Legacy Tile & Stone Company

He failed to present any of the required lien paperwork required by the state's CCB board. This was a standard 3' x 5' shower stall. The only difference was that on the back wall there were 3 columns of 4 8" x 8" x 4" deep glass blocks with double density LED lights running through each column. Each column was a separate LED channel. When Andrew saw the project he appeared to be very excited and really wanted to "be involved" in the project and "work with me" on it. Part of my job in all of this, other than being the "gofer" to Home Depot to get pieces of the trim which I was working on was also to get an appropriate clear silicone for the translucent tiles to be bedded in so the light would shine through. Thus I had to interface with him on the test pieces and with other questions. I began to see a "nervousness" (hands trembling) and "sharpness" to his responses to me. He would also start to get phone calls that he would take outside but I could hear him talking in a loud voice and somewhat "excitedly". The first real difficulty surfaced when we were about 4 days in and it appeared that he was not marking the locations for where the minimal fixtures would be. When I asked him about this I was given the information that he did not drill holes and had nothing to do with that and it was my responsibility. It upset me and I attempted to talk to him about this issue (he never disclosed this fact in the beginning) but he was angry and curt. I said fine, "I'll take care of it". I left and went and laid down on the couch. About an hour later he came out and apologized and started to tell me that he had woman, housing, and money problems. While he worked with his brother for 3 years, apparently they did not work well together and thus Andrew left for Thailand for a period of time and met a woman that he wanted to settle down with but she was not ready. So he returned to Portland and started this business which is only a year old. So, being 65 and understanding a bit about relationships, I spent an hour consoling him and trying to help him a bit. Things went on and the shower tile application came to a close, Andrew did help with the drilling but the process was not smooth, his hands were shaking so bad I thought he was ill or had too much caffeine or something else.He had trouble putting in the little pieces of tile around where the fixture holes went. Additionally he missed the location for the bracket to hold the handheld shower which would come back to create a much bigger problem when the grouting started. This is where things really started to turn sour. The night that the tiling was done I asked him when he would be grouting as the translucent tiles glued on with the clear silicone (goes on white and dries clear) on the glass blocks needed several days to cure. That's when he popped the second thing on me that he had failed to disclose at the beginning... he would not be doing the grouting but "Alexis" would. I was not happy about this but had no real choice at this point so I allowed it reluctantly. From many indicators I can say confidently that Alexis is employed by his brother. So it was left that I would communicate if the silicone was dry by Thursday night (this was Tuesday) with grouting to happen either Friday or the following Monday. Before he left that Monday, he begged to be paid the balance (he was given 50% before he started) because he really needed the money. I was stupid and paid him. In addition, I also paid him an additional $ 300.00 in cash, 1 full Oz of prime Moroccan Saffron, 6 bottles of very fine hot sauce (a love we share), 1 container of Red Caps, a custom built lamp that I had hand created and he loved (value $350.00 to $400.00 plus $75.00 worth of Edison style early bulbs), a wonderful rum cake from the Cayman Islands, a big bag of New Yorkers, 4 sheet's of 3' x 5' 1/2" cement board, a bag of Thinset, 1 quart of Thinset bonder, 6 liner feet of shower pan liner, 2 3' x 5' 1/4" cement board, a box of cement board screws and a big fat bud of Sensimilla. It was the following Monday when he showed up with Alexsis that the real problems started. First, let me be clear here. I have absolutely no concerns or biases with regard to color, race, sexual identity or any other issue when it comes to who works on my house. What I do have a problem with is someone who cannot communicate with me in at least passable and understandable English. However this did not come to light at first. Andrew and Alexsis spent so time in the bathroom and I assumed Andrew was discussing the plan with Alexsis. When I was in my office area Andrew showed up there shortly and announced that he was leaving to go work on another job. This took me totally by surprise and was again information that was not previously mentioned. I recovered pretty well even though I was upset but hoped that Alexis was good. So Andrew left and I looked in on Alexis and he wanted to know where the water was and I showed him and let him get started. After about 45 minutes I looked in on him and just about had a heart attack. All of one whole 8" x 8" translucent tile square and half of another had black grout pressured under the tiles (not just in the grout lines) which totally defeated hundreds of hours of work in building the custom columns and thousands of dollars invested in the complex and high end LED lighting system components. Additionally it was contrary to what Andrew and I discussed... nice clean grout lines across the blocks. I told Alexis to stop immediately and he looked at me like I was stupid. I explained to him what was going on and he seemed totally confused as to what the problem was and stepped out of the shower stall and proceeded to pull out his phone, dialed Andrew, and walked out of the bathroom. I was in a panic and did not know what to do as the grout was drying under the tile and so I grabbed a spray bottle of water I use for plants from the kitchen (Alexis at this point was out front in his car talking on the phone) and I flushed the grout out from under the affected tiles as best I could with the water while holding a sponge under the sections. Alexis never made any attempt to help, when he came back in shortly before I finished he just stood there looking at me. When I was done I gave him specific instructions that he was to tape off the translucent squares (8" x *' x 12) and to not grout the edges around them as well. He looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language and then took out his phone to call Andrew after he said to me "I come back tomorrow"?. I said no, and I left at that point to call Andrew. Andrew was not very helpful and just kept repeating, "If he walks I don't know what I'll do". I told him that if he walked it was not my concern and was his issue as he (Andrew) had not disclosed at the beginning that he would not be doing the grouting. I insisted that Andrew deal with the issue. I went back in and again made a supreme effort to communicate with Alexsis about what had to be done. I also called Andrew again and he said that it seemed that he had communicated to Alexsis what had to be done and I should just let him do his work. And that I did until he was almost done and looked in on him at the end of the day and discovered that he had grouted all the edges around the blocks. I immediately called Andrew and asked that he come immediately. He refused and said he was an hour away at another job. At that point Alexisis packed up and left despite the fact that I told him all of the perimeter grout joints had to be cleaned. It appeared that he either did not care or did not understand. I then spent approximately 5 hours leaning into the shower stall as I could not step in due to the fresh floor grout. This was very tough for me as I have 2 herniated discs and a bad knee and shoulder. I had to run a high pressure air hose from the shop through the bedroom to blow out the grout. I never got it all out and the job is still scared from this error. It became clear to me in the following days that the main error was on the part of Andrew. He had totally failed to bed the translucent tiles in enough silicone to cover the entire back area of the tile (as Thinset would have done) and this was a major error because out of 8 different silicones I had purchased and tested, he chose the water based one so he could clean up excess easily (the others were solvent based cleanup and went on clear). Andrew totally missed this, which one who actually said to me early on that he "was the best tile setter in Portland" most certainly should have seen coming. It was the next day, having fallen into bed exhausted, that I also discovered that the $127.00 California Faucets chrome drain cover was scratched as well. At this point I sent both text and emails to Andrew requesting him to replace the drain cover prior to the "blazing" that was scheduled for Thursday of that same week. He did not respond to multiple messages until I sent him an email early Thursday morning saying that the "blazing" would not happen if he had not ordered a new grate. He then tried to say his brother wanted to come with him to see the job and help (2 people would not fit in the stall and be able to move) but I already had sensed where this was going... to the CCB and court and I knew he was just trying to "bolster" his side by getting his brother involved so I said no. And that's where it ended. He sent me a final email saying I can just deal with it through the CCB. He left me to do the blazing (after I figured out what it really was and drove to Swan Island to get the solution). I then spent another 2 days, documenting, removing, and installing 6 broken and chipped tiles that he had installed and not (apparently) cared about. I also fixed many areas where the grout was not cleaned well by Alexsis and the tan showed through because the black grout did not cover it.