Central Coast Handyman & Landscape

First off, he asked for payment up front and every day as he worked. Ok, done. No big deal. He rescheduled the grass install many times for multiple reasons. Ok, dealt with it. Sprinklers were put in COMPLETELY wrong, barely put in ground a few inches, NOT the correct specification or depth. Only a few sprinklers installed, 6 to be exact, to cover a large area, which actually required 15. Valves were placed on top of ground, no covering, wires crossed, exposed, not capped. The most shorty work in the world. My 2 year old could have done better. Since e grass wasn't properly watered, most of it died, costing me much more to replace. He ran his tractor through my front yard, completely destroying my beautiful lawn, and mauled over my flowers. The gaping holes were filled in with dead grass, which I payed him to replace from a smaller side yard. When asked to come back and fix the sprinklers, he showed up, promised to return, and never did. I have since reported him to the board of contractors

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Mitchell Baxter gave us an estimate for some landscaping work to be done.  He originally said he could not get to our job for several weeks which we were ok with.  He presented very well.  He called us about a week later and said he could squeeze our job in.  Its just a small job, new sod, re-route sprinklers, place a fire pit.  We were excited when he came over and wrote us up a work order and asked for a $2000.00 deposit which we paid.  Since then he came by for about an hour and dug two holes in the area to be worked in and has never returned.  It is now over 2 weeks, he will not answer his phone or return calls or texts.  After we started having problems with him I looked here, on Angies List and found a bad review, I have since found other bad reviews on the internet.  He has stolen our money.

From beginning we were excited, their estimate came in low, & we were excited to get a good deal after being quoted so high by home depot.  They were able to start right away and stayed on their timeline at first.  They had a difficult time removing the tile and by day 2 were starting to fall behind.  At the end of day two is when we starting having problems...the workers would help themselves to glasses from our cupboards while we were gone and would leave them throughout the house even after they had gone for the day. They also would smoke cigarettes on our front porch with the door open and toss the butts on our lawn.  We tried to ignore these things figuring we could get by for 2 more days.  After day 4 they had completed the laminate installation but said they would need to return to complete the trim and molding.  Mitchell indicated to us that we had ordered the wrong "stair nose" piece for our stairs and he would not be able to install it without a bump which would cause a tripping hazard.  He said he would go to home depot and buy another trim product which would work better and we could pay him back later.  We agreed.  He asked if we could pay him in cash that day for the work completed thus far.  We agreed.  He came back a few days later and started on the trim.  He had been there a few minutes when I needed to leave to run some errands.  I asked him how long he would be there to finish the job and he said a couple of hours.  I told him I didn't think I would be back in time so I paid him up front for the materials he purchased plus the labor cost to finish the job.  When I returned that afternoon he was gone and he hadn't finished.  He had done about 25% maybe....leaving most of the trim undone, all of the transition pieces between the carpet and laminate undone, and the stairs completely unfinished.  I've tried multiple times to contact him.  He has never returned my calls, he has returned a few text messages saying he will drop off our money by a certain day but never does.  At this point (about a month later) I'm p*****.  I tried to file a complaint with the licensing board only to find out his license number doesn't exist.  He says here on Angies list that he has applied for a license, but on craigslist and his business card he indicates he already has a license, he even includes the number #16753. We also discovered that our 100 foot extension cord is missing and while I can't say he stole it because I didn't witness it, I'm pretty sure he did. 
Since, we've had a real licensed installer come in to give us an estimate to finish the job and he gave us such bad news.  First he saw how Mitchell Baxter and crew used nails and staples in some parts of the laminate.  Mostly on the stairs and in the transition pieces.  He indicated that a professional would never use nails or staples on laminate.  He also noticed how some areas are also bubbling or buldging when you walk on it.  He isn't sure if it's because they didn't remove the tile completely underneath or if there isn't enough space in the expansion gaps. He also said that we did have the correct stair nose piece to begin with.  He indicated that the laminate needed to be cut back approximately 1.5-2" from the end of each step and the piece would then fit flush.  It's obvious that these guys either have ZERO clue of what they are doing or they like to take short cuts and do the easiest thing possible.  We've had to make a TON of corrections and spend a lot more money to make our floor look nice.  We should of just done it right to begin with instead of trying to save a penny.  It definitely wasn't worth it.