Dempseys Wallcoverings

We had already fired the first painter we hired for sloppy work and when we met Dempsey and his "crew" (meaning just one other guy Steve), we thought we had finally found a professional who valued his work, unfortunately that wasn't the case. Dempsey started off great on 20 Aug 10, he had Steve and then one other guy painting and sanding, they we're all nice, giving advice, laughing, all was good, but they never stayed to work a whole day. Dempsey and crew would show up at 1030 or 1100, goof around, no real pointing up on the walls was taking place while we were still picking our colors, it was more of wandering around aimlessly. Then the crew dropped down to just Dempsey and Steve, after about a week the "crew" dropped down again to just Dempsey OR Steve, so we had one painter in our house and they had promised to have all the painting completed by 10 Sep 10, they were now 2 weeks into the job. When it was just Dempsey working, he would end up disappearing for close to 3 hours at lunch and 2 hours at dinner, then maybe that night he might return, but usually he would call my husband at about 9:30 pm and make an excuse as to why he couldn't return that night. So imagine the amount of work they put in, he shows up at 1100, breaks again for lunch at about 1 or 2 pm for 2+ hours, comes back for about 3 hours and then leaves for the night. We even tried to start buying them lunch just so they wouldn't leave the house for so long, which didn't work either, Dempsey would eat and than leave...nice, huh? Not only this but when Steve is left alone working, he is continuously complaining about his boss Dempsey ditching him and he doesn't know where Dempsey went or when he'll return. That immediately put us on high alert. After about 2.5 weeks, my husband and I start to become nervous because there's still no paint on the walls, our household goods shipment is coming in on 13 Sep 10 and there's still no paint. We sat Dempsey down and tried talking to him, he promises to be better, promises to start showing up earlier, and he knows he's behind. Next day, nothing changes. Still coming in late, still disappearing act, I swear this guy has so many family emergencies it's not even funny. In total we have tried talking to this guy four different times, begging him to do the job right! If Dempsey ever uses the excuse that his girlfriend ran off with the first payment, don't believe him; that girlfriend will end up causing even more h*** down the road for you. Her showing up at your house, Dempsey constantly having to leave to take care of her kids, Dempsey bringing the kids onto the work sight and you babysitting them, it goes on and on. Dempsey and Steve finally did put some color on two rooms, but they keep messing up the trim, in one room they painted all the trim the wrong color; it's still not fixed. The work is streaky and sloppy, there are no defined transition lines anywhere and when you ask why they don't use tape the simple answer is, "they don't ever use tape and don't like to". I tell you what, they need to, now I have trim in the house that looks like ocean waves on the top of it, so relaxing! There's places where you can see they wiped off different color paint and on the tops of doors, where they think you won't see is not painted at all, there's still white paint everywhere, there's also still white paint around light fixtures that THEY decided not to take off, all of the old paint can still be seen. They've dripped paint all over the foot boards, it's just crazy that these guys are even in business! Finally, when I approached Dempsey on his lack of painting skills and his perfected disappearance act, he had the guts to start yelling at me and telling me it was all my fault, that I wouldn't let him paint. Yelling at me, in my own house, disrespecting me! Aren't I the one paying this guy? There was definitely no customer comes first feeling here. That same night Dempsey has the guts to call my husband and ask for more money, wow, is all I can say? Who is this guy? Dempsey didn't have a single room completely finished, his work was shoddy, and he's asking for more money?! Dempsey also continued to go on other estimate calls during the middle of the day while working for us and to other job sites, he's pulled his whole crew from our house for days to go and work on other houses! Our roommate has seen Dempsey and his crew come out of our bathroom (which we firmly stated they did not get to start work on until the rest of the house was completed), so why were they in our room so often? Makes me wonder. Anytime my husband and I both had to leave the house, Dempsey and his crew would pull a disappearing act, than they would get mad at our roommate for telling us; if they didn't disappear maybe they wouldn't get in trouble! My husband actually had to sit in the living room at a make shift desk watching them to ensure they were working! Then we are also having our sunroom tiled and Dempsey and Steve decide to talk "trash" about us, the owners, to the new contractor doing the tile, behind our backs! It's straight out of high school! Dempsey is in our house, trash talking us people that we just hired? In our house! We're giving this guy a job and he's trash talking us! The problems have continued until my husband had, had enough, Dempsey hasn't shown up for a full days work in 4 days, but he calls my husband trying to make all the promises in the world, "I'll be there bright and early in the morning, I promise." Sure thing Dempsey, sure thing. So here's what we're left with, a completely un-painted house in just 4 weeks and $5,500 out of our pockets. Whatever you do, DO NOT hire this guy, all he wants is your money and to give you every excuse in the book as to why he can't work. If you meet him, run as fast as you can the other way, because this is officially the bottom of the pool ladies and gentleman...the bottom of the pool.