MARTINS HOME IMPROVEMENT

I recently moved to a townhome in Laurel, MD, in late summer 2007. Once the Fall rains came, I discovered the roof had multiple leaks. My boss told me about her neighbor, who is a roofer, Martin Crouse. I contacted him and he came to look at the roof. When he arrived, Martin was pleasant enough to me directly, though he engaged in disparaging small talk about an African-American customer with whom he had an angry confrontation at his house (I know, I should have turned him away right then). Martin claimed he knew how to fix the leak and could do it that same day for $650. I was desperate and short on time (I had no accrued time off from my new job yet) so told him to go ahead. He wrote up the work order (dated 11-27-2007 and described above), which included a one year warranty. I paid him in advance, got my receipt (yes I still have it), and left for work. Several days later when rain came, the leaking roof no longer occurred (temporarily). Fast forward 10 months, after a number of heavy summer rains, I examined the section of the roof in the attic that had previously been leaking. To my surprise, all the areas that had been leaking prior to having Martin attempt to seal the roof from these leaks, were again leaking just as badly as before. Out came the buckets and towels to catch the water as it dripped and ran down the support beams in the attic. I found my receipt and called Martin to ask if would take a look. He said no problem and we scheduled for a 10:00 appointment on Thursday, 09-18-2008. I took the morning off work to meet him, but about an hour before the scheduled appointment, he called saying his truck battery was dead and asked if we could reschedule for Saturday morning (Sep. 20th) at the same time. No problem, I said. Saturday morning 10:30 arrived and I hadn t heard from him. I called to see if he was having trouble finding my home, but got his voicemail and left a message asking him to call me if he was having a hard time finding my address. I didn t receive a call from him by 15:00 that afternoon, so I called him again and left a message saying that I supposed something had happened causing him to miss the appointment and asked if he would call me to reschedule for another time. I tried calling 3 or 4 times the following week and only got his voicemail. On one of these calls I left another message, again giving him the benefit of the doubt and asking him to please call me to reschedule. Remember, my boss is his neighbor, so I asked her to look and see if he was home or maybe he went on a spontaneous holiday. She saw him at home. I don't know what other recourse I have but to write to Angie's list and warn others of this man's poor business ethic!