Pete's Painting And Remodeling

Right from the outset, it was a nightmare. I never got a contract, every week of this 3 week nightmare, he had an excuse why he couldn't get a contract to me. He was payed HALF up front at the beginning of the job, a job he never should have taken . Apparently he has a Class C license, should only do work costing up to $7,500. This job was for $14,000. It seems he gets around this by claiming he subcontracts out the actual labor and no one is on his direct payroll. On Friday the 6th, he gave me the estimate on the cost of the job, said he would have the contract to me on Saturday, No, Wait, maybe not, he'll try to get the contract to me on Saturday, but if not, DEFINITELY by Sunday. After waiting ALL DAY Sunday, I call up the handyman I had hired prior to all this, asked if he can start the next day, as I just couldn't take chances that this guy Pete will show up again. I had been living in my RV for SEVEN weeks in the middle of a field, waiting to get into this house and just needed to have a real home ASAP. The handyman comes over Sunday night and assures me he can do alot of the work, and not 15 minutes after he leaves, Pete calls. I tell Pete, Listen, I didn't hear from you, it is now 8 pm at night, I waited all day, but now I have pretty much hired my handyman to start tomorrow. He gets all upset, declares no way will I be happy with someone who will show up one day and then I won't see him for a week, is uninsured and unlicensed, but he has the crew to get me into my house faster, he knows how hard it has been on my living in that RV and only he can have me in my house within 10 days.... so I call up the handyman, tell him I've decided to go with Pete. But right from the start, he just couldn't remember things we had discussed. He doesn't allow for a door to my new walk in closet, so that had to be repaired, HE DECIDED he would not lay the tile on the diagonal as I wanted, he laid it on the square and they had to rip it up and do it as we had agreed upon, the deck was not built to code, the roof was not joined to the house properly nor was it the correct pitch, one good nor-easter and this roof would have blown off. While he was attending to personal problems, I was left with no hot water for 3 weeks. He subcontracted out the work on the wood floors (thank the good lord), but then told me he needed another $400 for the subcontractor because the red stuff on the floors wasn't paint but wax, and wax was a more labor intensive issue. Not only was that pure extortion, there was NO WAX PROBLEM, but he also neglected to tell the subcontractor to repair the 11 holes in the floors. I went ahead and authorized the repairs, said I would pay the difference to make sure my floors were done right and when I told him on the phone (he was out of town) what I had done, he blew up in a hysterical fit and accused me of being a scammer. More importantly, there were still massive areas of dry-wall work, painting and sanding that needed to be done and the floors should have been the very last job scheduled, so they wouldn't get ruined, but he schedules it half way through, making me shell out over $100 on drop clothes and rosin paper for the entire house. Also, he was to have the floors ready, as in CLEARED, so the subcontractor could do the work, and the day the subcontractor arrived, there was garbage everywhere in every room, thus delaying the work and forcing me to have to pay more money for my furniture I had put in storage. The same thing happened with the electrical work, the trench for the electric wire wasn't dug, wasn't ready for the electric subcontractors, wasn't dug to code depth and again, work that needed to be done was not told to the subcontractor. We had discussed lighting and outlets for the new deck, repair of an attic fan, lighting for the new walk in closet and a motion sensor installed on my outside shed, all of the above had been left off the work order with the subcontractor and so wasn't done, even though it was part of the original agreement. Of course he denied we had ever discussed half of it. While he was out of town, and no work was being done for 4 days, I decided to find out who had to have the new deck inspected, him or me, and went down to town hall and found out that no permits had ever been issued and I might be fined and held liable. I then went home and had a neighbor's teenager go into the crawl space area to see if the work he claimed he had done was completed, and of course it wasn't even touched. I fired him and the very next day, everyone shows up for work, so I sent them home. Pete Lancho then shows up at my house and pretends he never got my three phone messages, one to his home, his office and his cell phone and I tell him to leave my property, he is fired. Two hours later, he sends someone over to dig the trench to code, to cover up his incompetence. I send him home. Another hour later, he sends two workers over with hurricane ties and another girder to tack onto the existing one (which wasn't the proper way to do it anyway, it was to have been notched in), again, to try to cover up his mistakes. I sent them home. He then goes down to the county building and zoning department to take out a permit!!! Mind you this jerk has been fired, but he applies for a permit! But he doesn't know I had already been there, and they already knew the situation, so when he applies for "repairs, remodeling and electrical work" as he puts it, and doesn't even mention the deck, they knew he was being evasive. The secretary point blank asks him, "Are you sure this is it? Nothing attached to the house, nothing with piers?" and he looks her straight in the face, lies and says "No." giving the building department reason to file a formal complaint against him at the State regulatory agency. He then comes to me with the permit in hand and threatens to sue me for the rest of the money owed and declares that according to the county building and zoning department, I HAVE to let him back on the premises and give him the chance to repair it. I am also feeling pressure from other people who remind me that living here on the Eastern Shore, it is a very small area and everyone knows everyone else, it would be better to try to resolve this, so I agree to give him ONE more chance and we arrange a meeting where I will insist on a written contract at this point for the work that still needs to be done. When I agree to the meeting, he insists he can't make it on Wednesday, it has to be Thursday. So I go ahead and get a lawyer for the Thursday meeting so I have someone in my corner there with me. Wednesday morning, I get a phone call on my cell phone, I was up in Salisbury Maryland and asked by Iris Crockett of Crockett Realty, where the meeting was to take place, "Where are you, Pete is here." So I have to rush back down to Virginia and am frantic I have no one knowledgable in my corner now that he has pulled this switch in time. Luckily I was up in Salisbury with the wife of a retired Class A building contractor and she volunteers him to go with me. So with Mr. D at my side, we hand Pete Lancho a list of all the things that still need to be done correctly. He fights just about every issue, but finally after two hours, he has a very clear idea just what he has to write in the contract. He promises to have the contract to me by Friday. Friday comes and goes, as does Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. All the while I am still with no hot water, living in utter repair chaos, unable to even erect a bed to sleep on and he knows this, and yet makes me wait and wait and wait. By Wednesday I have had it, I called him and told him so. It was now over, he had his chance to try to make things right, but this was ridiculous, he is yanking me around, so he was now officially fired again. Exactly a full two weeks later, on Wednesday September 22, I get via registered mail a contract in the mail from Pete, with major things discussed left off the contract, post dated to August 15th!!!! - with an apology letter attached stating that because of all the inconvenience I have suffered, he is reducing the amount of money I owe him from $7,600 to $5,400. Hello???? The tub surround alone was worth $2,000 according to him at our first meeting, that almond tub surround he told me he had already special ordered up at Lowes, but now I couldn't have now that he was forced to do the job right and had to expend more money to repair his shoddy construction, now I couldn't have my tub surround??? I didn't trust myself to reply to this so called "contract" in a civil way, so I ignored it. But 2 weeks after receiving it, one of his tile men shows up looking for tools he had supposedly left. I told him there were no tools here, that everything left onsite had been picked up by Richard weeks ago, but to make sure to tell Pete that he could shove that post dated contract where the sun never shines. I can't stress how totally reprehensible I think this man is, to be consistently lied to, to have to fight for things to be done right every step of the way, to put up with histrionics and constant reminders of how he isn't making a dime on this job practically every single day, to be told work was completely done in my crawl space only to find out nothing had been done at all, to know he tried to extort an extra $400 for a non-existant wax problem on my floors, to know he will probably only get some minor fine and still be out there, taking jobs over his $7,500 limit and building not to code for another senior citizen saddens me, but at least we have the two complaints in against him at DPOR and now this. You might be tempted by his low prices and fast talking, might be beguiled by his glib charm and seeming sincerity, but don't be. Remember, what reputable builder does not take out a basic building permit and when caught without one, claims the homeowner was supposed to it, it wasn't his fault?