J. Collins Painting

The painter initially came across with a lot of bravado for his age (early 20's) but soon revealed his inexperience after starting the job. He also acted very unprofessional with a very poor attitude all through the job and it seemed all he cared about was getting his next installment.

When I first walked him through the house before getting his estimate, he explained to me how everything would be perfect. But once it came down to doing the job, he started whining to me about how long the joint compound was taking to dry, how many coats of paint it took to stain-kill one of the ceilings etc.... He did not know how to patch large holes -  just slapped a huge amount of joint compound in them and expected them to dry in a day. He complained to me about how my carpenter was holding him up, and was rude to him and asked what he was doing there. He even asked me once what I was doing there when I went over to check progress! With the house not being occupied, he often left it with the heat on 80 degrees and the windows wide open so that the joint compound he had put on so thick would dry. (at the end of the job I actually ran out oil and had to get an emergency delivery and prime the heating system)

About halfway through the first week, he called me to ask when we could meet to pay the installment due for 50% completion of the work. When I went there to check progress all he had done was spray-prime about 3/4 of the house, even before taping and spackling the one ceiling. I had told him on more than one occasion that he should be taping and spackling the ceiling before getting on with the painting. I'm not sure he even knew what I was talking about but he assured me again that everything would be perfect. In the meantime he had gotten overspray on new door hardware, shower stall, bathroom sink and electrical outlets and switches. I told him I would be back in a couple of days when I thought he might be 50% complete but at one point I seriously considered getting another contractor to finish what he started.

He had originally told me the job would take 2 weeks. Once the job started going longer than that his attitude got worse and I could tell he was rushing to finish up. On the last day of the job, he asked me to meet to make the final payment. We walked through the house and I pointed out a few things that needed to be cleaned up and painted. There was paint on the kitchen cabinets, he missed painting one of the heat registers and there was still overspray. He said that he really needed to get a check so he could go to the bank before it closed. I reluctantly paid him after he assured me everything would be taken care of, but never did them.
 
 A few days later, I noticed that the ceiling which he assured me was taped on the joints, was cracked. Also, he never painted or even primed the wall behind the toilet bowl tank.  The bathroom wall is white with a 1 foot square of dark brown wall behind the tank. I called him to ask to take care of the ceiling and he started whining about how many hours he spent on it and that he doesn't work cheap. When I told him he missed behind the toilet bowl he whined and said it was too close to the wall. I then told him you should have taken the tank off to paint because now it looks like a hack job. He then got very offended by that remark and responded that we should never do business or talk again and then hung up on me.