10-20% retainage is not unreasonable anywhere. If you pay 98%, you may never get a final.

Trades hired should be working with you not steamrolling over you. Clean up should have been discussed when the job contract was signed and so should the payment schedule. Best to take a deep breath and when you are not upset see if you can have a conversation about the progress, payment and clean up schedule. I always leave a portion of my payment until after passes inspection this is either a third of a quarter. Then I pay the balance the day the inspection was passed! We have done a few homes and and found that poor work habits and unreasonable demand for payment is often a symptom of a company in trouble or poorly run. I learned the hard way to know what is right and when to speak up and recognize I am not socializing this is a business transaction.

I agree with Diane a demand for a lot of money upfront is usually a sign of trouble 10% is pretty normal hold back and since the red flags are flying I would be inclined to make it a bit larger. The clean up issue and the hold back should have been part of the contract.

I believe it would be best if you would turn to another team of electricians. Trust me, and it gets too tiring to constantly tell them to clean up after themselves and everything since these are things they should already be trained to do. If you need a suggestion on an excellent team of specialists, I recommend the Level 2 Electrician Guildford. The team has got me covered every time I had a problem, so I realized that no job is too big, small, or too complex for them. The team is friendly, and it always offers a superior level of customer service and always provides an exceptional level of customer service.