I hired Anthony Bergman to do a major remodeling job on a 1942 house that I had purchased. I did not check Angie's List until after I had hired him, and unfortunately, my experiences were very similar to another review on Angie's List. The Bergmans (Anthony works with his wife, Angela) were working at my house for the first week, and they were very agreeable and accommodating. The second week, I asked for a change for the flooring in the bathroom from a linoleum to ceramic tile. After that, everything changed. Anthony became very angry, refused to talk to me, wouldn't look me in the eye, and generally, wanted to let me know how displeased he was with my request to change the type of tile going into the bathroom. He had charged me $3790.00 (labor only, I bought all materials) to build the bathroom. (It is not a large bathroom, about an 8' by 7' area was tiled.) When he presented me with the final bill, he added on $2700.00 (again, labor only) as the cost to put down the ceramic tile. (He also removed the linoleum tiles, which took about an hour to remove). I felt it was extreme to charge that much for labor to put down ceramic tile. Things that we had talked about as part of the estimate for the job now, all of a sudden, were "extras". I got a written quotation for the kitchen remodeling but never received one for the bathroom, so I had no documentation to back up our original discussion for the estimate. As things went from bad to worse, it became an untenable situation having the Bergman's in my house. The simplest things would set him off. He discovered mortar he had purchased was dried out and he became visibly upset, rather than let the situation roll off his back. He had to leave the house for five minutes while an air quality test was being done and he, again, was incredulous at having an interruption, even though he had just spent 30 minutes outside having a cigarette break. Within a weeks time, the bathroom ceramic tile which I had paid the $2700 for, began to crack around the grout lines. I discovered that he had used plywood for a subfloor instead of cement board. Not only was the grout cracking, but the ceramic tiles were also beginning to crack. I have since had two other flooring contractors give me estimates to fix the floors and the highest amount estimated, including labor and materials (Bergman's charges did not include materials) has been $800.00. After the bill of an additional $2700 was given to me, which I had no idea was coming, and the difficulty of dealing with Anthony's volatile personality, I told him he was fired and that he could go ahead and take his things and leave. He followed me outside and throughout the house loudly exclaiming his displeasure at being released from the job. When we were outside, I asked him to come inside because I had a contractor outside that was hearing everything he was yelling, as well as my neighbors. Once inside, there was another worker who heard and observed all that he was saying, so I had several witnesses to the progression of events. Anthony left with my receipts for materials that needed to be picked up at Menards as well as my house key. When I asked him to return my items, he informed me that he "does not respond to demands" and refused to return my paperwork or key. He also took with him all of the leftover paint I had purchased for my home and materials I will need to repair the substandard workmanship in both bathrooms. I should also mention that he and his wife also laid ceramic tile in a very small first floor bathroom. I have had several contractors look at the tile and they were all incredulous of the bad quality of the work. The normal spacing on the tiles was 5cm. Anthony chose to spread out the spacing between the twelve inch sheets of ceramic tile to over a 1/4" - 1/3" rather than make a template and cut the tiles to fit the space. He then randomly placed smaller pieces of tile in the middle of some kind of adhesive, all without regard to uniformity or spacing. The effect of the tiling was horrible. I had to have the tile installed by Friday evening because I had a bathroom resurfacing contractor coming at 8:00 am on Monday morning. Anthony and his wife left Friday night leaving grout all over the lower tiles and big blobs of grout along the edges and in the corners. I spent several hours over the weekend scraping out the blobs and trying to clean the grout off the wall tiles so that I could have my tub resurfaced on Monday. I had told Anthony that the tiles were going to have to be redone, but he expected me to pay for all the materials as well as additional labor to replace the mess of a tiling job. I live in an area where building material waste may not be put out with the trash at the curb, it must be delivered to the dump. In a final act of vindictiveness, Anthony removed all of the building waste from his truck and loaded it into my garage and around the front of my house. I had to pay another contractor to remove this trash and clean up after Bergman. For very small jobs, Anthony would probably provide sufficient expertise to complete the job in a timely and professional manner. ( Do not take that statement as a recommendation. I hesitate to wish his unprofessional manner on anyone, regardless of project size. ) Anything longer than that, he becomes overwhelmed and "tired" (his words, not mine). He is very easily angered, dislikes immensely being given any kind of direction and prefers to make his own decisions without regard to what the homeowner wishes to have done. One should never question him about anything, because he will argue non-stop. I am an older widow ( in my 60's) and I was concerned about my safety around him in view of how easily he could become agitated or angered. The fact that he refused to return my door key is very disconcerting and I have had to have all my locks rekeyed. This is yet another expense caused by Bergman's unprofessional behavior. Anthony took a lot from me, both monetarily and emotionally, and I believe I made the right decision to release him from the remodeling position at my home. I do not recommend that anyone book him for future remodeling jobs that would last longer than a few days. His temper gets the best of him, especially when he is overwhelmed with the vastness of a remodeling project. In closing, I would like to add one last thing. If you try to physically locate Anthony, he doesn't exist. The address on his facebook page is either outdated or fictitious and there are no addresses on his invoices or estimates He had told me that he and his wife had purchased a new home, but when I searched the tax records for all counties in this area, there is no record of him or his wife.. If you try to call his cell phone number, he simply won't answer.
Description of Work: He removed cabinets from the kitchen and installed a new service water line for my new refrigerator. He also built a new bathroom and tiled the floor of an existing bathroom.
Description of Work: Anthony Bergman presents himself as a Christian, sheriff's deputy, ex-fireman or whatever works to land him the job. He shows up with his crew - which is his wife, Angela and claims that there is nothing he can't do in the area of remodeling. We hired him to refinish a wood floor and in this project he did an excellent job and the price was reasonable. The next major project we asked him to do was to tile a basement floor. We had taken up carpet and leveled the floor so all he had to do was lay the tile and grout. He subbed out the tile to another guy who did a good job but used the wrong spacers. My husband had laid out the tiles in the mechanical room with 1/4 spacers and they were to start laying the tiles from there using the same size spacers. (There is a lot of mis-communication with Bergman because he never gets clarification or asks questions.) It is also weird that a tiling guy wouldn't notice the descrepency in the spacers???? So that was problem one. Next Bergman and his wife took over the grouting. I happened to come by at 5 o'clock when they were leaving and noticed grout was smeared all over the tiles and they were going to leave it overnight. Now, we were using a slightly textured, non-slip WHITE porcelain tile with DARK TAUPE grout so you can imagine how bad this looked. But they assured me they had done hundreds of jobs like this and never had a problem leaving it overnight. The Bergmans were very frustrated the next day as they "tried everything" to get the now dried cement off the floor and I ran all over town buying products to "help" them out. Bottom line, my husband told them to forget about it, that we would take care of it when he got back in town. We spent an additional $2,000 to get the floor cleaned up to the point it was acceptable, not perfect to this day. There was no reduction in their quote even though the job was not completed and he even had the audacity to "feature" this tile floor on his website for months. So much for using Craigslist to find a contractor! In addition, when I went to issue a 1099 for this guy for tax purposes - guess what - there was no address on his invoices or his card. We had other problems with Anthony Bergman. He is a little hothead, never asked for clarification, and has a "my way or the highway" attitude about everything. The scariest thing about him though is his temper. Buyer beware if you hire the Bergman's. I saw other bad reviews about him on Craigslist, albeit, the warning came too late for us.
Rating Category
Rating out of 5
quality
1.0
value
1.0
professionalism
1.0
responsiveness
1.0
$3,000
Response from Extreme Remodeling
I have spoke to (Member name removed) about her complaints many times and the problem was not with myself or my company. The problem didn't begin until her husband returned back from a trip he was on. While he was gone everything was going perfect. (Member name removed) was completely happy. The day her husband returned, he started saying everything was wrong, despite we were doing what his wife told us to do. The only miscommunication there was was between (Member name removed) and her husband. When he told me to stop framing a wall that was being framed to code, and said he wanted it done a different way, I told him that I didn't feel comfortable doing something that I knew was not right, and he told me to just pack up my things and leave. I was never given the opportunity to finish the job. I only then understood why (Member name removed) asked me to wait to start the job until her husband left town. If (Member name removed) did not return until we were finished, there wouldn't be anything to read hear.
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Service Categories
Flooring Sales and Installation,
Interior Painting,
General Remodeling,
Hardwood Flooring Sales and Installation,
Handyman Services,
Framing,
Remodeling - Modular & Mobile Home,
Basement Remodeling,
Sunrooms and Patio Enclosures,
Exterior Painting,
Kitchen and Bath Remodeling
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