Let There Be Light Electric

I cannot warn people firmly enough away from this contractor. His company is called "Let There Be Light Electric" and he is a minister, but he quickly earned the nickname of "The Prince of Darkness" in my home! The contract was signed April 27th, 2012 and I have never had such a nightmarish experience with any contractor ever!! He started on the top floor and completed that by late June and after failing inspection twice, it finally passed the city rough-in inspection. I told him I was going to take a 3-month break in order to finish the top floor for me to move into plus some summer vacations, but by August, he was begging me to come back and finish the rest of the house which he swore up and down he could finish in 4 days. I had hoped to move into the top floor of the house while the remainder of the electrical work was being done, but it was not quite ready. Giving into his persistence, I decided that for only 4 days, I could live with any kind of mess, so I gave him the go ahead to come back and finish. Well four months later of living in a house full of holes in the walls, plaster dust everywhere and never knowing whether Sylvester or his son or various subcontractors was going to show-up or not, it was still far from complete and the permit had expired. He had me pay him way in advance (my mistake) and then would disappear for weeks, not returning my calls, sometimes leaving me with no power on almost an entire floor. After repeated requests for pay advances, I finally told him that I was not paying him one penny more until it passed final inspection. It was only then that he started showing-up again, but fell back into his disappearing ways again. He finally admitted that he had underbid the job and had run out of money, so I started paying for his materials and told him that I'd be a lot more sympathetic if he had had even a trace of respect for my time in dragging out and no-showing on this job. In December, I finally cut my losses and finally fired himand hired a new electrician. This is costing me a small fortune because I'd already paid Sylvester most of what he quoted for the entire job and now I had to pay someone else to come back and finish. Come to find out, his electrical work was extremely sloppy and a great deal has to be re-done (i.e. - using wrong kind of wire for a 4-way switch, wiring receptacles into light switches, open connections inside wall without junction box, open wiring outside of walls with no wire mold, overloaded switch boxes and circuits, etc.) I could go on and on. The new electrical team has questioned whether Sylvester is really licensed and have told me that I probably have a strong case for a lawsuit -- it's that bad. Sylvester comes off as a very nice person, initially, as does his son (who actually does all of the work), but can become totally irrational when asked to be acountable. His son is very young, though, and needs much more supervision (easily distracted by FaceBook on his iPhone) and needs to have his father actually check his work. Sylvester, himself, was clueless as to the stage of the wiring at any given time and notorious for not showing-up when he said he was and for not returning my calls. I wasted countless hours of my life waiting for this guy to show-up and have never been so frustrated with any contractor in my entire life (I've contracted construction of 3 homes). I believe he is more accustomed to doing commercial jobs and has no regard for homeowner respect of living space and wasting my time waiting for him to show up to do the job.