BLOOMINGTON CONSTRUCTION & HANDYMAN SERVICES

So many things went wrong with this company.  At the time of hire the company's name was "Bloomington Handyman Services" and changed the name, to its entry on this site, about a year after my experience with the owner/handyman.  

The first job was the window conversion.  I have an enclosed back porch on the side of my home and needed to convert a window into a door so I could have a ramp alongside my home.  The door had to completed first before the ramp could be started.  At the point of the project that the owner said the city had to inspect the door for approval, he called me to let me know the city inspector would be out a certain day.  I was at home the entire day no one ever came by.  I called BCHS to inquire and was told the inspector came out and approved the door.  I thought this was odd since the only way to enter the back porch was from the house interior.  But I was uneducated about the procedures and I have several medical conditions that decreases my energy level so I wasn't physically or mentally able to question.  

Then the wheelchair ramp construction began.  Luckily the day the ramp was "finished", on a Friday, my mom visited from out of town.  She has many years experience advocating for disabled persons.  When she saw my ramp she was horrified. The slope was too steep and the railings were not safe.  They used porch rails that resemble Jenny Lind beds but the vertical wood pieces didn't have the curve (I'm carpentry illiterate) and when you walked on the ramp, the railings shook.  Also the "support" beams used were cut too short so the railings were only nailed to each other and the bottom of the ramp.  If I tried to lean on the railings they would become detached and I would be on the ground.  A couple of hours passed since the time I paid the final portion of the bill and my mom arrived to my home.  When I called the company to seek repair, I was told that he would try to come back the next work day which was the following Monday.  I was new to home ownership but I wasn't that naive.  I was getting multiple excuses why he couldn't return that same day or even during the weekend and fix the unstable ramp.  So I cancelled payment on the check.

I then received multiple phone calls which I let go straight to voice mail. Of course he never showed up on Monday and then on Tuesday I got a message saying he was informed there was a stop payment on the check and that he needed me to contact him.  I didn't.  The next day I got another message saying he needed the money to pay his workers and for materials from another job and that by my stop payment on the check, it made his banking account have a negative balance and that I needed to get this straightened up right away.  The last voice mail I received from the owner was a threat to return to my home and demolish the ramp and that he would seek legal action.  This caused me severe distress since I have a very hard time using steps and if the ramp was removed then my only option would have been the front steps if I needed to exit my home.

Also during that week, I contacted the city and learned the door had never been inspected!  I had someone out that week and the door didn't pass city codes.  The ramp didn't pass the city inspection either, which should have been done prior to me giving the final payment but the company's owner had conflicting procedures.  

I hired a different company to redo the door and the ramp.  

They have been called several times and told me a couple of times that they returned my calls and left a message. The calls have never shown up on my phone messages. They said several times they would do the replacement of the pillars over the concrete pillars they finally installed after many weeks. The small pads for the pillars in the front yard were installed as was the main part of the patio in the backyard but only after weeks of delays. This was all done about a week after Halloween and the pillars are still lying in the yard and a bunch of the roofing between the house and the pillars is displaced because it has never been replaced. They been called many times until the snow got so bad that I gave up on asking for anything to be done.

He came back again, said he needed an extra $900 to buy the rest of the materials. He got over $2300 of the $2700. This was money to re-roof our house. He also was supposed to come back in and refinish the drop ceiling where water had damaged it. We contacted him close to 15 times after we gave him the money to come in and do the work. He kept blowing us off. We just got our new phone book, he is still listed. We took him to small claims court. He didn't show. We won. He ripped off a senior citizen, and I'm don't want him to do it to others. He also told us he was licensed to do a roof and has insurance, though we can't find out who it is through. He is not licensed to put on a work. I had to hire someone else to do this, paying someone else the money. I paid for work I did not have done. I took the loan out of my 401K.