Craig Faulkner

I scheduled Craig, a handyman, to pressure wash my large driveway and some stepping stones. He gave me an estimate of $240 over the phone. This was what I wanted to spend so was happy with the estimate. I was surprised that he didn't want to see the property first but this was his "day rate" and he felt confident that he could finish it in one day. I wanted someone with a commercial pressure washer and he assured me that he has one. He shows up with a wand cleaner -- something that you can pick up at Home Depot. I questioned this and he assured me that "it's a commercial pressure washer." The problem with it was that it's hard to pick up all the moss spots with a wand...it's very time-consuming. I had to leave before he finished and I came home to a disaster! There were tiger stripes of moss and blacktop over the entire driveway and entire patches that hadn't been touched. The stepping stones did not look like they were pressure washed either. I immediately sent him a text that it looked "bad" and I needed him to come back and finish the driveway. He should have contacted me that that he hadn't finished but he didn't. I had paid him the $240 on the first day because I had to leave. Big mistake. He came back two days later, on time, to supposedly finish the work. He told me that it would take about 4 hours and I was fine with that even though I had to cancel my gardener. After four hours, he told me that he was going to get the invoice. I was shocked because he never mentioned that he was going to charge me for working the second day. He should have said on the first day, "This is going to take 1.5 days and I need to increase the estimate." This would have given me the opportunity to say "no" and I would have! I reluctantly paid him the $120 and told him that he did a terrible job, that he was not a good communicator and that I would NEVER hire him again. He honestly looked shocked that I didn't want to pay him for the additional day....told me that he had paid $16 for gas (coming from Northgate) and that he had told me that he couldn't do all the work in one day. Not true! "