Best Handyman Services

Review: On 6/17/2013 I signed a contract for work done in my basement. The estimate was $1,900.00. It was to take no more than two weeks at most to complete the work. On 6/23/2013, I paid, as directed by the contract $950.oo, a full 50%. On 8/14/2013, I got a bill for $3,175.00, a full 60% more than the estimate, when the work was completed 7 weeks later. [redacted] was never once on site after the first estimate, not even when I called him about the urgent matter of a gas leak resulting from his young men moving the gas dryer. $650.00 later that got fixed. Repeated emails about the completion of the work went unanswered and ignored. When the work was finally done, his young guys took a cell phone picture of the basement, and on that basis [redacted] said what a good job it was. He never checked on it. Other work than originally agreed upon was done, but he never personally spoke to me about it and he never gave me an estimate. Some work was not done. He claims he gave me a"considerable break." Did he intentionally give me a low estimate, knowing that later other work would be done, and knowing that I would not take his bid for such expensive additional work? Never being on site, never checking the work, never keeping his word about timelines,never getting back to me about urgent matters suggests malpractice. His two young workers were polite and did what looks like good work, but how would I know that, and they were totally unsupervised. Did [redacted] keep putting me off because he had other work he thought was more important? Who knows! I kept telling him that his work was holding up other work I was contracting for, but nothing mattered to him. What I got from him was frustration, inexcusable delays, unanswered calls and emails, and a bill 60% over the original estimate. [redacted]. [redacted]Desired Settlement: Since I have not yet paid the remaining $1275.00, I am not asking for a refund, but a negotiated fair settlement. [redacted] did decide not to do the entire bathroom, but only half of it, as his workers told me. He did do a section of the wall he originally told me wasn't in need of repair. I do not want anything for nothing. But I also don't want to feel victimized and just lay down and roll over. I am willing to pay 50% of the $1275.00 if the Revdex.com deems that reasonable, and immediately.

Business

Response:

[redacted]

Revdex.com of Metro Washington DC and Eastern PA

1880 John F Kennedy Blvd. Suite 1330 Philadelphia, PA. 19103

Re: ID #[redacted]

[redacted]:

My apologies for taking this long to get back to you about the complaint by **. [redacted]. This was a very strange job for us, specifically as 11 relates to the behavior of the client. When I originally estimated the cost of parging his basement walls, it appeared that most of the walls were indeed solid, and coated with Drylock (a textured waterproofing paint). It should also be noted that the basement floor was so littered with personal items that I was unable to get to the walls, but instead had to estimate the job from the center of the basement.

Once we started work, our men realized that what I thought was intact basement wall was actually moldy drywall, furred out from the original masonry wall with water-damaged furring strips, then covered with Drylock. This had to be ripped out. We pulled out somewhere close to five boards of drywall, and the furring strips. We then parged that additional wall space, allowed it to cure, and coated it with new Drylock. The amount of work was essentially double what I had estimated.

At about that time, I reached **. [redacted] by phone to let him know what we had found, and that there would be some extra cost. He seemed to understand, and asked how much extra. I told him several hundred dollars at least. He agreed to this, and we pressed on. At the end of the job, he had no recollection of our conversation about the extra work.

At one point (several days into the job) I sent our Supervisor to the job site to meet with **. [redacted], to go over the changes. She could clearly hear someone walking in the house above her, but when she tried to ring the doorbell or call on the phone, got no answer.

I was willing to walk away from this, given the odd behavior displayed, but instead find myself the subject of a complaint by **. [redacted] about being overcharged.

We were deceived by the appearance of the walls in **. [redacted]'s basement, made contact with him promptly to discuss the added cost, and when we tried to follow up further, it seemed like he was avoiding us. That, combined with **. [redacted]'s having no recollection of our phone conversation strikes me as not just odd, but perhaps indicative of some unknown issue. We billed the extra cost of our time and materials, which was more than a few hundred dollars. I would be willing to settle the whole thing for an additional $400, which doesn't really cover our costs, but would be in line with our last phone conversation while the job was in progress.

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