Mitchell Washington Construction

 He informed me that he was on his way back to my property and we would discuss it then. I hung up the phone and went into the back yard to survey the work; to my surprise the work was horrible. The trenches where not dug any where near to code. They were not square, nor where they dug to the same depth or even wide enough. The area in the center for the floor joist pillar was not even touched or dug at all completely skipped over. The concrete for the footings has to be 16inches wide and Mr. Washington had dug the trenches only 17inches wide leaving me no room to put my forms to hold the concrete. One side was actually dug crooked or curved.  I then went into the house and got the video camera and recorded all the problems with the work as well has made pictures with my cell phone camera. When Mr. Washington arrived at the property he and I walked to the back yard and I showed him all the errors of his work and he told me that he was sorry that his uncle who was helping him and he knew he had gotten off on the one side that was curved and Mr. Washington had taken over running the machine from his uncle (yet failed to correct the curved trench at that time). I asked what good did it do for me to paint the lines to dig by if they were not going to be followed because he was well over a foot off from the painted lines, he simply said he was sorry and again blamed his uncle. I then pointed out that each side of the trench (3total) were all dug at different depths and I asked if he had used a transit level to insure that all sides where dug on the same grade and he said yes he had used a transit level. I asked for him to explain how they were so far off if he had used a transit level, Mr. Washington began to stutter and could not explain it and changed the subject. I showed him that the trenches were only 17inches wide he again blamed this on his uncle saying that he had told his uncle that the trenches did not look wide enough and his uncle said no they are plenty wide enough, taking his uncles word they left the job. (I found out later that Mr. Washington knew the trenches were not wide enough to begin with regardless of what his uncle told him because Mr. Washington told me a week later that he had used a 17 inch wide bucket to dig with.) He apologized and said he would be back out the next morning Thursday February 17th to correct all the problems and I agreed to allow him to come back and fix them, I told Mr. Washington to call me when he was finished and I would use my lunch hour to go and inspect the work to make sure it was correct. I then paid Mr. Washington $300 cash for the block and he took it and said that he would drop the outrageous delivery fee too since he did not discuss it with me prior. Because of the uneven depth that the trenches were dug I no longer needed 180 blocks but instead I needed 280 blocks now so this is why I paid for the 300. I later counted the block and Mr. Washington only delivered 290 not the 300 that he said. I am still waiting on the other 10 blocks that I paid for.I received a call from Mr. Washington around 10am the next morning Thursday February 17th at which time he stated that he was finished and everything had been corrected, I told him I would run home and inspect the work at lunch and call him back and we would arrange a place to meet. When I arrived home I found the double gate to the back yard standing wide open once again. When I walked into the back yard I became furious. Nothing had been corrected with the exception of one small corner where Mr. Washington had used my shovel to dig the corner out slightly making it a little squarer and had broken the handle to my shovel in the process and left it laying there. I do not believe that Mr. Washington ever intended to correct his work because he brought NO equipment with him no shovel no back hoe to dig the trenches wider NOTHING when returning to a job site to correct extremely poor work why did Mr. Washington fail to bring the appreciate equipment to do the work, I called Mr. Washington on my way back to work and was unable to reach him for the remainder of the day which was probably a good thing because I was still furious that he had lied to me again and had failed to correct the extremely poor work that was done the day prior. Mr. Washington called me back later that afternoon and I explained to him that I was very dissatisfied with him and the poor work that he had done along with the lies that he had told me. All he could say was he was sorry and continued to blame his uncle, I told Mr. Washington that I did not want to hear another word about his uncle I had not hired his uncle and ultimately it was his business and his responsibility to make sure the job was done correctly not his uncles. I explained to Mr. Washington that he had now put me more then a week behind schedule because if the job had been done correctly the first time I would have been able to have the forms inspected on Thursday morning February 17th and poured concrete that afternoon, now because he did not do the job right the first time and did nothing to correct the problems on his second trip I could not do the inspection nor pour the concrete. Mr. Washington wanted me to allow him to come back a third time to fix what should have been done right the first time and where nothing was done the second time. He wanted to come back Friday February 18th, I told him NO it is suppose to rain that morning I did not want him back out there again. Mr. Washington called me again on Friday February 18th and he informed me that he had tried to come that morning to work only to find the gate locked after I had given him directions not to come back. Mr. Washington then said he would be back the first sunny day we had the next week. I told him that I did not want him back on the property again because we were due for some sever weather on Monday February 21st and because of his lies and inability to correct the work in two trips I was not going to allow him back on the property to make the situation worse or to lie to me another time. I did not trust him to keep his word and I did not trust his ability to do the job correctly at this point. I also told him that he had put me in such a bind that now I had to pay someone else to come correct his poor work or spend hours and days correcting it myself. He said he understood and we hug the phone up. Mr. Washington continued to call me for another week every time asking to come back and fix the problems, each time I told him NO that I did not trust his word or his ability to do the job. I was going to correct everything myself. On Saturday February 26th I had spent all day manually digging the trenches wider by shovel when Mr. Washington called me again. I told him again that I was going to correct the work myself, Mr. Washington said that is fine just pay me for the work that I did and we will call it even. I asked him eight different times during this conversation to tell me what he thought the crappy work that he did was worth before I got an answer. Mr. Washington’s answer was the price that I quoted you. I said the price you quoted me was $300 and you did nothing correctly, He replied no I am charging $350 plus delivery fee for the blocks. I replied there is no way that the work that you did is worth that amount, and on Wednesday when I paid for the blocks you said that you agreed to drop the delivery fee because we had not discussed it. I informed Mr. Washington that because the work was not done right the first time and was not corrected the second time that he had now cost me a two week delay probably closer to three weeks because the rain and weather we had, at this time I had over 20 hours of my own labor in trying to correct his screw up and there was no way that it was worth what he wanted, I offered him $25 per screwed up trench that he had dug $75 total and he laughed. Mr. Washington then hung up the phone and around 5pm that same day Saturday February 26th he showed up and my home unannounced demanding and screaming that I pay him. I asked Mr. Washington to follow me into the back yard to really see again how