Colebeck's Painting

The work started on December 1, 2012 and ended on January 9, 2013. Five and a half weeks might sound like a long time to work on a small project like ours but Ed and Eddie (his son) actually only worked for less than 2 weeks in total. Out of the 12 days that they were here, 4 of those days were either half a day or they left early. Dates worked were as follows: Dec 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21, 2012 and Jan. 9, 2013. They started day one by painting the walls and ceiling of the second floor bonus room and it seemed to have went well (until we discovered the poor quality spackle work that they did on the holes that were left by picture hangers). They then proceeded to paint the family room ceiling when my wife (thankfully) noticed that they were using the wrong paint on the wrong surface when all of the paint cans were labeled. Moreover, the rooms they were painting was connected to a hallway that we ourselves had already painted (walls and ceilings). Simply looking up at the finished hallway where the area they are painting connects can tell them that they are using the wrong paint. So they had to repaint the ceiling the following day. From there, most of the paint jobs on the other rooms ranged from ok to mostly sloppy and careless. They even painted over some light switches and sockets. Their motto is "we can always come back later and fix it" They don't subscribe to the principle of doing the job right, the first time around. Also, when we go and check and point out areas that need fixing, they give us an attitude and an excuse. They don't use painter's tape even though we have some in abundant supply which they are free to use. We have tarpaulins, rosin paper, masking tape, plastic covers that they are free to use to protect floors, sockets, switches, etc but they chose not to use any of that. The result: paint on light switches and sockets, paint on our floors, tons of dust on our stuff (from spackling etc). They even put open paint cans on the recently laid flooring. A few examples of their quality of work and type of work ethic that they had, are as follows: They would paint over a freshly spackled surface, they would not texture most of the damaged surfaces if we didn't point them out. Worse, they would ignore damage spots that we pointed out for them and do whatever they wanted to do. Ed installed a couple of the blinds in the master bedroom and he used brute force in screwing the anchors in, in the process, damaging the dry wall. They say that they would do something one day, then totally forget about it the following day. Their paint cutting skills are average at best. Ed brought his sick daughter one day without even letting us know and he seemed to expect for her to stay in the house. I don't understand why a 16 year old sick kid can't rest at her house. On their last day, they brought their dog and tied it to our tree then tied it to the neighbor's tree. I don't understand how their thought processes are. Ed seems to like to promise to do things and end up not being able to accomplish it in the end. He stated that unlike some contractors, he only takes payments when he has completed the work agreed upon. We paid him three times and the last time we paid him, he asked for an advance on work that he hasn't even performed yet. It was right before Christmas (Dec. 20) and to quote him "If you could write me a check for $1,500, it would make mine and Eddie's Christmas. I know it's a lot but I'M GOOD FOR IT, thank you very much" At that point in time they have only accrued approximately $500 worth of work that they have done. Trying not to be a scrooge, I told him that we could give him $1,100 instead. Out of all the work that we wanted them to do, I would estimate that we (the homeowners) ended up doing 50% of the floors and maybe around 40% of the baseboards. They never completed the job and lied to me on their ---unbeknownst to me--- last day of their work on January 9, more than 2 weeks from their last on the job appearance at our residence. Ed told me that they will just be taking their lunch break. I was busy doing some other work when I realized that they were already late coming back from their break. I checked my phone and found out that I received a text message about 5 minutes after he told me he was leaving, that his mom was sick again and they had to leave. I went out to the garage and discovered all their equipment gone. I called him and he never answered. I texted him and requested for a callback and he never responded. The following 2 days, I gave him the courtesy of asking what his plans were (texts messages and phone call messages), but still, he never responded. Finally, after 48 hours of waiting and feeling like a cheated fool, I decided to move on from this sorry ordeal and texted and called (answering machine) him to not come back anymore. I told him that we would not try to get our money back anymore since it would be more trouble than it's worth. Coincidentally, Ed told me that day, that they already have a different job that they are working on and that they still have to finish. It makes me think that their this "last day" appearance (after a hiatus of more than 2weeks) was so that they could get their equipment from our job site. They usually leave their stuff in our garage, so it seems too coincidental that he texts 5 mins after leaving that his mom is sick and that they can't return to the work site and take his equipment with him at the same time when they were only supposedly going to lunch... His mother has been dealing with a chronic illness. We told him that we understood that family came first and never complained about all their days off, but they ended up abusing not just our understanding and patience BUT also our trust. I took multiple days off from work to make sure that I could help put down the flooring and ended up having to use them as glorified and high paid labor bec. I was forced to install the flooring myself since they were doing such a bad job of it. Out of the 4 rooms that we installed floors in, I ended up putting down more than 90% of it since the small area that I trusted them to do, ended up having so many gaps, cracks and shorts. He would text (not even the courtesy of a call) the night before or a few hours before work was to start, telling me that they couldn't come in bec. of family illness, personal illness, his son's kid needs a baby sitter, his son's girlfriend needs to be taken to the dentist, whatever else they can think of. I believed each and every word of what they said until I realized on January 9 that I couldn't trust this guy anymore. We were patient with their poor work ethic and all their excuses, mainly bec. we didn't want to add any more stress to their family life from their mom being sick, but I now wish that we fired them the moment we had that bad feeling about them. To be fair, he did do a reasonable job with power washing the exterior walls, except for damaging a few of the soffits when he returned them after accidentally dislodging them with, I guess, a direct stream of pressurized water. We estimate that out of the $3,400 cash plus our bowflex machine which we gave to him as part of our payment (worth an agreed upon price of $150) that we already paid him, we only got $2,500 worth of so-so to poor quality work and bad attitudes to boot. We don't understand what happened to this guy. He was a great guy 3 years ago (maybe bec. his partner was telling him what to do?). We got taken for a ride. I hope he does not do what he did to us to anybody else. I hope he reads this review and realize that he needs to change his attitude about people's expectations and accept that if he agrees to do something and gets paid for it, that he needs to see things through, regardless of pride or any other motivations.