Arbor Life

Evan Ducote, owner of Arbor LIfe Designs, has been unable to complete work started per contract agreement. After almost 2 months 1/20-3/26 of minimal progress what work has been done is unsatisfactory and very poor construction. ALD was supposed to build a wooden fence and asked for money up front (5,652.50) to pay for materials. Original chain link fence was removed within a few days and was promised that new construction would begin.Work was intermittent with little progress made. We began to notice that the fence was not the height discussed and the remedy made by them was to add back what they had cut off and nail the wood back together. Wood was left in our driveway rendering unusable, Evan stated that he would have the wood moved. Some of the wood was moved three days later but still unable to use the driveway. Evan asked for my wife and I to go to the lumber yard to purchase more wood with our credit card after the initial check had cleared. When questioning him why we have to pay for it he stated that he had already spent the money on labor. After almost two months of work and noticing only two men show up, and who were always dropped off, were new men every time. The men always had to ask my wife what to do stating that they were not given clear instructions. My wife who was able to communicate with them through Spanish was told by Evan, not to talk tous, and was only allowed to talk to him. One laborer told my wife that he had never met Evan before and he had picked him up off the streets to work. My wife and I felt uncomfortable with continuing to work with Evan at this point. We found a new contractor to look over what was completed and found that most of the wood was untreated and screws are supposed to be used with cedar pickets instead of the nails that were used. He also discovered that some the work that had been "completed" was not even nailed down or fastened to that frame. The new contractor also stated that the remedy to fix the height of the fence was not structurally sound and would eventually be blown over. After days of Evan not returning texts and phone calls we decided to fire ALD. A respectful email was sent stating why we no longer wanted to work with him, he responded with an invoice for $4,800.