Handyman Keith

After waiting 3 years to find a handyman to install a new dog door and back door for me I was thrilled to have the work done by KEITH MALLOW, 'The Handyman Keith'. Well, after measuring my door in December he took my $400 Hale dog door so he could install it offsite when the new door was ready for pick up. Keith installed my new door Tuesday and took away the old door with my blessing when he too his lunch break. It was nice to finally have a door that didn't have gaps all around letting in the cold air. Unfortunately, however, Keith made his own decision about how to install the dog door and it is too high for some of my dogs to come into the house. I can't understand why he didn't just ask me how I wanted it. Anyway, all work was done, and he gave me a total of almost $800 for the door and labor. I had purchased the dog door on my own separately. I asked for a materials and labor breakdown and he told me he would email it to me. Now how did he figure out what to charge me and not have that same information to give me at the time he asked for payment? I have no receipt for this work. So when I went outside the next morning, boy was I surprised to find that he had left the wood trash stacked up next to my trash can. So today I emailed him and explained I couldn't dispose of the wood as it is too big for the trash can and I can't put it out on the street till March when we have large trash pickup. And believe it or not, when I came home from work, not only was the door frame trash still there, the b****** BROUGHT BACK MY OLD DOOR!!!!!!!!! What a JERK!! And now, if you live in the Austin area, you know exactly who NOT to use when looking for a handyman.

Overall we had some personality clashes He tended to direct us instead of letting us choose some other things. He did a fair job just took so long because he works independently and even though we understand about delays he did not budget his time very well. He is a sloppy tile layer with many areas uneven and just not the expertise we had hoped for. He often would work short days stating he had to finish at certain places but we felt he could have fit in much more and he was charging us by the day so a 4-5 hour days does not cut it for us. He was often late coming in or took unplanned days off due to family personal matters which also slowed us down. He did an okay job I just had higher expectations and some parts in showers already broke off.

First of all he finished late at night & what I thought was a great job, turned out to be not so great in daylight. Some of the floor boards were not installed correctly & don't touch in places. Others are cracked on the ends. One so bad I had to glue it down & poly over it to protect it from any further damage. The wainscoting had a bulge in it that turned out to be from Keith not cutting the board properly. After a few passes with my utility knife , it finally sat flush against the wall. I had to re-chaulk the seam. All along the bottom of the walls where the baseboards were installed is a white film that wont wash off. This was from the chaulking. I now have to re-paint the bottom 12 inches of all the walls in my dining room. He overcharged me from what I was quoted & blamed it on some expensive construction adhesive he said he had to use. I provided him with a tube of Liquid nails I had which should have been sufficient. He never offered to show me an invoice for this 25.00 tube of adhesive he said he paid for. I would stick with a flooring professional in the future. I emailed him the other day to see if he would come out & fix it & this is what I got in reply: " Please send me a picture of why(sp) you are referring. when we competed(sp) the job there were no areas where "we left gaps" " The floor was checked by myself as well as you BEFORE completion" ...... As though he was trying to imply I was making the whole thing up. I decided I was not going to mess with him any further, so no pictures. do yourself a favor & look elsewhere.

Well overall it went great. We had a few hiccups, as in all home remodels, with delays on vendors as well as personal delay with contractor but in the end it was all worth it. He is independent and does all the work himself, so basically he comes early in morning and leaves in late afternoon. He does have to go to his personal vendors and pick up supplies and such, so sometimes he may not arrive till late morning depending on if there was a pick up. The whole process from demo to complete remodel took aproximately 8 weeks. But he was doing all the work himself. He does not have a crew, so he does take a little more time but he charges a weekly fee. The only help was the install of our cabinets we had made by a carpenter and the install of the granite counter tops and shower glass doors. We are quite happy with his work ethics, he is a personable guy, easy to talk to and had some great ideas. We are planning to use him again in a month to redo our entire master bathroom.

Regarding his work, he knew exactly what he was doing, dry fitted the connections to check fit up and then sweated the fixtures on. His approach was thought out and workman like. He has been doing this since he was a teenager. He is college educated with some fairly serious high tech project experience. However he enjoys this type of work and the time it affords him with his family. He is intelligent, literate, and polite. I will hire him again for larger projects.

Keith removed carpet from the 2 rooms, prepared concrete for stain, stained the concrete, added poly top coat, and finished with quarter-round. Mid-way through the process (after staining the floor and applying the poly) (but before adding the quarter round), I realized that stain had not adhered (when removing painters tape that had touched the floor, the stain would pull off with the tape). Keith assured me that we simply hadn't waited long enough to let everything dry (it had been 2 days at the time), and he spent another day re-staining the areas that had been damaged, and finishing up the quarter round. After not touching the floor for over a week (to allow plenty of time to dry), the problem still existed - stain was pulling up all the time from: tape, table leg gently dragging across the floor, your fingernail, anything! When I contacted Keith to tell him about the problem, he initially ignored me for several weeks. Finally, he did return an email to tell me that he never thought stained concrete was a good idea in the first place (strange, since he accepted the job!), but that's it, no acceptance of responsibility or willingness to try to fix the problem. The price I paid was significantly more than Keith's original estimate (he gave a variety of reasons) - but primarily because it took a 4 or 5 days (vs the 3 days he originally predicted). - which would have all been fine with me if the finished product had been acceptable. But ultimately, I had to completely start from scratch with another, more competent professional.