Joe was scheduled to build a deck on 4/1/19. He showed up on 4/3/19 with no explanation for 1 of 2 no show days, & I was informed within 2 hrs of expected arrival time. The deck is average, with 3 issues – 1) Instead of using a chalk line to line up screws, he used a permanent marker. 2) The 2 handrails don’t match each other, offered a partial remedy and invalid excuse, but didn’t follow through. 3) Some boards were built on top of a couple old pavers, which now will be a struggle to try and dig out. After the deck experience, I chose to weigh more heavily on the reviews I read, and looked at what was good about the experience, so I followed through on having him come back to tackle the many projects that we needed done. I would soon realize that would be a poor and costly decision, and that I should have gone with my gut, and moved on to another contractor. Even though, Joe had a very long task list and a deadline, he never felt the need to come before 9 -10a or work later than 3:30p. In 10 days, he did work until 4p twice, but he also missed two days. I guess there was no urgency to get the tasks done, because he had convinced us that we would make out better if we paid him and his crew an hourly rate, so they were getting a weekly check, and possibly dragging their feet some. Joe promotes himself as being a very experienced (40yrs), talented, knowledgeable contractor. We found his work to be poor, shoddy, and he likes to take short cuts. He is very overconfident, and claims to know how to do things, which he does not. 1) No respect for a client’s property – Example: When Joe came to our home to give us an estimate, he stated that he would protect our carpet by putting down tarps/drop cloths. Our carpet is 1.5 yrs old. Joe and his crew were the first people to walk on our carpet with shoes on, much less filthy work boots. They didn’t wear booties, nor did they put tarps/drop cloths down. Our carpet not only has debris in every room, they got dirt stains in the hall, paint stains in the closets, soaked our carpet w/ dirty bucket water in several areas and one crew member used a shop vac w/o checking that the filter was on, like he was instructed to do. So much dirt was airborne that it set off the smoke detector!! The same crew member put large holes in our drywall, used a lot of foul language, was very defiant to the others trying to give him technique instructions. I told Joe I didn’t want that person back in our home, as we were paying him $15/hr to destroy our house! 2)He has no respect for the materials he is working with – Example: It took Joe 3 hrs to install a steel exterior door. He not only scratched up the area around the handle set and strike hardware on both sides of the door, he installed the lock upside down. They either damaged, painted over, scratched up or smudged up everything they touched. He even damaged a door and returned it for another door. He damaged several pieces of Pergo flooring because he thought it would be ok to use a nail gun on a floating floor! 3)He takes your things w/o permission – Example: I went through a whole ordeal to purchase Whitewood boards to be used as decorative shelves. I had put them out in the garage w/ the rest of what I had purchased. A week later when I went to get the boards to put a stain on them and get them ready for hanging, they were gone. I asked the crew if they had seen them. Joe told me “we had to use them” because when they poorly installed the entry door, he said the wood under the threshold was rotten and they had to replace it. So, instead of him going to Lowe’s and picking up a $3 treated board, he took it upon himself to use my $10 board that is not treated and not meant to be used for construction purposes, much less be exposed to the outside. I then printed off the board info, and asked him if he goes to Lowe’s if he would pick me up another Whitewood board and I would reimburse him for it when he got back. He brought a board back, and told me he would cut and sand it. I told him it didn’t need to be sanded because it was already sanded. He said he was going to sand it anyway because of fingerprints?? I don’t know what that means, but it was not necessary to do, but yet he wants to be paid $30/hr to work on a board, that I specifically asked him to leave alone. We had a brand new ladder in the garage protected under plastic, that was still in the packaging. He opened the packaging and used the ladder! If you needed to use our ladder, why not ask me first? You just don’t help yourself. What kind of contractor doesn’t have their own ladder anyway? 4) He takes liberties when he shouldn’t, and when he does ask you a question or your opinion he doesn’t listen to your response. Example: When installing the entry door, they raised it up, therefore the storm door wouldn’t be able to clear the angled soffit. He said he could notch out the soffit and come back and build a peaked porch roof or we could just not have soffit above the door. We understood if the storm door was installed it would only be able to open a few inches. We don’t use the front door, and we wanted to address the roof at a later time. Throughout the day I had to say to him approx. 4 times, install the door, and do not take out the soffit. And 4 times he told me to “just think about it”. Then the last thing I heard was him telling his #2 to take the soffit out. I then had to step in and say NO again! As with everything else he had touched, he wanted to open up yet another can of worms, and not complete anything he started. Needless to say, the storm door was not installed. I have expose untreated wood that not only sticks out inches from the house, but is exposed to the weather. Two weeks, and every room has a project started. Not a single thing was completed or done correctly. I had another contractor come in and look at all that was done. This contractor was floored, and tore everything apart that Joe had done, from the painting, to the trim, to the accent wall, to the flooring. I was also instructed to request from Joe his business insurance information, so that we could file a claim because we lost money paying for his labor and for the materials that will have to be replaced. I have yet to hear back regarding his insurance information. Hiring Joe was the worst, most expensive mistake we have ever made. Calculating the damage, carpet cleaning, and materials replacement he owes us approx. $1136. He told us he would have everything done on a certain day. We had two days left to go, and out of 17 task items, not a single one had been completed or done correctly. The kicker was the Pergo flooring. You don’t nail down Pergo laminate flooring (floating floor)!! When he was let go, he sent me a message telling me what the next person who lays the flooring should do. I read that message to a contractor that specializes in flooring, and he laughed and said that is all INCORRECT. What a nightmare.