Roger L Skelton

We were referred Roger from a friend of my wife. His pricing, for the amount of work we wanted done, was the lowest, and he sold himself very well upon our initial meeting. He told us that he had one assistant working with him, and at one point would have a second to help move things along. He began working on May 21, 2012. On the first day, he was working on the crown molding and wainscoting. I asked him on my way out the door for work, "how long would it take to complete the molding and wainscoting?" I wasn't questioning his work, I just didn't know, and was curious. He said, "Oh I'll have the crown molding done today." I thought to myself, "that's great, this will move pretty quickly." The crown molding ended up taking about 2 weeks to complete. Each day after arriving to work, he would tell us what he was going to get done that day, and each day it didn't happen. My wife and I began to worry. After completing the interior painting, crown molding, and wainscoting, he and his assistant moved to the outside of the house to work on the exterior. This is when the 2nd helper was supposed to show up to move things along. The outside work ground to almost a screeching halt. It took approximately another 2 weeks to complete the painting and replacement of exterior trim. Old paint scrapings littered the perimeter of my home. Even after he said he was done with the painting, there were still pieces of wood trim that were not replaced. I was even told at times that some of the wood couldn't be replaced, that all he could do was patch sections, or small pieces, and use wood filler. The assistant, a Hispanic worker who spoke almost no English, was careless with his painting, and cleaning of brushes. Paint was spilled on the siding, and splattered on the siding (while cleaning off brushes), but he never accepted any responsibility for it, saying, "that was already there." Neither the interior painting and woodwork, nor the exterior painting and woodwork were completed before Roger was asking to move on to the next step, which would have been our foyer floors. I told him that I wanted the other two jobs he started, yet hadn't completed, finished before he moved onto the next phase. He promised that he would, yet somehow found a way to work his way into starting the foyer floors before the outside work was done. Paint chips from the old exterior paint littered my yard around the house for almost 2 months. They foyer floor went fairly smoothly and quickly. With the history we had already created, I was surprised. He kept pushing for me to let him start demolishing the powder room. I asked him, "how long are we going to be without a bathroom on the first floor?" He told me about a week. So I gave him the okay to start. We were without a bathroom on the first floor for over a month. During the process of rebuilding the powder room, he also started the demo of our kitchen. At this point we were moving into July. I informed him that the kitchen and powder room needed to be completed by the end of July (which gave him a full month to do), as my wife and I were going on vacation at the beginning of August and wanted it done before we left. He assured me that he would be done by then. The end of July came and the kitchen still wasn't done. Even when I offered to let him work late if need be, and on weekends, he still chose not to, and the work still didn't get done. When the kitchen and powder room were approximately 90% done, he pushed me to let him move upstairs and start demoing the hall bathroom. My two stepdaughters were just about ready to leave for college, AND none of the other projects he had started were completed, so I told him he was not moving upstairs until I was satisfied that the other projects (crown molding, interior and exterior painting, and exterior woodwork) were completed. He did go back and finish up on some of the problem areas that I had put onto a punch list, so after the girls left for school, I let him start the upstairs bathroom. By now we're into September. He had already been at our home, 5 days a week, since the middle of May, and we had already gotten into heated discussions about our displeasure with the amount of time it was taking to complete this job, and the dozens and dozens, of empty promises Roger gave us. I forewarned him, at the beginning of September, that all of the remaining work (which included both upstairs bathrooms and the gable fan) needed to be completed by the end of September. We were having family come to town the first weekend in October and I didn't want this project taking that long. He told me, "end of September? I'll be long gone before that! I'll be done this in about 2 weeks!" I told him that that was fine, and even better if he could, but either way, the job had to be 100% complete by the end of the month. The final week of September came, and he was still working on completing the master bathroom and the exhaust fan for our microwave. I forewarned him again, that it had to be done 100%, or he wasn't going to get paid the remainder of what he was owed. For clarification, the contracted agreement was for us to pay 1/3 of the total payment up front, 1/3 half way through the project, and the final 1/3 once all was completed. We paid him the first and second thirds, but shortly into the final phase (August 23rd), he came to me saying that he was running short on money and wanted to know if I would advance him part of what was owed. This happened another 2 times before the job was completed. One day, he came to the house to ask for an advance, to which I was willing to help him out, and then he went immediately to the bank to cash the check and then didn't do any work that day for us. His assistant was let go back around the beginning of September because there were two separate occasions where I came home to find the water on the outside of my house running off into the yard, making my yard a swamp, and also running up my water bill. There was no idea how long it had been like that. As I write this, work that he promised to complete after we paid him the final check, still hasn't been done. The quality of work that he does it pretty good. Not great, but pretty good. But with that, you get all of the BS and headaches that come with it. At our initial meeting, he said that there would be days when he wanted to work late. When asked what "late" meant, he said like 8-10pm. I didn't have a problem with that if that's what it took. In the over 4 months that he was there, he only worked past 4-4:30, twice. During one week near when the kitchen needed to be complete, he told me, "I'm going to work late tomorrow." The next day at 4 o'clock, he told me that he was tired and that he'd work late the next night. This happened 5 consecutive days in a row. So in addition to not following through with what he promised, I was also inconvenienced in that I couldn't plan anything or go anywhere any of those nights he said he'd be working late. He started at 9am each day, and worked until 4pm, with an hour for lunch each day. So for 4 months, I was only getting 6 hours of work per day. And that was if he 1) didn't leave early for unexplained reasons, 2) didn't show up at all for unexplained reasons, or 3) wasted 2 hours because he had to go back to Lowe's/Home Depot because he wasn't prepared for the work he was doing that day. Expect any job that you ask him to complete, to not be done on time or anywhere near on time. Also expect to be promised the world and delivered nothing. I would recommend you try a different contractor for work on your home!