A-Z Complete Home Maintenance & Repairs

I have used Christopher Wright for extensive work for the last 5 months. Unfortunately, I first hired him in the winter when he had little work and he was very very responsive and timely. He didn't clean up after himself but I could excuse that due to the low cost. A times his work was not as I wanted so I needed to keep a close eye on the work and ensure we had a meeting of the minds. I would say he exercised poor judgment at times in making the wrong assumptions about what I wanted done and he should have asked prior to proceeding. In March I hired him for several additional projects - shelving in garage, creating concrete stairs, changing bath fixtures, changing light fixtures, installing fence and gate and creating a paver patio. Unfortunately, he had unreasonable delays in initiating the work after I paid for the supplies and 1/2 of the labor. The work turned out quite sloppy and he didn't complete all of the work after I paid him a few days early for the remainder of the labor. He even complained about the cost of coming to my home ($60 in gas) and didn't come after cashing an advance check for $1750 from me just a couple of days prior. There were a lot of miscalculations of fees and he developed a hostile attitude when I asked for a return of fees paid in advance. He started claiming I still owed him for labor, etc. He misused the funds I paid him for supplies and didn't have the $ to return to me eventhough I had ended up buying the supplies. I told him that I would report this to the Maryland Home Improvement Commission and he stated that he had claims against him before! Apparently he has too much work and doesn't appreciate customers who have paid him thousands of dollars and have sent him referrals. I learned a lesson about paying anyone in advance even by a few days even when I have done a lot of business with them and they claim that they really need the money - they will not uphold their commitment. Turns out when a handyman has a lot of work his true business character emerges.