and to get rid of the car. Another issue is that this was to be done before our kids go back to school. I do not want our kids coming home to these guys working and us not being home. I will have to pay for daycare or ask for favors from friends. If it could be done in one or two days I could manage, but at this guy's pace it could be another two weeks.

Hmmmmm.

The best bit of good fortune that ever came our way was finding a "general handyman" type guy. He was working on a house across the street from us and my husband walked over and started up a conversation with him one day as he was leaving.

Three years later he is our go-to guy. Works by the hour ($25) and has done everything from crown molding to tiling our bathroom to painting to installing sliding doors. We love him!

If you can find someone like him thru a friend or even your local paper you would save yourself the double-booking, not returning calls headaches.

How frustrated you must be. Hopefully you can get him to commit to 2 or 3 days in a row to get the job done. I am sure when it is completed you will be very happy!

JR

I think this is why Angie's List is so successful.

Bru, could your husband be our contractor, he sounds just like ours! lol. Our contractor is a client of my dh, and did work on the firm's kitchen. This guy must have a Type A personality, busy busy busy! He works on other jobs during emergencies, but ours is his priority. Not only that, he comes out and stays to watch the workers and make sure they do the correct job. We really lucked out. Plus, he does heating and air on the side, and he installed the new units to the add-on himself!

And THEN he told me he was with Ballet Oklahoma for 20 years before he became a contractor! Does your husband dance? LOL

I hate angies list...they don't believe alaska is in the US and don't include us. So my choice is to get crap and crap and crap. I'm on contractor number four for this stupid remodel, and have spent the evening and morning crying over the damn thing. It will NEVER be finished if I don't buy the dang tools myself and finish it.

My last guy did nice work, but at $135 an hour. He milked me until the money tree up and died. I paid him fifteen to twenty grand a month for A YEAR!!!! And it's still not done. Now the "new" guy, sent by the cabinet folks I've spent $100k with, said he'd work off and on between jobs when I met him a couple of months ago. He's installed one door knob, which fell off the next day. I haven't seen him since. At $45 an hour, I guess he's a better deal...but you'd hope to actually see him on occasion...

I actually am sitting here thinking I want to kill someone. Ok I'm not that bad, but I'd certainly like to rip a reputation or twenty in two. So now, I'll cry for a couple hours maybe then hit the tool shop and start buying. This is a half million dollar remodel. I should NOT have to DIY the dang thing!!!

Ok I don't feel better now,but maybe I can write a "nicer" email to the cabinet show room since I got the uglys out here :oP Thank you.

Sounds like the trim guys on our new house. We were 2 months behind on the move-in date because of these guys. We thought they would never finish. Worked at night, instead of the daytime like most contractors (Op you might check and see if this guy would work a couple of nights to get the work finished and then your kids would not be alone with them.) On the flip side, they did excellent work.

Shannon, my DH will never work for trade. He says someone always comes out on the losing end and he's right. He did it once with our vet, at the time. The vet just hiked up the prices so were never felt like we came out of the deal fairly.

oak, ballet, my DH, not hardly. LOL His dancing talent is limited to very few steps. My husband has only one helper so it's him and the helper. He has to be there doing the work because he hates having to go behind people doing inferior work. He's a bit of a fanatic.

When we were painting the front of the boards on the front porch I happened to get a bubble and he came right up behind me and pointed it out. I couldn't work for him. I'd kill him!!

Having any kind of contractor who is reliable is worth his weight in gold.

Having any kind of contractor who is reliable is worth his weight in gold.

I'll second that. We're in the midst of a renovation and have had problems with the electrician, carpenter, painter, a/c guy (the worst, had to fire him), architect and construction manager. Most of the problems have been worked out but there's not one of our current tradespeople for whom I'd give an unconditional recommendation except the flooring guys, who are terrific. And maybe the plumber, who did the no-show thing for weeks but is now here for the third day in the last four to fix a balky leaky NEW radiator and babysit our new hot-water heating system.

I feel your pain on the contractor disappearing act. A friend who went through a nightmare reno told me that if you come out of a renovation with one great tradesperson, you have done well. That's frightening but true.

He left a voicemail at 1004am, I missed hearing it ring while brushing my teeth. I returned call immediatly and got his machine. I left message to call me back so we can get the show on the road. It is 1033pm and no reply.

DH is fuming. I remembered him not wanting to use my can of touchup paint, insisting on using what he used to paint the molding. I gave him my paintcode so I thought colors would be same but figured he was just being smart. My instinct had me take my paint to the scrap he left behind. Not even close. That explains why it looks so white up on wall compared to ceiling. We figured it was just the difference between flat ceiling paint and the satin on the trim. Nope, he used something else.

My thought it for him to complete whatever is still undone before he continues with rest of house. Our contract states if we end we would owe 100% of materials already purchased. He would then have to give us that material. Since he was giving it to us at cost that would not be so bad, we would just install it ourselves. Then we would have to pay 10% of the labor on the rest of the install. But the rest of the job is not shown on the contract. After he priced the first part of house with material and labor he came up with a total. Then a few lines down he wrote a BID for the rest of the house for the materials only, nothing about labor. So basically I am thinking we could end the contract and only pay for what he has completed and possibly for the materials for rest of house and then install ourselves. Worst case scenario we would have to pay 10% of his cost to install, which would only be a few dollars more. We would still save money on the materials because he sells it at cost to us. We could not get this price anywhere else.

Our contract has a start date but no completion date. It does say he has 30 days to resolve any problems we bring up before suing. I am not afraid to go that route if need be. I just do not need the headache. I would much rather have the job completed. Even if he just completes this part and goes away I will be happy enough.

It just amazes me that when I hired him I mentioned my dislike of contractors for being notorious for lacking basic skills of communication, yet he keeps being an arse and then has the nerve to mention to me while making excuses for not calling how he knows how much that irritates me.

The drama continues. At least when we DIY we can only blame ourselves. But at least the job gets done. I started tiling my entry first of April and am just now completing. He commented that he could have done whole job in three days. With his track record so far, I think I was better off doing the tile myself. At least I can say the job is done.

Sister and her DH special ordered a modular home,it's 3200 sq ft. in June. Her DH was in really bad health. The land was ready and finally in Aug. they called and said, it was going to be delivered in two weeks. Broken promise after broken promises it finally came in Sept. Took them a week to set it up. Would work an hour or two and leave. The house was suppose to be handicap ready and turn key. It was also suppose to have a garage and wrap around porch built on. Was part of the contract. It came with the sink raised almost six inches above the cabinets. Sister had a fit, she only stands 4'10" so you know where the sink hit her. The center isle was suppose to have a drop down ledge so DH could roll his electric chair up to. The whole island had been dropped down. No way you could have even put a chair up to it and she would have had to bend over to work on it. Suppose to have two cabinets put above on sink wall the rest was all windows. Cabinets were missing. Instead of a big stainless vent above stove ( she ordered and paid for) they put one of those old cheap vents like they use to use in house trailers. When they hooked up water lines forgot to tie in the jet tub. Drilled hole in floor for dryer vent and hit a beam so just put a board over it like know one would ever see it. Still haven't got the vent up for the fireplace. Septic system was put in and never covered, this is winter in Utah. Inspector came and said, it didn't pass inspection, it leaked. This inspector called them many times telling them it had to be fixed. No show. In mean time my sis was begging them to get this house done, the one the were in had been sold and they had to get out and my BIL health was failing. When all the workers were working on this house they would through all there trash out the side door which someday will be the door to garage. Front door wasn't finished yet.
Sis finally told them she was moving in and they'd have to work around them. She would make 10/20 calls a day begging them to come. When they did it would be an hours work then they'd leave. She would call the house manufacture to see if they could help ( there in Idaho) She bought the house through a company in S.Lake and they contracted this guy out to do all the set up, which wasn't getting done. They finally got where they wouldn't even answer the phone when she called. They moved in on a Sat.and the following Wed. night my BIL passed away. He was having trouble breathing and she was going to try and get him out to her car but with all the trash in the way she couldn't and ambulance came ( he passed on way to hospital. This was on Dec.11 and they still haven't got house finished. But another inspector( this time state) guess local inspector called him and told him what was going on and that she couldn't get contractor to do anything.) came on Christmas eve day
and saw what a mess she was left with he was livid with rage. Sis said, she never saw anyone so mad. By two o'clock that same day he pulled some stings and had that contractors license revoked and he can never work in Utah again. Now someone else has come in and taken over and at least this time she knows it's going to be finished. We have had some problems with contractors before but nothing like what she has had to go through and with her husband ill then dying. All most more then what one person should have to go through.

patches, I got the chills reading your story. That's just about the worst I've heard. God bless your poor sister.

Patches, give your sister a hug from us all. My story sucks, and I didn't think anyone could top it, but unfortunately she can :o( (We lost a baby and I broke my arm when I was forced to do work myself and the contractor's ladder (recalled) had a structural failure).

I feel so badly for her. It sucks to go through this hell of getting a new home (which should have been exciting for her) and then to be left on her own in the mess without DH...wow, my heart just goes out to her more than I can express!

The home is a carefree home and the contractors name was Greg Anderson so if there's anyone on here living in that area, beware of this company. Just talked to sis and she's now finding out this man would do work under some other contractors name in Sandy,Utah. Sis has an appointment with her lawyer on Mon. to discuss the hell they have put her through.

It continues to amaze me that these folks can expect to get paid after behaving like this. Just horrid!

Well yesterday DH used home phone to call contractor. He answered and was a little surprised it was not me calling. DH was straight forward. We have paid you, you are not coming out and when you do it is for minimal work. We expect job to be completed timely or we will finish it ourselves and ask for a refund of most of our money. That got his attention. He says he is really booked right now and has us scheduled for Friday with a crew of three. He totally intends on completing the entire job, not just finish what he started. DH told him Friday would be fine as he will be home all day. He said he would be here first thing in morning. I warned him that my dh was getting perterbed and I think this guy loves talking with the ladies and is not used to men standing up to his bull $%$#$%. If he is a no show he was warned we will see it as job abandonment and we will take action.

If he shows up as planned we are going to draw up an addendum to contract for him to sign. It will have an estimated completion date with penalty for non compliance. It will be much more clear than the shoddy thing I allowed to be our initial contract.

One good thing is that for the rest of the house he will get no money, just the vehicle trade. But that will not come until job is done. He keeps mentioning wanting the car so hopefully he will continue to earn it.

Again, it amazes me how lazy this guy is.

I do recall the pool company, they have regular crews that work for them. The diggers, rebar, gunite, tile guys were all hardworking hispanic laborers who barely earned $9/hr. These guys were courteous and skilled, always left place clean. When the plaster crew came out, all caucasian, they all boasted about how much money they make, how they wanted to hurry so they could go do something else, left a HUGE mess, smoked on my property even leaving matches behind for my kids to get. I had them come out twice to clean up, literally picking junk out of the dirt. In the end, their supervisor came out himself and literally swept my dirt. When build was complete I filled out a survey praising the lead guy and the laborers. I mentioned how they were underpaid and that they deserved a raise. Then I mentioned the plaster crew. I told them I would recommend their company to anyone but would suggest any future pool customers ask for a different plaster crew due to the rude and lazy behavior of these guys.

I truly believe in word of mouth. I have called companies to complain and always call when someone is courteous and respectful, that always surprises management when I do that.

Patches, my sympathies to your sister and may I also add that I hope she ends up as a major shareholder in that "carefree" home company. She deserves it!