Neighborhood Painters

Prior to hiring Neighborhood Painters, we received a few estimates to paint our house and they were more than twice the amount that Steve estimated.  Our home was built in 1870, has three floors and requires a great deal of attention to detail so we were very surprised and happy to receive Steve's extremely competitive bid.  We spoke to a few of Steve's references and he received glowing recommendations so we signed the contract and Steve and his crew began the arduous task of scraping and power washing our home.  When rotted porch posts were discovered along with gutter issues, Steve had the necessary carpentry skills to repair whatever damage he uncovered during this process and he even researched finding specialized products to use on our antique home.  I believe that he underestimated the amount of work involved in this project and his crew dwindled during the course of the work, but to his credit he never asked for additional funds and stuck strictly to the contractual price.  Even when additional work was added that wasn't in the original contract, it was very difficult to get Steve to charge more for these projects.  Steve is a very personable guy and he threw in many, many extras, including painting some iron railings and the front porch floor, along with reglazing a large number of intricate windows.  The timeline for completion of this project was much longer than anticipated due to weather issues, necessary repairs and some health issues that arose during the course of the work, so patience was required on our part, but in the end we received an incredible amount of quality work done for a very budget friendly price.

Steve came in with his co-worker, and was extremely nice, pleasant,and sold us on working with him. We paid him to do 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen and a main room. He no-showed most days, only worked from 10:30-3:30 or 4:00, and only had one co-worker named Danny. We caught them using cheaper brands of paint, they made a mess of our house, used no drop cloths, and several of our windows wont open any longer (among many other problems). These people are NOT professionals. After asking him to start coming on a more regular basis, he finally started showing up a little more frequently, and then came to me asking me if I will advance him some money "for his rent." He told me all kinds of stories about personal issues, etc and played on my good nature. I agreed to advance the money, in conjunction with a promise to get the job done. Two days after he cashed my check, he emailed my wife to tell her that he wont be back.
I have since had 2 professionals come in and tell us that they will have to do a lagre percentage of Steve's "work" over again due to the extent to which it was done improperly.
Another thing is that he told us that he "does it all," including electrical. I recommend checking to make sure he is licensed to do electrical work, as I dont want to invest any more time on the entirely negative experience that was working with this guy. Strongly recommend not contracting with this company or its owner