AVILA DRYWALL PLASTERING & PAINTING

Felipe Avila was initially very personable and gave reasonable estimate for stuccoing house, this included transitioning stucco around newly installed windows. In addition, was able to begin work within the week. People worked quickly and very clean around windows and walkways (though left a lot of nails around the yard, which I only found later on). Though I pressed him for it, he never gave me a written warranty for the work. The job came out very nice. But less than two years later, a crack developed on a western-facing wall, right under a roof canal. It took me months and multiple attempts to finally get him to come out and look at the damage. He finally did, and said would come back. Since then, I haven't been able to get in touch with him again. It's been another couple of months since then, and now my house is showing signs of water damage, as water has gotten trapped between the synthetic stucco and what was under it. I am now faced with paying someone else to fix his mistakes, and perhaps more.

On first phase, owner provided written bid to sand and paint wood interior and exterior doors and interior side (wood) of metal-clad windows. Bid included sanding and filling all doors and windows (which were purchased pre-primed) and two coats of finish paint. Bid also included a two-year warranty. First phase was to paint all exterior doors and windows in house as well as interior doors and frames in the portion being remodeled. Work was to be completed prior to plaster contractor beginning work. Owner stated that bid included returning to our home to 'fix' dings, marks, etc. that would inevitably result from plaster work. After plaster work was completed, I called owner to return to fix marks left by plasterers and also asked to add some additional work, including painting four closet interiors and touching up ceiling beams in two rooms. The actual hours of work to make 'repairs' was probably a couple of days, plus time to paint the closets and clean up the beams. However, owner would not commit to a schedule and took more than three weeks to do about three days' work, even though he knew we were waiting to install our radiant heat system until he was finished with his ladder-work (this was January). He said that the "damage" from the plasterers was much more extensive than anticipated and charged us over $2000 for the "extra" work. When the time came to complete the remaining part of the house, we were reluctant to hire him back, but we felt that we had no choice in order to get the paint and painting to match the earlier part. I repeatedly asked the owner for a cost estimate and told him to be sure to anticipate the "extra" work after plastering was done. He only gave me a verbal price; never provided us a written estimate. Time came for the painting to be done, so we let him proceed. This time, his schedule was even more erratic, even though I had arranged for his services about four months in advance. Also, as the paint on our exterior doors had begun peeling about nine months after the first phase of painting, I asked him to please re-paint those doors while he was also at our home to paint the second phase (interior doors and closets). He said that he would do so, but he never did. He left us waiting at our home (taking off work) many days when he said that he was coming to paint and never showed up. He would call and make excuses about anything and everything, yet he always showed up on Fridays to ask for money. For the final work of 'touching up' after the plasterers, he once more tried to charge us a large fee. First he said $750, then he changed it to $1500. When we refused to pay it, saying that it was supposed to be in his bid, he threatened to place a lien against our property. We provided him with a certified letter stating that he had been paid in full as agreed upon and that we did not authorize the additional charges. We have not heard from him since then.