Ritchie Custom Painting

Mr. Ritchie had been hired by our next door neighbor to paint her house which he was supposed to complete before starting our job. The neighbor alerted us to the fact that he had gouged several redwood siding planks with a powerwasher, had done extremely inadequate prep work, painting over large areas of peeling paint, and that he was quite messy, dripping paint on her deck, window sashes, stone path etc. He painted over her copper mail slot and irreparably damaged a specimen tree in her front yard by cutting off branches on one side. We examined the damage and were alarmed but had signed a contract. My neighbor ended up firing him. He started our job, painting over broken boards, loose boards, and peeling, cracked paint. His preparatory work was extremely lacking. We had to ask him specifically to calk cracks on the trim, something you would automatically expect from a professional painter. Indeed, calking was listed on the contract as an included service although he later added $50 to the bill for this! We noticed paint drips on our stone walkway soon after he began painting and decided to fire him before this all went any further. After he left we surveyed the job that he done so far and found that he had dripped trim paint on the aluminum siding and that in places he had apparently tried to wipe off these drips with his hand or a wet paint brush, smearing it around. Although he had only "completed" half or less of the work he had been hired to do and that we were decidely not satisfied with his efforts, he kept a large proportion of our money. So much for the "guaranteed workmanship" in the contract. We were shocked at Mr. Ritchie's seeming lack of professionalism and quality of work. His prep work and sloppiness were substandard although we were constantly told otherwise by Mr. Ritchie.