Mike Lappin

The work started out fine although I did feel the need to point out a couple of spots that I wanted to make sure got done. While Mike was working on the ceiling he discovered a large bow in the ceiling. He said he could either continue patching or replace it. We asked him to replace it. He also offered to examine and make repairs to the bathroom once the ceiling was down. He performed the sheetrock work and put a coat of Kilz on before he left for vacation without being paid and without us getting a chance to review his work (which was our failure). He also told us that the bathroom issue was a caulk problem along the bottom of the tub which he said he repaired. The following day we started painting starting with the ceiling. The painting went fine for the first coat but when we applied the second coat the paint on the new section of ceiling peeled right off. We were having company so rather than leave it I decided to skim coat the ceiling, apply the Kilz again and finish painting and address the problems with Mike when he returned. After addressing the ceiling we did a thorough review. The walls had many problems that required several hours of work on our part to get them to an acceptable level for painting. A couple weeks later in the evening Mike "showed up" at our home without calling. He said he had been at the house that morning and was clearly agitated. We showed Mike the problems with the ceiling and asked him what he thought. He blamed it on the Kilz and said he was going to get it analyzed. We gave him a partial payment of $500 with the rest pending the resolution of our problem. After he left and based on his attitude we decided to end our relationship with Mike so I called and left him a message telling him that based on his attitude we were going to give him another $150 and dismiss him. He left me a message back saying he felt we were "going to screw him". A couple weeks later my daughter was using the bathtub and the kitchen flooded. I discover the actual problem in the upstairs bathroom (a damaged overflow gasket) which I replaced. This in my mind voided us paying any additional money. In February Mike contacted my wife and threatened to take us to court if we did not pay him the $150. As my wife tried to talk to him about the issues we had he defended himself by denying he had said he repaired the bathroom and now blaming the ceiling issues on me for trying to paint too soon? We decided to pay him the money just to makehim go away but have learned a very important lesson when dealing with contractors. Use Angie!!!