HOUSE CALLS

This is a father son operation that specializes in doing residential "small jobs." A friend referred them. My sink job turned out to be a bigger challenge than he anticipated. He and his son spent 8 hrs in my house. He went to the hardware store 3 different times before they finished. The new sink did not quite fit in the existing counter top opening, so he had to saw. His son went upstaris to replace the faucet in the master bath. This job also took quite a while to complete & seemed to be more difficult than anticipated. The bi-fold closet door replacement, performed by the son, seemed to run smoothly. I could not spend too much time watching the work in progress b/c I have a 2 yr old and a newborn, When they finally left, I was in as much a hurry for them to be gone as they were (the father told me they had other plans that had been pushed back due to the unexpected challenges of my job.) It turns out the upstairs bath had a leak. There had never before been a leak, but something the son did while replacing the faucet started a leak. I noticed it after they had been gone a couple of hours. I heard dripping in my downstairs bath. I went to investigate and found the ceiling to be wet and water to be dripping from the light/fan unit in the center of the ceiling. I phoned the guy, and he reluctantly agreed to come back out that same night and address the leak, which he did. He took a look at the downstairs bath, but didn't have much to say before he went on his way. I let him go without much protest, because I needed to reclaim my household after a long day in order to take care of my very young children. Here is what I found when I made a close inspection the next day. They made only a minimal attempt to clean up the sawdust in the kitchen. There were pencil marks on the bi-fold doors. Inside the closet, on top of my washer, the son left a large set of pliers, a screwdriver and a carpenters pencil. The kitchen sink did not sit flush on ther counter top, There is a substantial gap between the lip of the sink and the counter on the front and side edges; there is visible glue or adhesive on the counter surface from where the old sink was removed. I called House Calls and left a voice msg to let him know about these issues. I had to leave numerous voice mails before I got a call back. Phil told me he would be back out asap to address all the issues, including putting a stain kill coat of paint on the water stained bathroom ceiling. He said he would have to work a return visit into his schedule. I told him about the tools his son left behind. I never heard back from him. I let it go until after the holidays were over (the work was performed just prior to Thanksgiving, the promise he made to return and fix all the problems was made just after) Since I started trying to reach him again as of Jan 3, 2009 he has ignored all my emails & phone calls. But Phil has made it clear I am stuck with my stained ceiling & my poorly installed sink.