J&E Painting and Carpentry Inc

I had several different bids near J&E's bid, but Joe was so confident and convincing that he would do the job well and fast that I went with him. The estimated time for completion was one month. We had planned to do all the demo ourselves, but Joe said he wanted his crew ("a ton of guys" he kept on saying) to come in and help us over the first weekend to guarantee we got everything done fast, there was also supposed to be pick-ups of the debris throughout the weekend. Two guys showed up for the second day and there were no trash pickups all weekend, leaving us climbing over all the trash seriously slowing down progress. It took months for all the debris to be cleared. When we accepted his bid Joe stated that he had specialists to do all facets of the jobs required, a plumber, electrician, HVAC guy, and drywallers and he would be the supervisor (he even touts this on his website). Joe and one other general contractor ended up doing all the work except for three instances where a HVAC guy came out to charge the air conditioner and an electrician came out to just look around and a few drywallers came to just hang the drywall. Joe did sub-par work on just about everything that was done, but then blamed it on his assistant. My father came across several major plumbing issues that he needed to redo because he had done them so improperly. There was a major flood in our basement while they were working and they didn't call so we could retrieve any of our stuff that we were storing in our basement, causing damage to several hundreds of dollars worth of our belongings. Throughout the job Joe was impossible to get a hold of, he wouldn't answer his phone or return calls and he would never show up on time or even on the same day or even week he stated he would. There are several major issues with drywall seams showing, popped drywall screws, and seriously crooked and curved corners. He missed several portions of the furnace installation that my husband had to point out and have him fix, and we didn't notice until after he was paid that he hadn't hooked up the furnace humidifier to any electricity, so it is currently still not working. The new plumbing vent pipe is causing leaking on our roof. And- a long awaited HVAC return grill has yet to be delivered to us leaving a 2 foot hole in our living room floor. His original 1 month timeline turned into 6 months and he has disappeared and not resolved remaining issues since he was given his final payment. I understand that he would be frustrated, the bank took a long time to get his final payment to him, but the job remains unfinished and he refuses to return phone calls. We were left without a place to live several months beyond the estimated date of completion costing us thousands extra. I wouldn't recommend Joe to my worst enemy.