Revolutionary Contractors

I hired this contractor, Ceasar Anderson, in mid-November 2010.  He promised to build a sunroom onto the back of my house for $8000.00 and have it completed by Christmas of 2010.  He rarely showed up to work more than 3 days a week and he usually only worked between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. on the days he did show up.  After many unexplained delays, he ran out of money and could not purchase the necessary supplies to complete the job.   I had already paid him all but $400 of the contracted amount, but by this time almost six months had passed and the job wasn't close to being finished.  I told him I wanted to hire someone else to finish the job and if he would forfeit that last $400 there would be no hard feelings.  However, once I hired the new contractor I learned that the work Ceasar had done was sub-standard and did not pass the city inspections.  The windows he installed near doors were not tempered glass and had to be replaced.  The roof leaked badly and had to be completely redone and the interior ceiling had to be re-painted.  The tile he installed did not stick to the floor because the concrete slab he poured was not anywhere near level and the thinset he used was sub-standard.  It all had to be taken up and the floor had to be ground down and floated to try to level it to the point where new tile would stick.   The wood he used to trim out the windows, both inside and outside, was full of gouges and knot holes.  The paint he used on the exterior trim has already started to crack, flake and peel. I had to pay the new contractor to make all these repairs and complete the interior finishing work that had not been done yet, including electrical wiring, installing light fixtures and an air-conditioning duct (all of which were supposed to be included in the original contract).  During this entire time, he had left a huge pile of construction debris next to my driveway and I had to pay another contractor to haul it away. Then I had to have the grass replaced and the sprinkler heads repaired that had been damaged by the heavy debris.   The job wound up costing more than twice as much as the original estimate and was finally finished in early June 2011.  I feel compelled to let other unsuspecting home owners know what they may be facing if they should decide to hire him.