Arturo The Painter

I was referred to AC Painting and Decorating, owned by Arturo Caballero, by a trusted friend who had used them in the past. My initial meeting with him was very confusing with him proposing all kinds of changes, some I liked, some I didn't, constantly changing direction and scope and then a high pressure sales closing to get me to agree to start the work and write him a check. He seemed reluctant to write the scope of work down on a contract with a payment schedule, but I insisted on it. Red Flag #1: It was a handwritten document, high level, and didn't specify all of the things that were supposed to be done, but I let it go because I trusted him since he was referred to me. I hired them to build a new entertainment cabinet, paint 60% of my house, much of which has cathedral ceilings, install wainscoting in my dining room and family room, install decorative moldings above several door ways, install porcelain tile in my foyer and laundry room, new baseboards/shoe moldings in said rooms, and refinish my oak staircase hand rail in white and espresso. He was also supposed to install a new exhaust fan in my powder room, chandelier in my foyer, lights in my dining room, laundry room, and upstairs hallway, and paint a chest of drawers. He stated he could complete all of this within 3 weeks, which I was skeptical of. He quoted me $12k for all of this work, which I thought was fair. Given all of the work and $12K pricetag, I figured he had a crew. Wrong. It is him and his two sons. One son had his arm in a sling and the other was completely unskilled. Red Flag #2. Red Flag #3: They stated they would start work each day between 8 & 8:30. They never arrived before 9:30 or 10. They would call or text and say they would be here in 20 minutes and show up 1-2 hours later. My husband is a teacher and was home for the summer, so he wasted hours of his time waiting for them to arrive. They would take a 1 hour lunch and leave right at 5. Arturo would show up occasionally for a couple of hours and spent more time talking on his phone than actually working. So, I basically had 75% of 1 person at my house when they actually showed up. When I expressed concern about the project completing on time, Arturo had his girlfriend come over and paint. He apparently had daycare issues another day and brought his 7 year old to my house while construction was going on. Red Flag #4: They tore up my house on the first day and left it a complete mess. They did not properly protect the floors and left old, dirty tarps everywhere. I almost tripped and fell over multiple times. The tarps had wet paint and caulk all over them which my cats tracked through the house one day. When I complained about the mess, their response was "This is how we do it". I have owned this house for 20 years and never had a contractor leave such a mess every day. They had no respect for my house or the fact that we were living in it while this construction was going on. They used cheap plastic to cover (barely) my new furniture. We had to go out and buy floor protectors, better tarps and secure the plastic coverings over my furniture. We had to tell them daily to vacuum up their mess so we weren't walking through it. The quality of their work was absolutely terrible. Staircase: They didn't properly sand the spindles and hand rail and instead just globbed on several coats of white paint and minwax espresso finish. There are visible drip marks all over and many areas where the white and dark brown have overlapped. When I expressed my disappointment in the craftsmanship, he claimed this is how it is done, I am insulting him, and he threatened to walk off the job. Since my house was completely torn apart and in shambles, I decided to make the best of it and try to get the project finished. Crown Molding, Wainscoting, baseboards, shoe molding: The finished product looked good from a distance. Once I got up close, it was clear that he didn't actually paint any of the shoe molding and much of the chair rail. The baseboard in my foyer is curved, and his solution was to install a piece of wood with visible cracks in it and smear wood putty / caulk over it. It looked absolutely horrible, but as Arturo says, that's how they do it. Forget the fact that that is not the right way to do it. I had to hire someone else to come in, rip that piece off and install it the right way. Arturo also did not install any of the shoe molding in the foyer or laundry room. There were gaps between the baseboard and the tile. It looked like an amateur did it. They also used the cheapest materials they could. Tile floor: The tile is not level at all, nor was it cut properly. I routinely stub my toe in one area. He did not install a threshhold on the tile on the landing leading down to by basement stairs. I almost sliced my foot open because I didn't realize this at first. I had to install one myself because Arturo refused to. He cracked my oak threshhold in my laundry room and just left it. My second contractor had to completely repair it because it couldn't be removed and replaced. Arturo was too lazy to fix it and was okay leaving it as it was. Painting - the paint job looks terrible in many places - especially the ceiling line. He also got paint all over my carpet in the dining room and instead of cleaning it, just smeared it all in. I will need to replace my carpet now. He did not paint the baseboards and shoe molding in the family room and did not paint or caulk the top of the crown moldings that were installed above my front door which you can see when you walk down the stairs. He also did not stain the oak in my foyer to match the handrail - we had to do that ourselves. They did however feel the need to paint over all of our outlet covers and outlets, which we had to replace on our own. They did not patch any nail holes – we had to do that ourselves. I have never seen such poor quality work or shortcuts taken. Quality is definitely not their priority. Fireplace: The new fireplace looks nice from a distance, but they left significant gaps in the tiles that I had to have the new contractor fill in. They started to use nails to put the cement board in and when my husband told them they should use screws and go into the studs, Arturo became belligerent with him. Entertainment Center: He delivered the 85" long entertainment center at the end of his last day, probably because he didn't want me to see it. The top was not even secured. They glued it quickly before leaving. They did not use slow close hinges. They used cheap glass on the glass doors that was hastily put in with cheap hardware. We found several screws that were stripped and bent in their haste to produce the unit. The unit looks nice, but was clearly not sanded very much and is not of the quality I expected. Additionally, they did not stain the inside of the unit, so you could see plain pine through the glass doors. According to Arturo, that is how they do all of their entertainment units. Last time I checked any furniture store, the inside of the cabinets was stained to match the rest of the unit. I had to stain that myself, install slow close hinges, secure the glass with silicone and install knobs. At this point, the entire relationship was done between the two of us. He repeatedly told my spouse to be a man and tell me how it is. He was rude, never put in a full day of work, made a mess, and delivered poor quality work. He refused to paint my chest of drawers, didn't hang any of the light fixtures, didn't install the fan, and left all of the paint and caulking unfinished. Yet, he still thought he should be paid the full amount. I withheld over $1,000 from the final payment to him, which he berrated me for. I had to hire another contractor to fix his mess for $1,000, hire an electrician to come hang my chandelier and install the fan for $700, and my husband and I have spent over $500 on supplies and several days of our time finishing the projects that we are able to finish. I would never in a million years recommend him for any job, ever. He is a terrible person and extremely unprofessional. I have told my friend not to recommend him to anyone else and already told the two other people who were going to use Arturo, not to. He is the worst contractor I have ever had in my house and I wouldn't wish him on anyone.