MR HANDYMAN OF LAKE ZURICH

I wish to start by saying that I am not a complete idiot when it comes to jobs around the home. I have completely redone my condo (kitchen and bath redos). I also have built furniture as well. I was ready to tackle regrouting my shower stall and decided that I really did not want to do this work, so I called around and found Mr. Handyman. While the owner Keith is very pleasant to work with, the technicians? work was less than satisfactory. When going from a white grout to a medium brown shade, all of the white grout needs to be removed otherwise parts of it will show when you put on the new, darker grout. The technician left after 5 and a half hours and when I reviewed his work, I was not close enough to see any issues. The following day when I went to do the final wipe down, I noticed about a fourth of the original grout was not removed. I stopped my work and I left a vmail for Keith. Keith returned my call the next day and was very apologetic over my dissatisfaction. I had asked for him to come and review the work too, as I want him to see what I was seeing (i.e. the missed rows and the scratches left by the dremel that was used to remove the grout), and he agreed that he would come before the technician arrived. Unfortunately, Keith did not come over. However, the technician did show up and spent another hour and a half on removing the rest of the grout and putting on the new grout. When he left, he did acknowledge that he did miss some rows and made the excuse that the tile was regrouted before and they over-filled the grout. I thought to myself the grout, no matter the level, still needs to be removed. Today (two days after the second visit), I am responsible for wiping the grout off the tile and I am now finding that the technician put a lot of grout in the groves so that it would cover the white, instead of removing the white grout. Needless to say, when I am making the grout uniform (i.e. thinner/straighter lines); a lot of the old white grout is being exposed. I have spent 4 hours trying to make the bath look somewhat presentable, and I am now considering putting up solid walls over the tile, as I am getting very discouraged about the project and I am upset over the work that they did for me. Even more disappointing is that Keith has not called me to follow up on the redo. While I am very disappointed in their work on my job, I want to believe that they are better than the work that they did for me. Lessons learned: Try to keep with the same grout color. If you do go to another color, then make sure that the technician removes all of the original grout. I mean all! Go over it carefully. Then when you are satisfied, have them put on the new grout. Also, I think that I will only go with fixed bids in the future.

Just as they promised: On time and done right! The technician showed up about five minutes before the scheduled appointment, wearing a clean uniform in a clean Mr. Handyman van. Very professional looking, acting and performing.

WE WERE DISSATISFIED WITH THE QUALITY OF WORK PERFORMED BY THE FIRST HANDYMAN. WE WERE UNHAPPY WITH THE LACK OF RESPONSIVENESS AFTER WE HAD MADE THE COMPLAINT. IT WOULD APPEAR THAT MY THREATS OF TAKING THEM TO SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF I HAD TO HIRE SOMEONE ELSE TO FIX THE DOORS WERE THE ONLY MOTIVATION FOR THEM TO FIX THEIR FAULTY WORK. I WOULD NEVER HIRE THEM AGAIN SINCE THEY OBVIOUSLY DON'T CARE ABOUT THEIR REPUTATION OR CARE IF THEY PERFORM QUALITY WORK.

HE LEFT A TOOL BEHIND, AND INSTEAD OF WAITING FOR ME TO BE HOME TO RETRIEVE THE TOOL HE WENT INTO MY HOME AND SET OFF MY ALARM. THE POLICE CAME AND THE ALARM COMPANY CALLED ME.

MR. HANDYMAN, AS IT'S NAME IMPLIES, COMES ACROSS AS A GENERAL HANDYMAN SERVICE. BY THAT I MEAN IT FEELS LIKE YOU'RE WORKING WITH YOUR NEIGHBOR DOWN THE BLOCK AND NOT A PROFESSIONAL CONTRACTOR. FOR A RELATIVELY SMALL JOB LIKE MINE, THAT'S NOT A BAD THING, AS THE WORK WAS DONE WELL AND THE WORKERS WERE COMPETENT AND COURTEOUS.

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THE TECHNICIAN SAID HE'D GET BACK TO ME WITH INFORMATION ABOUT A NEW SPEAKER FOR THE DOORBELL; I CALLED SEVERAL TIMES. NEVER RESPONDED. ABOUT THE TOILET: THE FLAPPER VALVE NEEDS REPLACEMENT. RATHER THAN DO THAT WORK, WHICH HE SAID WOULD TAKE A LOT OF TIME AND LABOR, HE ADVISED ME TO REPLACE THE ENTIRE UNIT. MY FATHER (DECEASED) WAS IN THE PLUMBING BUSINESS, AND I KNOW THAT REPLACING A FLAPPER VALVE ISN'T A BIG JOB. TECHNICIAN ALSO ADVISED ME TO REPLACE THE SCREEN DOOR. HE DID PUT THE DRAWER BACK ON TRACK. HE WAS IN MY UNIT FOR 15 MINUTES. I WILL CALL ANOTHER SERVICE AND HOPE FOR BETTER RESULTS. I AM ON THE BOARD OF OUR CONDO ASSOCIATION AND WE HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR A DEPENDABLE SERVICE ALL OUR OWNERS CAN CALL ON.

FOR THIS SERVICE CALL, I HAD 4 WINDOWSILLS REPAIRED AND SOME CRACKED TILE REPLACED. NOT ONLY DO YOU GET PROMPT, GREAT SERVICE BUT GREG TAKES THE TIME TO LISTEN TO WHAT SERVICES YOU NEED OVER THE PHONE SO HE CAN EVALUATE WHICH HANDYMAN HE HAS TO BEST DO THE JOB YOU NEED DONE. I PLAN TO USE MR. HANDYMAN FOR EVERYTHING I NEED DONE AT MY NEW HOUSE NOW.

GREG SCHEDULED US IMMEDIATELY FOR AN ESTIMATE. THE JOB WAS COMPLETED IN ONE DAY.

A GREAT EXPERIENCE ALL AROUND, FROM THE QUALITY OF THE WORK TO THE CLEAN-UP AFTERWARDS. THEYVE DONE A GREAT JOB WITH ALL.