Total Home Solutions DFW

This was our worst contractor experience ever and we have never been treated this badly - delays, starts and stops, endless excuses, and holding the work hostage several times until we paid more money in advance of completion of commitments.   The owner of this company is unpredictable (doesn?t show, doesn?t call, or crew shows up at random times of day), unprofessional (threatens to not send his crew out unless we agree to pay for work not completed), and based on performance to-date, appears incapable of managing a large project of the nature above to meet the promised completion date.    The tasks were mostly performed one at a time (vs. optimizing with parallel work where feasible), and several tasks were started and left unfinished for weeks due to missing parts or supplies needed to complete.   We were always paid ahead by several thousand dollars, so there was no reason or justification to treat us this way. This job estimated at 10 days started on 6/1/2012, has now dragged on over 7+ WEEKS and is still not done.  Dilan James, owner of Total Home Solutions (THS), claimed early on that he underestimated the job (not a good testimonial to his knowledge/experience), but instead of just moving past that and finishing it, he has dragged it out, sending minimal crew for partial days on many occasions.   On 12 different days, THS just didn?t show up at all ? Dilan didn?t even call or respond to our texts/emails phone calls.   Of the remaining 32 days where THS did show up, Dilan was only onsite for 16 of those days to direct the crew and ensure work was on track.    He told us up front he?d be onsite every day.  This is VERY POOR management and customer service.   This has worsened over these past 4 weeks (6/22-7/20), where we saw less than 11 man-days of work performed over 24 working days.  We have repeatedly called, emailed, and texted Dilan James, who many times wanted to "talk" before he sent the crew out to do more work (effectively holding us hostage).   He stalled until mid-July to do the planting, when it was 100 degrees or more.  There was nothing preventing planting in mid-June, other than his unwillingness to bring out the crew to do the work.   We asked him on 6/8 if the plants had been ordered and he told us they had.  Some plants are now struggling to survive due to shallow planting (we have pictures) in addition to the extreme heat, and Dilan won?t do anything about it until we pay him the final installment and then only per his so-called ?warranty?, which gives him 45 days to replace dead plants once he decides they?re dead.   The job is not complete, the warranty is ridiculous, and given his track record, we have absolutely NO confidence we?ll ever see him again.   After trying to work with him to get this completed for the last 4 weeks, we have terminated the contract as we move into week 8 with irrigation conversion still incomplete/not adequate and plants dying; and after multiple walkthroughs ?talking about? the open items but with no action taken.   We cannot trust THS to complete the job and have paid them an amount equal to work received.   Rather than wait another two months for THS to complete this work (Dilan said he?d have to wait until October to address the planting issue!), we will use the remaining $ to pay another landscaper to complete the job.   We have extensive documentation, pictures, videos, emails, texts and voicemails to substantiate all of this.
Note: we have no issue with the the crew - they were pleasant and did decent work when they were directed to show up per THS owner.
Update on 8/9/12: 2 Little Gem Magnolias died due to wet feet (planted too deep) according to our new contractor we hired to complete the job.  We had to have the remaining little gems replanted to try and save them. 4 bamboo plantsout of 13 also died. when our contractor dug them up, we discovered they had their rootballs cut in half and had mangled all the rizhomes leading up to the bamboo. So our 13 bamboo plants were actually 11 with 2 of them cut in half to cover the needed area.  We also discovered it was not the Alphonse Karr clumping bamboo we ordered. We sent detailed pictures to bamboo garden and they wrote back it was definitely a running bamboo and to get them moved back off the fence.  We had our new contractor replant the remaining 9 bamboo plants away from the fence.