Mike's Remodeling

Mike and a coworker came on a Friday to start the job. The paint and flooring were completed that day. He ensured he would be back on Monday to complete the base board trim. We paid Mike in full with an $800 check and believed he would be back on Monday to complete the job. The check was cashed immediately, BUT THE WORK NEVER FINISHED. After weeks, unanswered calls and texts, Mike finally replied and stated he was "too busy on a kitchen job" to complete the work. My husband completed the job himself. Mike told us he would send a $200 check to us for the unfinished work. That was over a month ago... still no check and no calls. Mike refuses to return OUR money.

Besides not showing up at the beginning and taking over 8 weeks on a project by contract said would take four at the max.  Mike left us high and dry after we paid him.  He had some finishing work to do on the tiling which included sealing it but he never came back.  Worse, he won't return are calls asking when he would finish his work he promised to do.  Now we have tiles that are not sealed in and around the bath tub and cracking throughout all the grout he did.  As all this was going on we did get him to come back once in the beginning of May, but that was because he was doing another job down the street and I literally drove down then and caught him in his van - this was after repeated messages went unanswered.  When he finally returned for the last time he grouted the tub, said he was going to go down to the other project down the street as it dried and then would come back in a few hours wipe it down and caulk it.  Never heard from him again.  When I did get him back that last time I explained to him we can't have him not take our calls -- that we understand he's a small business and may have other jobs, but we need to hear from him so we could get a timeline when this would be done.  My mistake for paying him, job had run long and he assured us it was just finishing work and he'd get it done but he really needed the payment.  My mistake that I won't ever make again.  We'd also would never have him back in our house. 
One other thing.  We agreed to pay him $6K for the labor (materials separate, that we would pay for) for both bathrooms.  We just accepted his offer without countering because we had thought it was in the ballpark and that we could trust him as well as not want to sour anything over a couple hundred bucks here and there.  Also, when we paid on our credit card he complained about the credit card fee percent so we cut him a check to make up the difference.  You never win when being nice.
Hope people can learn from this, we are now stuck on getting a professional contractor in to finish up the mess he left before hopefully before we get any water damage behind the tile work.  Disappointing.

Mike's remodeling is the worst contractor I have ever employed for any home service. I employed him to do remodeling of my master bathroom including expansion of the shower area, installing granite for my countertops, tiling, painting, and installation of new bathroom fixtures. The project started well. Mike quickly demolished the old bathroom and started to lay the cement board, struts, etc., required for the new bathroom. But, very soon the project tested Mike's competence. He initially estimated the project to take a month to finish, but it ran into several months. He would show up for work late in the day typically after 10:30am and leave around 5pm. During the course of the project he did a very poor job and I have accounted for some of the details below: 1) Tiling work was done very poorly. The bathroom floor was so uneven that water collects in several aras of the floor that I have to use the squeegee every day after the shower to drain the water. Also, the grouting was done so poorly that it cracked in several areas of the bench in the bathroom. 2) I noticed that Mike is not competent to handle modern bathroom fixtures. He struggled to install the bathroom fixtures correctly. The hot water had to be set in cold setting to get the hot water and vice versa. I had to get him on the phone with the American standard support person to get the setting right. Very often Mike would complain that the fixtures were faulty when in fact the truth is he was not competent to handle these fixtures. The fixture in my Roman tub was installed so poorly that the water collected in the floor board and leaked through the ceiling of my family room in the ground floor. Now I have to undertake an expensive paint job to repaint the ceiling of my family room. After several months of emails and phone calls to Mike, I got him to inspect the tub faucet and got him a new faucet, but he left the job incomplete leaving an ugly hole in the tile wall of my bath tub. Overall, Mike is incompetent, unresponsive, and should never be employed to undertake any remodeling project. I do not recommend him for any jobs. Ramesh