Mr. Handyman of Kalamazoo - St. Joseph

I moved in my home the middle of March. Ice dams had actually pulled down the eavestrough in a couple of places. They were scheduled to come; they were a no show. I called the office which was an 800 number. Mr. Handymanis nation wide, I believe they franchised. This particular one was managed poorly. I called, and they said I wasn't scheduled, I was scheduled two days later. I write things down on the calendar, I don't make mistakes, well I make mistakes, but I didn't make a mistake on this one. They came out two days later. They sent a guy who was a new high. He was very sick, he actually passed out in my driveway and banged his head, it was a mess. I believe he maybe had low blood sugar. He was out in the hospital several weeks after he fell in my driveway. So, the owner or manager I believe came out and did the eavestrough himself.It took something that should have been a simple job ended up not being a simple job at all. I would say the workers do a job, it was a bit poorly managed. So, my main complaint with them would be the poor management of the projects.The price was okay. I think the price was a little bit overrated because they had to come back out several times.I had to write another check because the job didn't get done. The quality is okay. They were very quick to make promises, they just didn't follow up. They never showed up on time because they were waiting on the sick guy. They were waiting, waiting, but he never showed up. They were fighting a losing battle I think and I was being charged for it. If the guy they hired hadn't been sick, I don't think I would have ever had that problem except for that first missed appointment.

We were just chit chatting on the eave things that was done. I said that I'm also going to replace all the windows. While I was going to have, another company do it because they had done work for me before. He's like oh we can get somebody's right out and give me an estimate on that. I thought well okay go ahead. I thought they came in fairly reasonable for 10 windows. They are somewhere special made. So, I did end up going with them. The young man who did the work always called me to let me know he was going to be late. This young man put these windows in, did the trim on these windows and they are very impressive. He did a great job. The window guy, he showed up with the kind of trim that is like 20 foot for five bucks, when I had this really fancy schmancy trim on my windows, really fancy trim. This is an old house; I don't know who put this trim up, but it's beautiful. So, he actually went back and replaced it with a fancier trim, so that it matched the outward trim, it was very nice, he was excellent. But I wouldn't use them again because I had tried not to use them in the first place.

did not use them

Great. Very professional and the work was of excellent quality. It was pricey but I expected that from a handyman service.

It didn't! I called to schedule someone to come out and never received a return phone call. I made a second phone call TWO WEEKS LATER to inquire as to the status of my request and the gal took another message. She would make sure that "Mike" got the message and contacted me ASAP. THEN I went to Angies List and looked at all the posted reviews. I don't think I want these people working at my house. The reviews are not good and the fact that the "owner" can't return a phone call says it all. ADDENDUM: The owner, Rick, finally called me back and to schedule the work. I declined because of the bad reviews on Angie's List. Rick then told me NOT to read Angie's List's reviews and that I should see the reviews on Home Adviser.

unknown

He repositioned towel bar in bathroom and in the process tore the top layer of drywall off. He did not repair the tear. He took old cove molding off the bedroom wall and filled in the holes from the nails. This is the only job that was done well. He mudded and sanded 2 small areas on kitchen ceiling, 1 small area on living room cove molding, and one small area on hall wall. He told us that the cove molding could use another coat and sanding, but he said the kitchen was all ready to paint. It was awful. If I had wanted it to look like that, I would have done it myself. Their ad in Angie's List says free estimates. No such thing with these guys. They told me I would be able to get an estimate for outside trim painting but I would have to pay for it. They ran a coupon for pay for 5 hours and get the 6th hour free. He balked at taking the coupon - said the work had to be done in 5 consecutive hours to qualify. Not my fault that he came to the house for 3 hours, left, came back for 2 hours and then said it had to be consecutive hours. To their credit, after a little discussion, they honored the coupon. I took pictures of the mudding/sanding job in the kitchen and sent it to their office to show them what it looked like. They said he had a bad week and would come back to finish the job. I said he told us it was finished and ready to paint, so why doesn't he just come back to fix the job. They could do that, but he would be on the clock again. On the clock again to FIX, not finish, a poorly done job. There was no way I was going to pay them another penny. It was awful and expensive. I had to get someone else in to fix this mess. I also had to clean up all the sanding dust from this job. For $700.00 you would think they could at least have done that. Never again will I have them do any work. . .

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Overall the project was a disappointment. The project took about 3 months to finish, with less than satisfactory results. As the siding went, we had to have them back out on multiple occasions to add more nails to hold down the boards and attempt to fix where it was bowing. In addition, they put nail holes (approximately 1 cm deep by 1 cm wide) all the way across the side of the house that they never fixed. There was also the issue with them not caulking the appropriate places (joints and around the windows). The painting job was done in one coat which resulted in inconsistent coverage and speckling in some places, however it must be noted that this was specified in the estimate, but we were told that it would be more than adequate. I wish I could say the deck was a different story, but sadly I cannot. They did do a good job washing the deck, other than leaving the water running one day (luckily we found it on at about midnight), but that is about it. This prep job was less than sufficient because there were some sap spots and vines that they just painted over instead of being cleaned off. Also, the deck was in need of a good sanding before painting, but this also was not done. This part of the job did take awhile because the weather was not cooperating, but on days/weeks that were nice they would come out for maybe 2 hours and then leave, which was how the whole project was handled. The paint job was done in much the same way as the siding, with a very thin coat that barely covered the area, however you can still tell that it was rushed because of the splash/drip marks on the boards and the siding. Also you can tell it was rushed by the fact that we had to have them out multiple times to repaint posts and boards that were missed. Upon final inspection I noticed a lot of the problems previously sighted had not been fully fixed and had them back out to redo them. In addition I did mention that it looked like the painting job did not sufficiently cover the area and that it seemed thin in a number of spots. I was told that this was just fine, but if I wanted another coat I would have to pay extra for it since it was not priced. This is a reasonable request on their part, if the job had been done to a professional level, which it had not. After many excuses and many touch-up jobs, I called it quits and just payed the bill. In any case it is a new year and it looks like we will be redoing their work.

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They charged too much. They charge $128 an hour. Then they had 2 workers and its $128 per worker. I thought that was ridiculous. They wouldn’t let me charge my own tub kit. One worker told me they can charge me more for it and I couldn’t pick what I wanted. They had 2 workers when they pounded the tub out. For me it should be a flat rate per hour and not per worker. I had problems with the quality. The guy that knocked the tub out broke my brand new toilet. So they had to take the toilet and then they knocked a hold in the wall. They had to fix that. They asked me for a reference. They got the job done. I thought they overcharged. They weren’t upfront and honest with me. Nobody I know would pay $256 an hour for a handyman. I guess the quality was ok and they fixed the thing he broke. I am not happy because I couldn’t pick up what I wanted. The tub was a lot taller than what I would have gotten. I trip going in and getting out of it. I am getting older. They did the job once before and that’s why I finally settled with them. I called them in June or July and they couldn’t get to it till October. There were other problems. They couldn’t start when they were supposed to because they were busy. They came on Thursday and Friday instead of Monday and Tuesday. The pipe broke when he was putting something. It was just what I didn’t want. Then there was an extra day involved plus he had to come back and fix it. I wouldn’t recommend them to anybody I knew because of my experience. I just wasn’t happy. I just won’t use them again.

Not only were they not able to replace the faucet, they ruined the entire faucet. I had to order another one at $109. They never did the tile work either since they did not bring the appropriate tile cutter. The tech was on the phone the entire time he was here to his boss. I called the owner and left a message the same day to speak to him re: how I was unhappy with service and he never called back. I would not recommend using them for any repair work.

We are very happy with the work done. The garage doors were peeling and needed work before they could be painted. The work was done neatly with no mess left around. The person (Matt) who did the work was terrific to work with and we will definitely use them again.

They were ridiculously expensive. They did not even come out to look it to do the quote, just did it over the phone. They did call within a day or two. I was not impressed with the professional on the phone.

They were prompt in returning calls, followed up and came to my house and left an estimate. The estimate beat Van Tuinen by 20 to 30%. The work was performed over 2 weeks, first the power wash, then the staining after the deck dried out. There was rain so the staining work was delayed by several days, no fault of Mr. Handyman.

No problems.

Please see above.

The contractor who came to do the work was great. He worked from 8 in the morning till 4 in the evening and worked very hard. It took four days for him to finish the job. His punctuality was tremendous. The work looks great and I was very pleased with his work. I wasn’t very pleased with the company or the owner whom I spoke to but the guy who came to do the work was excellent. When they started the work, he found that it needed some more work to be done and he told me that he would charge me more for that. I changed my mind and told him not to do the extra work because of the charge. We had hired him for the charge he agreed and then he was charging me more so I didn’t like that. I was impressed with the workers but not with the owner. So I wouldn’t use him again in the future. If I find the worker’s number then I would definitely call him to do any other work in the future.