Zajac of All Trades (Steve Zajac)

We decided to go with Steve as he was friends with my husbands parents and we felt he would do a good job. He also has children and we thought it would be nice to give him the work before Christmas. Steve said he was going to start on Oct 9th, he did not show up or contact us that day. The next day he wasn't here either, and I should have known this was going to get ugly. He said he had been sick. The next couple days of the week he showed up to work and did minimal things, such as unloading lumber from his truck ect. He never stayed more than a few hours at a time the entire job. The following week he managed to come most days and get the basement framed out. He then installed the dry wall. This section of work, while not done as quickly as most being that he was only here 3 hrs at a time, was done consistently. He then hired an 80 yr old man to mud for him. He told us the mudding should take 3 days. The
problem was the entire wk that the older gentleman was mudding Steve was no where to be found. He didn't do any of the other work he needed to do. The mudding took 9 days, not 3.They never gave us a reason for this, its just that no one came.Day upon day no one would show up at my house. I would call and text Steve and there would be no reply. He never had a good excuse as to why he didn't come, he just didn't. I had to push the carpet installers back a week, the second week I pushed back I told them to just come anyway. At this point the walls were installed and Steve had one coat of paint on the wall, no trim work, the windows were not boxed out, the railing on the stairs was not done, the door leading to the other half of the basement was not installed and the walls looked awful due to only having one coat. He did not come at all the following week. When I freaked out on Friday he came and painted the second coat of paint approx took 2 hrs. I told him I was having company in for Thanksgiving and this needed to be done, as we were quickly approaching week 7 of a 3 wk project with no end in sight. He said he would finish. That Monday he didn't show up until 11 am and left at 1, he installed 1 thing in the basement. My husband and I decided at this point we needed to hire someone else to finish this job. I called and explained to him, while he had always been pleasant when here, we just needed to get this project done. He seemed to understand and agree. He was here at the house very early the next day (For the first time!) to collect his things. I had other contractors come in and finish the work. While they were here we found that he never sanded the existing walls around the stairs and there are digs and scratches and it looks awful. We now have to hire someone to refinish this. They also said the price that Steve gave us was way too much, and we paid him extra for the other jobs he never completed. On top of that Steve did not obtain the proper permits which we had trusted him to do. Steve then turned us into the Town for not having the proper permits, after we fired him. We now have fees to pay, but the town was very nice to us when we told them what was going on. We have our fingers crossed that the work he did for us stands up to inspection and we don't have to tear the entire thing down. It has been a nightmare from the start. IF you are going to do any work to your home DO NOT hire Zajac of all Trades. His work was lazy and sub-par, he never showed up and was full of excuses. Not the way a man works. I am so sad that the job turned out this way. I have heard nightmare stories but never thought it would happen to us.