JL&F Plumbing

Oh. My. Word. While the quality of Jesse's work seems to be good, he and wife Lucia never once showed up at the time promised. Not one time. Ever. This was by far the most frustrating, exasperating part of the entire bathroom job. On the first day they left for "fifteen minutes" to get something from a local supply store, and finally returned an hour and a half later. I was told to go to a certain plumbing showroom to choose a new faucet, spout & shower head for the tub/shower - Jesse said he would go pick up whatever I wanted at his cost and give me a break on the price. He said he would be back to our house the following Friday (a few days later) with those items and get our shower ready to go. My husband and I went to the showroom right away and made our selections (I believe this was on a Tuesday or Wednesday) and told the sales lady that Jesse Shook would be getting the items. I then called Lucia and left a message with the details of what we'd selected. Friday came and went without a word from him or Lucia. We wasted an entire day waiting for them, and I made calls to their cell phones and left messages that we were waiting for them. On Saturday late morning I got a call from Lucia, apologizing for the delay and claiming they'd had truck troubles. She promised they would come on Sunday afternoon to get the work done. I told her what time we would be home that day. Waited all Sunday afternoon, no show, no call. Left a message with their daughter that we had now waited "X" time and had to leave the house but would be home at 7:30 pm and expected to see them then. No call, no show. Monday morning Jesse called and said he would be here at 10:00 to finish the tub/shower. At 10:30 he called again and asked if I had ever gone to the showroom to choose the fixtures! At 11:30 he finally arrived at my house with the items and began working. Had to leave once or twice to get various plumbing pieces. He left after several hours, having the tub/shower ready to go. Two days later we had our floor fully installed and were ready to set the toilet but Jesse had only left a stub for the water line, not the way it needed to be to connect to the toilet. We had to call Jesse again and wait for him to show up (much later than the time he said he'd arrive) to finish that job. He commented that he "shouldn't have left it that way" for us, but still charged us for the house call. A WEEK later we had finished everything but were again waiting for him to come back and help with the sink & faucet - it was a Saturday and the next day was Easter Sunday, when we were having 20 people over to our house!! Jesse & Lucia actually showed up in our driveway at the promised time (shocking!!) and I was about to think maybe I'd been wrong about them, but then a door-to-door salesman approached them while they were still outside and kept them tied up for ONE HOUR, getting them to order his product!!!!!!! I was fully disgusted by this time. Jesse finally got inside and finished the sink & faucet installation. We were asked to pay him another 50-some dollars ("a break at just a regular house call rate, not a special Saturday job" - ha). Later that day I realized the sink's overflow was leaking onto our new counter. Not wanting to call Jesse ever again, my husband took apart the area where Jesse put the plumber putty - sure enough, he had covered up the area for the overflow drain and had it backing up onto the counter. My husband was able to get it fixed himself. I complained to my brother (our general contractor and a very good drywall business owner) - apparently my brother had the same experience with Jesse with his own bathroom work but said he thought maybe Jesse only did that because they are both in similar work. Apparently not.