Daryl The Handyman Hillyard

Daryl Hillyard was recommended to us by our realtor. We own the house in Kansas, but we actually live in Georgia, and were going to be back home for just a short time. We arranged to have a friend take care of things in our absence. At first, Daryl seemed professional as he went through the house, then gave us an itemized list of costs. He then asked for 25% down. We had never hired a handyman before, so we did not know that he was not to be paid anything until the job was done. The original estimate was $3,300, but $200 more was added before we ended our initial meeting on 5 November 2013. He was to begin working the following day and have the job finished by the 18th of November. Between 6 November 2013 and 16 November 2013, he repaired the floors, replaced 2 of the 7 doors, laid tile at the front door, and started on the bathroom tile. He decided to take off the first Sunday, then again on the following Wednesday, because he had "low potassium levels". The days he did opt to show, he was only there for a few hours, and then he would leave again. Every single time we asked him about the work, he came up with another excuse to charge us more money. At one point, Daryl asked me for money, and I told him to talk to his creditors about setting up a payment plan. Evidently, that was the wrong answer because he spoke only to my husband after that. I did not appreciate him trying to take advantage of us--especially my husband--and I refused to be responsible for his financial situation. By the time my husband gave up on him, Daryl had raised his price by $2,000 to a total of $5,300--most of the increases were extra charges to do jobs that he had already factored into his estimate. After we let him go, he harassed my husband at work, threatening him with something Daryl made up on an online do-it-yourself contract site. For some reason, he thought he could bully us into signing this new contract, which was full of duplicate charges and charges for work that he was never going to do. My husband pointed out these errors and made a counter offer, which made Daryl very angry. We had already paid him more than $2,800 for what little work he did before he harassed my husband. In the end, we wound up hiring another man to finish the majority of the job--but that's another review.