HARD ROCK INTERIORS

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Hard Rock was the lowest bidder, which should have been a warning sign to me. On the front end things seemed fine, but the nightmare began upon returning home from our trip after being gone about a week. We arrived around midnight just a few days after Christmas, completely exhausted, expecting to come home to find finished walls ready for paint. Instead what we found was a total disaster zone...Merry Christmas. Not only was the job not anywhere close to being complete, but the condo was an absolute mess. The workers did not make any effort to use plastic bagging or tarps to contain the dust. Every inch of every surface in the entire unit was coated in thick, really thick drywall dust. Our bed, dresser, clothes, suits, dresses...babies crib, changing table, office, computer, printer, couches...everything. The areas being drywalled were separate from the areas being lived in, so it would have been very manageable to tape these areas off. Unfortunately, almost no effort had been made on any level to protect our belongings. The only evidence that they had done anything to control the mess was some plastic on the carpet in some areas. However, the plastic was patchy and drywall mud was ground into carpets in several areas. We found drywall mud on the couch, our silverware out on the deck, our dining chairs were being used as step stools. These guys were obviously complete amateurs. On top of the absolute mess, the job was only maybe half done. We did what we could to clean our bed, put our baby in a portable bed and went to sleep. First thing in the morning I called Randy...no answer, left a message, no return call. Then at lunch I called him again...no answer, left a message, no return call. Then I tried a couple more times that afternoon and evening...no answer, left a message, no return call. Then I tried some more the next day...no answer, left a message, no return call. On the third day I contacted other drywall companies and had them come in to bid finishing the job. Meanwhile my wife was working on bids to have the house cleaned up. Normal cleaning companies wouldn't touch it, only the disaster remediation services would bid the job and bids were coming in at $3000 and up. The drywall bid from Hard Rock was around $1200 or so. The other drywall companies were quoting $1500 just to finish the job. They indicated that a lot of the cost was from having to go back and do all the prep work that Hard Rock should have done to protect the rest of our condo. I tried calling Randy at Hard Rock a few more times over the next few days, but after a week, I scheduled to have another company come in to complete the work. Ten days after we returned from our trip and after many, many attempts to contact him, Randy called one night. I demanded to know what had happened and his attitude was generally that the whole mess and ensuing ten days of not responding to me was no big deal. He indicated that he had a family emergency in Colorado Springs...but last I checked they have phones down there. I agreed to postpone having the other company come in to finish the job in order to give Hard Rock a chance to assess the damage and attempt to make it right. The next day Randy came out (a couple hours late). He again acted like it was all no big deal, gave no explanation for why the job didn't get done and offhandedly bragged about how his crew had locked themselves out so one of them climbed my gas line to break in through a window (Add a mangled window screen to the list of damages). When I brought up all of the issues, he brushed them off one after another. At the time it was quite aggravating, but now, looking back it is pretty humorous that he suggested he would get his wife in there with a shop-vac to clean it all up. I'm sorry, but your wife with a shop-vac is not going to be able to handle $3000 of professional cleaning. My confidence that Hard Rock could finish the job well and address the mess was certainly not growing. At one point Randy refused to address a spot where the drywall his crew had hung had cracked, citing that it was the result of bad framing. Excuse me, but bad framing is everywhere...you either shim it or have it corrected before sheet-rocking. Rocking over it and then claiming it's not your fault when the sheet rock cracks is unacceptable. Later that evening I spoke with Randy again on the phone and he was being less and less willing to address issues, clean the mess or make things right. The call ended when he literally hung up on me. That was the last straw, to say the least. I went ahead with A Creative Touch to finish the job and they did a wonderful, clean, quick job. When Randy from Hard Rock came looking for his check I told him I'd pay him his $1200 once he paid the $1500 to A Creative Touch to finish the job because he had defaulted on his contract and thus had a legal responsibility to cover my cost to complete the job. I also told him he would be responsible for the $3000 cleaning bill, the broken window screen and the dry cleaning for all of my wife's and my clothes. At that stage he got belligerent and began threatening to lien my property among other threats. I was forced to cut off all verbal communication with him and correspond only in writing, both to avoid his belligerence and to ensure a record for legal purposes. After a few more threatening voice mail messages Randy perhaps realized that his $1200 was going to go very far to cover the $4500 he now owed me, because he eventually stopped threatening me. I have not heard form or dealt with Hard Rock in a couple of years now, but they never paid one cent of the $4500 in damages.