Disappointment first came from dealing with the owner Mike, then it came to the poor job done.
He promised to get it done 5 days with satisfaction, on day 4, I got a call from him that his team wrongly did the stairs. We wanted white board but his team did laminate. He tried to convenience us that it looks nicer which honestly at that point I didn't care much because we had time limit too. On day 5 he showed his poor work and looked for final payment. When my wife kept complaining Mike tried to talk her out. He did not start admitting the poor work until my wife said she'll post it on Yelp. He then promised to come back and fix 2 weeks later. We said no then he said 5 days.
On day 6, my wife almost trip over on the tile in the bathroom and he promised me that he would have made sure all tiles are even on the same level.
At that point my wife and I had a second thought, we decided to ask someone else to fix it because we don't and won't trust him anymore.
He charged us $6400ish for ~1000 sq laminate and $3500ish for ~150 square tile, almost $10000 total.
Day 8
I got a quote to fix for $1500 so I called him and asked him for $1500 credit to call it off. He said no, it costs him only $500 to hire two crew for one day anf he can fix 16 stairs and all the ugly edges in one day. I said I don't trust him anymore ad my wife almost fell in the bathroom because of uneven tile. I further said to him if my wife fell I will send him a medical bill. I didn't yell at him or raised my voice, I just stated the fact. He yelled back and said "YOU DON'T TALK TO ME LIKE THAT. IF YOU SEND ME MEDICAL BILL, I WILL SEND YOU SOMETHING ELSE"
To be honest, I don't think he meant to threaten me. He just need to have the last word and couldn't come up with the word.
I told him to clam down and think from my perspective, I told him my wife is important to me and that's why I'm upset.
He agreed to $600 credit. My wife called him to talk again, he apologized to my wife and agreed to $700 and provided the materials required to fix the job and we settled.
He said he fired his crew to my wife and he just had bad luck in getting this set of crew.
I totally understand and agree with Mike on that. I believe the previous reviews are true and he has an Ace team normally.
My comment to him is he should have managed the job every day, not on Day 4 and 5 of a 5 days job, especially with a less experience team like that. The premium we paid for him was to manage. If my wife and I had to check on his crew for quality, why did we need to pay Mike the premium? As a general contractor, he failed to manage his subcontractors. He further fail to communicate professionally and took the right steps to regain our trust. But he just kept on dancing around and shake off responsibility as much as he could.
More importantly, never say to customers that "you don't talk to me like that." It's rude and unprofessional. I wasn't looking for a fight.
People said he's nice which I think he generally is when nothing goes wrong. But the real challenge is how to deal with failure or bad situation.
Other minor items include all the base boards were not pained. I thought it's always painted without separate agreement but he argued that we didn't ask him to. Based on the pictures he posted, those are painted.
He also put on his work order saying haul away all the trash but his team didn't, even leaving saw blades.
That's also why he lost our trust. He needs the have the last word and will not admit fault even if needed.
He is just making 700 less on this job, not a loss. Which I personally think businesses should only make profit when they do good jobs. Businesses should take loss into consideration when they fail to do good jobs.
Kashing Wong
